Incarnate

A few weeks ago, my daughter turned seven; for her birthday, my mother bought her the strangest looking doll I'd ever seen.

It almost looks as though someone crudely modeled its features on a burns victim, melted shredded cheese over the top of it, then lacquered the resulting mess in a thick plastic.

Despite its creepy appearance, my daughter adores the freaky little thing for some reason.

She even gave it a name, Seddy.

Ever since then, my little Rosie has taken her new friend, Seddy, with her everywhere except school, but that's only because the faculty has a rule in place banning anything that may cause a disturbance.

While my baby's out getting her learning on, Seddy stays in the big dollhouse my ex gave her a few years ago, before he skipped town to hook up with some young floozy.

Due to there just being the two of us at home, the dollhouse stays in the lounge room.

It's odd how much I've come to loathe that little inanimate piece of plastic; I mean other than it being ugly, it hasn't really done anything to me.

Whenever I see it though, I get the strongest compulsion to grab the danged thing and rip it to pieces with my bare hands then throw it in the oven and gleefully watch as it melts away; not that I could ever do that to my dear daughter.

Even now, Seddy is staring at me from within the comfort of her plastic mansion, taunting me by how easy her little life is.

Maybe that's it, I'm jealous of a doll.

She has no worries, no anxieties; her whole life is in my daughter's hands.

That green demon, envy, is the reason I have these sick thoughts, why else would I despise her so?

I keep thinking of how great Seddy's life is, as the Sandman's wondrous tunnel of darkness closes in around me.

⁂

From that mystical void of slumber I return with a start, for I'm not where I was when I closed my eyes.

I can't move!

All I can do is stare straight ahead through a strange-looking window, beyond which lies a vast, blurry, alien landscape of rapidly moving colors.

Something rumbles the ground beneath my feet over and over again.

A horrible cacophony of incredibly loud noise grows closer with each shake.

The rumbling turns into a mighty quake, frightening me further.

My fright turns into full-blown terror as I feel a giant unknowable something tightly wrap itself around my torso and lift me high into the air.

I want to scream, but I can't.

My daughter's gigantic billboard-sized face completely fills my view and behind her stands a gigantic smiling me!

⁂

"Wow mom! Look at Seddy, she looks like a normal doll now."

"I guess the dolly doctor made her all better, didn't he?"

"Yep, but I don't think I should call her Seddy no more, because she doesn't even look like herself."

"Oh? Who does she look like?"

"She looks a bit like you mommy."

"That's because she is your mommy, isn't she?"

Rosie giggles.

"You're so funny. She can't be my mommy, you're my mommy. If she was my mommy, then who would you be?"

"Oh honey, I'm not your mommy. I'm Seddy."