FreeWrights Peer Review™

When I was around five or six, my sister poked the eyes out of one of my dolls and arranged for me to find her at bedtime. My once beloved friend, Sarah, sat at the foot of my bed, marred, empty eyes somehow staring, holding in their inky blackness terrors that my childish mind could barely speculate.

What evil impulse prompted my sister's actions I don't know, but she must have considered my fright tremendously entertaining for, though I was too guilt ridden to throw 'Sarah-That-Was' away, I hid her numerous times, yet every night for weeks I found her there, facing me with dark accusation. Eventually, I took her to school with me and, still fearing that somehow she would find her way back to the foot of my bed, I left her there.

I never saw her again, but some thirty plus years later, I still have a phobia of glass-eyed dolls. The hint of knowledge in their painted depths stills my breath and skitters icy rivulets of dread upon my skin as I quickly glance away. It's as if the cavernous black beyond those unnatural orbs was a repository of all my childhood fears, and if I looked too deeply, all those fears would be recognized; I would somehow be laid open for everyone to see, and I would be left, like Sarah --- unloved and abandoned.

touched me.
i think fear often can be erased once you dare search for the truth in it.
your care for Sarah, and the way you feel about her itself are the expression of your beautiful self.
jain.

Windy, this is a very nice short short. I think with a little polish you could send this out to some places, try to get it placed. Little things, a word here and there, like the eyes being "poked" when "scooped" or something similar might work better.

Also, this line:

It's as if the cavernous black beyond those unnatural orbs

could use some rework. Most dolls were molded plastic and the eye cavity would have been the same color as the rest of the doll. I can't think of any that I have seen that had the cavity painted, so, maybe something more of a "darkness" or the like. And the "unnatural" seems to me to be such a harsh description for something that caused such a natural trauma.

Good work.