THE DISCARDED DOLL- TERRA INCOGNITA (1)

THE DISCARDED DOLL- TERRA INCOGNITA (1)

 

“Once I was whole

Now I am a broken doll

Down the ancient hills, I roll and I roll!”

The seedpods were spilling from the trees and the bushes; autumn colours. The rusty leaves were gathering dust on the muddy paths. I was all alone; my thoughts and I; in these vast woods.

 

My two tots were being looked after by my husband. After a week long of nursing my  sick children, my husband had said I would need to go for a run. Running would have made me fragile, a woman of thirty, I should know better, I thought.

 

I left the house and ventured into the ancient woods. Nobody walked in these woods anymore. I talked to my neighbours to gather information about these woods. Yet they were all evasive.

 

I urged my husband on numerous occasions that we should venture into the woods with our two tots. 

 

"We best not!" He brushed me off. " The neighbours must  know about something surely!”

 

“But why? That's absurd!” I urged him. To no avail. My husband simply would not agree to venture into the woods to which our house was facing.

 

 

So I entered into  the woods- Terra Incognita; the shadows of London Planes tracing the wind. Another world: away from the traffic and bustling roads. An ancient feeling it evoked: primeval yet evolved.

“This is where we: the human race are from:  the woodlands! Not from the  paradise

As the holy books advocate!” I heard myself thinking. The centuries old tall trees covered in mold! The ivy wrapping their slender arms around the mighty aspens and oaks: tender like babes cuddling their mummies! The undergrowth full of dark mysteries: unexplored!  I took out a pen and wrote down:

“It cossets many lives in its dark Bosom

Warms. Vermins and rodents:

A habitat repulsive yet necessary.

Decaying leaves and mold.” 

The sound of green parrots: the new welcomed residents of our neighbourhood.

Emerald delights! And fungi of many hues and kinds! Red is my favourite! Red fungi from the fairytales: rare, delicate yet deadly to touch! So I  took a photo of it to show it to my children for later.

 

I walked for a few hundred yards and stopped.

 

 

 The great oak tree I heard so much about was there; standing before me. I had been seen a tree of that size before. It was gigantic with boughs and branches spanning at least a hundred metre square. It stood in the centre of a paved square; the centre of many summer solstices of past years which first had began in the second half of twentieth century and had peaked in 1960s, or so I read in the local history book. A practice which had longed ceased to exist.

 

I breathed deeply and let a few tears run down freely down my cheeks.

 

What people don't tell you about motherhood is that, it is a lonely existence. And terrifyingly so at times. When your children are ill, the terror drowns you. 

 

Both my children suffered from childhood allergies and periodically had outbreaks of illnesses. My therapist had recommended that I use mindfulness to cope with my children’s illness which I had to admit worked. Though, going for long walks and being completely alone with my thoughts worked better for me.

 

I sat crossed legs on the decaying bench in the concrete square and set out to watch the fluttering leaves of the ancient oak tree.  My eyes then wandered in the rustlingundergrowth . “It must be a shrew or a rat!” I thought,  though I was hoping that it was a badger. I had lived in the country for twenty years now but was yet to encounter a badger. Though I  used badger in my work liberally. Badger worked very well in poetry; dead or alive.

 

I got up from the bench and walked toward the rustling undergrowth.

I heard a song in low baritones. “Once I was whole- Now I am a broken doll- from the steep hills, I roll and I roll!” I was going mad, surely. Neither mindfulness nor being alone with my thoughts was enough for me to keep my mind sound, apparently! So I ran off ! As fast as I could. Yet the song continued. Louder! “Once I was whole- Now I am a broken doll- I am waiting for a mechanic- to make me whole!”

 

This time I turned around and was going to confront the rustle in the undergrowth, whatever it was. I stopped and set the clear  the foliage where the rustle was coming from; a plastic leg of a Victorian Doll covered in soot. I pulled her leg. She let out an “ouch” sound.

 

“Fuck!” I said, “A talking doll!” She had one arm and one leg missing. Her Victorian attire was covered in mud.

 

“Once I was a doll- the finest kind- oh boy- the toddler broke me to pieces- that is for sure!” She sang, her dead eyes at staring me as though wanting to strip me away from my soul! The dews of sweat were gathering on my forehead like Crystal Salt; my usually always stable hands were trembling now.

Yet I refused to run away again. I was intrigued; I was hungry to hear more. I cleaned her limbs with a tissue and asked her how she ended up in these woods, discarded; all alone.

“Once I was whole- My makers promised me- A life of luxury - In a middle-class household- Now I am a broken doll-I am waiting for a mechanic-To fix me -And make  whole!”

She continued with her story in a sing song voice, her voice breaking in between each lines.

She cried real tears like us human beings, I noticed. I put her in my rock-sack and run out of the woods as fast as I could.

 

When I arrived home, my husband greeted me at the door.

 

“You had been running?” Said he. “No!” I replied, “I went to the woods!” I took out the Victorian doll from my rock-sack to show it to him.

“Oh fuck!” he exclaimed, “you brought the cursed doll back to our house!”

“Cursed doll?” I asked. I was relieved. I wasn’t going mad after all. There was a story behind the talking doll.

“Yes, why the fuck do you think nobody visits these woods? The doll lures people in with her song!” He was stuttering now!

“Don’t be absurd!” I brushed him off. “She is only a doll! Albeit a talking kind!”

“Oh yeah, how many talking dolls do you know exactly?”

“A few actually! You are forgetting that our little girl has a collection of them!”

“Don’t be a smart arse! That’s not what I meant!”

 

Our little girl was now standing at the entrance! “Mummy! You got me a doll!” She beamed, reaching to fragile, soot covered doll from my hands!

“No!” My husband grabbed hold of the doll and run off with her to the bin outside.

My daughter let out a loud cry. To  no avail, the discarded doll was at the bottom of the bin now. There was no way of reaching to it.

After calming my daughter down, my husband ushered me in and related his own experience with the doll. He then added that he was also tempted to bring back the doll home but remembered what one of our neighbours let it slip one day. That, if anyone was to ever bring back the cursed doll home, she would soon steal their souls and sell them to devil. That the talking doll was a devil incarnate, she was not a hapless creature as she acted to be! She was planted into the woodlands by a witch who was disgruntled by the commune so that she would take her  revenge from the commune and there would be no more summer solstices held in the holy woods.

 

“Haha!” I let out a laughter, “You didn’t believe in this superstitious crap, did you?”

“Have you not noticed how dead her eyes looked?” He was stuttering again.

“Her eyes are made of marbles! What do you expect?” I retorted, “plus it is identical to the doll that I had as a child!”

“Daddy, can you please go and fetch the doll?” My daughter began crying again.

“See what you have done!” My husband snapped at me, “I have only just managed to calm her down!”

I walked out of the room and grabbing hold of a chair I jumped into bin and fetched the doll from the bottom of the bin.

My husband yelled “No!”

I did not turn around. I quickened my steps.

 

She is still with us to this day with my daughter pretending to be her mummy. She is wearing a twentieth century dress though and also singing pop songs nowadays rather than her usual discarded doll song. My teenage daughter joins in with the pop songs occasionally.

 

* Unedited version was posted previously. Apologies.