DOLL’S TOLL

Dolls, teddies, figures, soft toys, marionettes, and puppets – we already knew them; already feeling accustomed to them. They are so familiar and so near – indeed, we can find any of these toys in our very house. We grew up with them – it does not matter whether we were boys or girls. They are our little sisters’ adorations, our younger brothers’ playmates and they used to be our favourites. After all, they all really look so innocent, so cute and so alive…
Yet, do you ever heard of people who shun and repulse these toys? They are those who believe that these dolls are an imitation of life form, which are able to be the media for the Unseen to appear corporeal in this mortal world. Sound superstitious, huh? Well, stick to your own principles and views but let your mind roams out of the box for a moment and engage yourselves in this unabridged yet fleetingly enigmatic account of Mariselle Solis, a 16-year-old girl from Edinburgh, England who was mysteriously found dead in her own house. Perhaps after reading this, you might discover that sometimes things that appear lifeless are actually the one that delivers the most deadly repercussions.

* * * *

17 September 1880
Dear diary,
Today was so boring and monotonous. All girls – everyone, even teachers seemed to ignore me for no reason. Why? Is it because I’m a new student? Or am I too ugly or too psychedelic? Why are they so difficult to accept me the way I am? Yes, perhaps I am a bit of a geek, reading Tennyson at the hallway, delving myself into Plato’s during recess and worshipping Shakespeare at all seconds…but is that wrong?! Is that a sin?! Why?
Noon. I went home and the moment I entered through the kitchen door, mom suddenly burst into anger. ‘Why don’t you use the front door, huh?! You’re shocking me you moron!’ Blah…blah…blah…I just walked away, up into my room. No time to listen to her deafening babble.
Ma. There’s a clear fact about her. She hates me. Yes, that’s not a joke. She really hates me. I don’t know why. She just hates me. And I always cry when I think about that. I just don’t have any possible ideas as to why she always seems to hate me (actually it’s a bit of an understatement)…I mean despise me. She never says it in words but I can read it in her eyes – the loathing is indescribable. Diary, am I not her daughter? Am I devil’s spawn?
The sky is clear and cloudless outside. It is a calm night. The stars are twinkling bright, together with Venus and the moon. Huh… sometimes I just hope to die…to be with God up in heaven… when will I die?
(P/S: Pa is coming back from Africa. He said by telephone that he has a present for me. I wonder what is that?)





18 September 1880
Dear diary,
This morning, Pa came home from Africa! As usual, Ma was totally happy as Larry. I just kissed Pa and hugged him. My embrace lingered quite a long time. At that time, I just felt like crying. After all that happened, Pa is the only place for me to shed my tears. Pa looked down into my eyes and asked what happened – a worry expression swept over his clean-shaven face. I smiled, said nothing and wiped the tears that was welling up in my eyes and asked about the present he had promised. Pa beamed – the brightest smile ever – and handled me a box wrapped in moon-and-star wrapper that reminded me of the night sky. I hopped in excitement and ran into my room.
It was a doll – a unique, strange doll. According to the tag that came along with it, the doll was named Harana. It is a weird-sounding name; nevertheless I don’t think it’s necessary to rename it. Harana is just as nice. Sometimes when I look at it or stare into its artificial eye, I can feel it stares back to me. And sometimes its face appears to contort into a grim smirk especially when my room is dark. Anyway, I just don’t care about it because it is so nice and lovely (it can say “Harana” whenever one presses its chest) and the most important, it is the doll that Pa gave to me.
Thanks Pa for giving me this ‘new friend’. At least, tonight I’ve got a friend to sleep with.




9 October 1880
Dear diary,
Today, Pa had gone back to work. He is going to Netherlands now. I cried a lot today and I saw Ma looked so sullen. Maybe she hates living alone with me. After Pa had departed, I just cried and as I reached my house from airport, I ran back into my room and hugged Harana and cried.
Maybe I felt asleep because I suddenly dreamt. But my dream was so absurd. I dreamt of Harana. It was moving towards my direction, smiling. I just could not reached out to get her; it was as if I’ve been frozen. Harana looked so cute and lovely, and I really wanted to hug it but I just can’t. And as it was approaching me, I realised that something on Harana’s features and when I tried to figure it out, a fact struck hard – it had claws…and they were dripping with blood!
I startled and woke up. It was already dusk. Harana was lying beside me, the way I left it to be. It was stiff. And of course, it was just a doll. I heaved a sigh of relief and got out of bed to wash my face. It was just a nightmare (in this time, ‘day’ mare sounds better) and Harana was just a doll…just a doll…






19 October 1880
Dear Diary,
It was my birthday today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY MARISELLE!! But…I just could manage to cry – and cry and cry and cry…as nobody is celebrating my birthday; not even my mother…can I just die, God?!!!
I shut myself up in my room, sometimes feeling like murdering myself. Today was the worst day, among the bad days in my life. No cake, no happy birthday wishes from Ma let alone presents and no phone calls from Pa! I’m mad as hell to him today! –sigh-
Am I just a vermin that does not deserve any love?!!
Harana…It was the only one that I have today to celebrate my birthday with. I just played with her today and acted as though today was the same like the other days. At around 2.00 pm, I suddenly felt so tired and drowsy that I felt asleep. I woke up around dusk and to my disbelief, my left arm was full of bite marks, and it pained a lot. I tried to endure the pain and just went to shower up, as I need to be tough and independent because I don’t need Ma to take care of me!
(P/S: Harana was so dirty. Its mouth lining was full of maroon dirt and it looked like dry blood. But maybe I’m just imagining things. Anyway, I still brought it to bathe with me!)







25 October 1880
Dear Diary,
Last night, something happened. I woke up in the middle of the night, feeling so hot. Maybe it is because of the summer heat. I shifted uncomfortably in my bed and I tried to sleep back but then I realised something was wrong. Something was out of place.
– Harana! – Harana was not on the table where I put it before going to sleep – Where was it?
I got up and ducked under the bed. No Harana. I scanned around the room, but still no Harana. I peeped into the dark bathroom – half-expecting it lying at the bottom of the bathtub – yet still no Harana. So I wondered again, ‘Where’s Harana?’
– And that was when I heard a howling sound of a dog; more or less it sounded so. I winced in fear. I always feel scared of the howling sounds; either from dogs or wolfs. It gives me a tingle of inexplicable sensation, as though the creature howled because it was seeing something that we human cannot perceive. Something Unseen.
But this howl – it sounded so full of pain; it almost became a whimper. And the most unsettling part of this was that the sound was too near. Like it was just in front of my house.
So I went to the window –
Looked out –
And saw a travesty!
A dog was whimpering painfully in a pool of dark, silvery fluid that looked like mercury under the moonlight, but it was not mercury!
It was blood!
And…a little white figure was stabbing the dog mercilessly with something that made me think of butcher knife, and I gasped a silent terror when eventually I grasped the fact that the little white figure was actually my doll, Harana. It was alive! – And it was stabbing a dog; its limb moved up and down mechanically!
Blood spurted all over the road and a large amount of it was oozing thickly from the dog. The howling sound had reduced to a low, dying whine.
I looked away and felt a surge of deep fear and revulsion crept up my stomach. I quivered badly and I almost wetted in my pant. Even though the scene was so revolting, I mustered my courage and had another look outside the window.
What I saw was an obscenity – a gory sighting. Harana was sucking and licking and drinking the dog’s blood! Again, I immediately went pallid white, fear-stricken by what I saw. I stood stiffly with my eyes transfixed to that demonic doll and you know, sometimes if we stare somebody hard and long enough, the person or in this case, the thing could intuitively feel it – and that was what exactly happened. Harana suddenly turned, looking into my direction! :0
To God’s mercy, I ducked out of view just in time before that demon could see me. I crawled back into my bed – my knees became wobbly so it took a while before I finally was tucked from head to toe under my quilt. God, how I wished it wouldn’t come for me. Before I eventually slipped into horrible dreams, I could faintly hear a long, shrill laugh of a voice so inhuman and hollow from outside the window – it was devoid of life.
Diary,
I woke up this morning with caution. And I looked at the table…just to see Harana there. No sign of evil, no knife, nothing. Then I saw something that drained all the blood from my face – dry blood can be seen trailing down its mouth.
Today I never touch Harana. And from what happened last night, whether it was real or just my nightmare, I’ve decided never to touch it again.



27 October 1880
Dear Diary,
Today I felt so sick. I could not wake up and my mind was full of inexplicable things. Anyway since ‘that’ night, I had lost my appetite and sometimes I could feel Harana was staring at me with its murderous eyes…it was so scary!
In the meantime, Mr. Saunders – my neighbour – had been mourning for three days since he found out that his terrier dog was mutilated cold-bloodedly in front of my house. Police had came and gone. They investigated the case painstakingly but due to lack of evidence, they could only concluded that some late-night hooligans were responsible for the incident. Yet, I knew better. It was not the fault of hooligans or ruffians or thugs or whatever they call them…it was my doll…
(P/S: Ma had been blabbering about her lost knife. She said without that knife she couldn’t chop the meat. She scolded me and asked whether I had taken it and hid it, maybe to kill her in the future, she said…yet I said I don’t know… do I?)







28 October 1880
Dear Diary,
I need to tell you something.
Last night, something scary happened. It was so scary that I cried and tried to scream but it stuck in my throat.
I was bathing, feeling the bubbles popping in the bathtub, and freshening up when I suddenly heard something from the outside of my bathroom…
…It was a voice –
…A high-pitched, shrill voice –
‘Harana!’It sounded pretty much like that. ‘So, someone’s sneaking up my room and pressed my doll!’ I thought.
‘Harana!’ Once again.
‘Harana!’ Another press.
And then, it came to a bitter realisation that I was alone in my room, not having other siblings to mess with my stuff and Ma certainly would never come upstairs and hang around. I began to quiver in fear.
‘Ha…ha…ha…Mariselle!!’ Again it sounded and this time the voice sounded so inhuman and hoarse and low like the voice of a devil.
‘ Ha…ha…ha…ha…ha…–
Then, a never-ending laugh, which sounded nearer and nearer. It was approaching the door!
Yet, it suddenly stopped. I was so scared at that time—
And a knock on the bathroom door! My eyes bulged in fear and I screamed and screamed and screamed and screamed until my lungs were out of air.
‘SHUT UP YOU BLOODY BASTARD! SHUT UP! I heard her sound of footsteps as she came upstairs, to my bathroom. It was Ma. Then she was already knocking furiously on the door.
I opened and she barged into the bathroom and slapped me hard on my face and kept slapping until I felt nothing on my cheek and then she stopped, cursing me under her breath – I just cried.
— And she walked away.
I got into my room and scanned for Harana. I saw her lying on the floor – her face grinning to me, mocking me, jeering me. I suddenly felt a building rage inside me. To my utter amusement, I picked that bloody hellish doll up and stepped on it and poked it with scissors and I threw it out of the window and it fell into the rushing water of drain along the pavement and then it was out of my sight.
I felt so relieved to have gotten rid of it.

I hope what I did was right…am I right, Diary?








30 October 1880
Dear Diary,
This noon, while I was having a lunch with Ma, she suddenly brought up a subject that made shocked me upon hearing it. She asked me to go to the mall and buy a costume for Halloween tomorrow. I stopped dead in my seat. I said to her, ‘Ma, you never been this kind to me? What’s happening?’
Then she answered with a tone that clearly showed me she was holding in her anger. She said that I should never ask her why or she would change her mind. I just nodded and we continued to eat.
Out of nowhere, I suddenly had the courage to ask her a question that I yearned to ask since I was a little child.
‘Ma, don’t you love me?’
It might be an acid to her, or worse. Her eyes bulged in rage and suddenly she was trembling in fury.
‘You really want to know, huh? Fine, I’ll tell you! No, I don’t love you! I loathe you, you get it? I LOATHE YOU!’
I could feel my tears dripping down my cheek. My heart was a mix of sadness and frustration and hate. I asked her why…and she yelled to me that I am not her daughter, that I’m her stepdaughter, that my real mother had died while giving birth to me, that she hate me because Pa had always loved my real mother more than her and to add insult to injury, she was diagnosed infertile and she couldn’t bear a child for Pa. So she had always looked at me as a resemblance of my real mother – she called her Amariss – and she really loathes me. That was the word – LOATHE.
She also added that actually it was Pa who asked her whether she had bought a Halloween costume for me and that was the reason she ordered me to buy my own costume – just to hide her flaw. I just listened silently; I could taste the saltiness of my tears that dropped to my lips.
Why, Diary…Why? Why must she hate me? It’s my mother that she hates, not me. Why is it me who get to suffer the consequences?!

God, why was I born to be a bastard?

3.00 a.m: I’m sitting in my bed, Diary ‘cause I can’t sleep! I’m so scared! Something’s knocking on the window! I can hear a familiar laugh outside!!!! The thing’s clawing against my window!! God, help me!!!



31 October 1880
Dear Diary,
I was so scared last night. But I am still afraid now. I’m sure something was trying to get into my room! –sigh—why do I tell you, Diary? Because you are the only one who will believe me – no one else would.
Today I only came out of my room just to eat breakfast, lunch and tea. Almost all of my time was spent in my room. The only reason is that I begin to hate Ma.
Tonight, I am grounded. No Halloween Trick-O-Treat for me, and I just stare out of my window, looking sheepishly towards the road that is thronged with children clad in funny costume. Everyone is happy…except for me. Everyone is laughing…except for me who am crying. Everyone is talking to each other; I’m talking to myself.
Everyone deserves to be happy; I am created just for grief. I’m created just for DEATH.

I really hate Ma for causing this! She is the one who turned me into a pitiful creature! She’s the fault and so I’m feeling like killing her!
Would God forgive me for my sin?

2.08 a.m: God…what am I going to do?!! MY MOM IS DEAD!! Harana has came for her!! Pa…Diary…God…anybody…help me!!! I can hear the doll breathing and it’s HEADING FOR ME!!!!!!!!! Help!!! The eyes are so red…it…laughing……PA!!!…It…
……coming


* * * *
The above material is a genuine excerpt from the diary of an English girl named Mariselle Solis. It shows her last two month’s daily events before she was found dead in a pathetic circumstance in her own room, together with the body of her mother in other part of the house. She was horribly mutilated by sharp object – believed to be a knife from the kitchen – while her mother was discovered with her body skin severely scraped off her body.
Early circumstantial observations exhibited an obvious scene of murder but on closer inspection and detailed investigation, police did not discover any solid evidence to support the early conclusion. No sign of struggle and break-in was found, no clear motives of murder could be thought of and no trustworthy witnesses had showed up. Time passed but the mystery was yet to be resolved. Eventually behavioural psychologists and forensic investigators had come up with a shocking theory; Mariselle killed her own mother and then killed herself. This theory is based on her diary that was found beside her dead body. Based on her diary as well, experts jumped onto a smart conclusion that Mariselle was suffering from a chronic emotional depression that was too great for her fragile mind. They believe that Mariselle’s account of her doll was fictional and it is believed that she created the story out of her childish imagination. Some says that she was having deep delusions, which made her see things that were not real. Police had found a movie tape entitled DOLL (a popular movie about a bloodthirsty killer doll) in her room so some strongly believe that she had became obsessed with it.
Meanwhile, the mentioned doll in her diary, Harana was never found in her house or anywhere in the radius of 1 km, which began to make people doubt its existence. The lack of evidence in this case had puzzled the police either. Even Mariselle’s next of kin, her father who was mentioned so many times in her diary, failed to be located. Therefore the case was closed without any further resolve.
After a few months, people had begun to forget this tragedy. Every rumour concerning this case had ceased and things began to be quiet. Nobody ever mention or bring up this incident again except for one day, Mr. Saunders suddenly claimed to have seen things.
He claimed to have seen a little white figure that looked exactly like a doll, waving at him from the window in Mariselle’s room.


Weaved by: Ian Izan