Wednesday 12 November 2008

The man who fell in love with a paper doll.

There once was an ordinary man. This ordinary man had an ordinary wife and two ordinary daughters and a mid-sized black Labrador. His ordinary daughters played with ordinary toys and his ordinary wife baked ordinary cakes and his dog said “woof”. His daughters were named Sarah and Jane, they were seven years old and were the correct size for girls of that age. Sarah was no cleverer than ordinary, and Jane no prettier. They were all very happy. The ordinary man’s name was John, and his ordinary wife’s name was Joan. They all found their lack of nuance comforting.
At school one day the ordinary daughters made paper dolls for their paper doll house. They brought them back to their ordinary home to show their ordinary parents. Joan praised her daughters equally, holding each doll for an equal amount of time, using an equal amount of superlatives, with an equal, balanced look of pride on her ordinary face. She told them to show their ordinary father.
John looked at Jane’s doll first. It was small and stiff, with straight arms, straight legs and straight yellow hair on it’s bulbous round head. He smiled his ordinary encouraging smile and sent his daughter on her way. John looked at Sarah’s doll next.
Like that old maxim, she was small but perfectly formed. Good things did come in that tiny package. She had perfect little legs, perfect little hips, perfect little breasts and a coquettish little smile on her perfect little lips. John was in love. He asked his ordinary daughter if he could keep this extraordinary doll and Sarah said “yes daddy,” so he kept her. He held his perfect little paper doll close to his ordinary chest. He named her Jessica.
John and Jessica’s love was pure. They spent hours staring into each other’s eyes, his blue, hers black. They understood each other without speaking. He held her for hours on end, and took her everywhere with him in his breast pocket, close to his heart. She slept under his pillow. In his opinion their love was stronger than human love. It could only be destroyed by water or fire. John lived safe in the knowledge that she would never leave him, that she would stay young and beautiful forever. But gradually his desire for her grew.
The first time he tried to kiss her she gave him a papercut. After that she was silent, but kept that elusive smile on her face. He asked her if she was angry with him and she did not say no. He asked her if she wanted him to leave, and again, she did not say no, so he stayed, and in time it was forgotten. A few weeks later her tried to kiss her with tongue and she went weak, and he supported her, held her together until she recovered.
The ordinary man’s ordinary wife had noticed something odd. Her husband was spending less time with his ordinary daughters and average dog. She had noticed the perfect little presence in her husband’s hand, pocket and pillowcase. The tiny woman in her bed. Her ordinary heart was ripping, so she did what any ordinary woman would do. She decided to tear them apart.
John and Jessica were together in his office when Joan came in with a cup of tea. Joan didn’t have a plan yet, but was startled by the sight of her husband’s ordinary hand coiled around this tiny woman’s tiny waist. She didn’t look as she stepped into the room, didn’t see her average dog step in front of her legs. The tea flew through the air, covering her husband and his miniature love, and they watched in extraordinary horror as the paper doll came apart between his ordinary fingers.
Their ordinary marriage ended in an ordinary divorce. Joan kept the daughters and John kept the Labrador. They never spoke about Jessica, and John never drank tea again.

I wrote it during write club, so i was slightly distracted, and i haven't really edited it properly, so think of it as a rough draft, but feel free to comment on it.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is actually amazing. I was just browsing random blogs and I saw this.

Again, this is awesome:
"The first time he tried to kiss her she gave him a papercut."

Love it

Anonymous said...

I thought that was truly awesome!