Somebody's Watching Me

I used to be a happy, care-free, playful child that usually spent her days by playing with my dolls in the pink dollhouse my parents bought me or running around in the forest near my house, dreaming and wishing and make-believing.

I used to pretend I was a fairy princess with a sparkly lavender dress and light pink wings that glittered madly in the sunlight. My dolls were my companions, my friends. I realized from a young age that my dolls were better than real people. They couldn’t talk back, they couldn’t tell me what to do, and they could never hurt me.

Whenever Mommy was having one of her moments, I would lock myself in my room and they would silently comfort me with their always smiling, happy faces reassuring me that everything would soon be okay as I heard screaming and the sound of plates and glass shattering. Their arms wrapped around me as I heard her panicking, shrilly cries, pleading for help. I would take them with me as I would escape out the window to the forest once I heard Daddy try to calm her down to no avail.

My world of dreams and wishes meant absolutely everything to me. Everything was always perfect and peaceful on Happy Island. It was a place where everyone was friendly and nobody bad could ever hurt me. It was a place where Mommy and Daddy could never find me and where I could spread my wings and just fly.

As Mommy would come into my room in the middle of the night shrieking that the Daddy’s friends he goes scuba diving with were going to kidnap and tie her up and leave her at the bottom of the ocean, I would cover my ears and drift off to Happy Island where there were no bad people that would leave you to drown. Most importantly, there was no Mommy trying to scare me and give me nightmares.

Gradually, things started changing. Gradually, my world started to shatter. I’m not sure of what day this happened.About five years ago, my mother finally went to live in a home for people like her. I still see her every year on holidays like Christmas and I dread these visits each year. Even though I’m now sixteen, way too old to be playing with dolls, but after all these years, they sat in my room, their smiling faces as a source of comfort whenever I’m having a bad day.

Now, things have changed. Their eyes haunt me, watching me. Their eerie smiles mocking me. I’ve been having strange suspicions that they’re recording me and someone is watching me. Someone who is trying to kill me. I’ve tried to tell Daddy about this, along with how I’ve been feeling like my life how life is just so damn painful, like time is passing by so slowly and it’s so mind-numbing.

The doctor says I’m becoming like Mommy. I’m unwell. I need to start taking medication. I need help. Serious help. I’m crazy.

I don’t care what he says. What Daddy says. I’m not unwell, I don’t need help, and I’m not crazy. If anything, they’re the ones that are crazy. It feels like it’s just me against the whole fucking world. The doctor probably wired the dolls so he could spy on me.

I told Daddy this and he just sighed and stared at me with a worried, pitiful, pained expression on his face. He tried to calmly tell me that the doctor wouldn’t do that, that he was just a nice man trying to help me get over this illness. He was trying to help me. Lies. All lies. I was sick and tired of it.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I screamed wildly, madly, hoping to get my point across, hoping that he would believe me. Instead, his expression changed from looking worried to confused, unsure of what to do with me. That’s how it was these days, everyone looking confused, unsure of what to make of me.

I ran off to my room. Those dolls, with their taunting smiles and demonic eyes. I couldn’t take this anymore. I put them all into the pink and purple dollhouse that was still on the floor in the corner of my room. Going out through the window, almost collapsing under the weight of the heavy dollhouse, I staggered toward the forest, toward Happy Island. I set it down amongst the bushes and the looming, tall trees.

“You can’t spy on me like this and expect to win. For once, I’m the one who’s ahead of the game. Ha!” I yelled, my voice echoing off the trees.

I ran away, not looking back, escaping the world that held my childhood dreams and wishes. All at once, it was all gone.