broken-doll blogging

one day a girl began to feel that something was not right

"something is not right," she said, and for a moment things felt more right, because she had said that, and she wondered if she was mistaken. but she was not.

this girl had a brazen and improper heart which would dance and whoop at inopportune moments. the girl tried hard to muffle it, had tried even harder to retrain it, to break it of its egregiously bad habits, but it did as it pleased and shamed her in public whenever it wanted. the girl checked it now to make sure it wasn't dancing on a table or wearing a ridiculous hat, but it was in its cavity where it belonged, talking quietly to itself, and didn't look up. "that seems right," she thought, but she was still uncomfortable. she looked away and then back, quickly, to catch it. but it only drummed its fingers on a rib, innocent and bored. "that must be right," the girl thought, and looked for something else.

she checked her coat pocket to see if she had her keys. she checked her bag to make sure she had not dropped her wallet. she touched her fingertips to her earlobes and felt for an earring on each. she made sure she had remembered to put on clean socks and underwear, quickly and discreetly sniffed her left armpit. she checked her watch against the local time. all of these things were right.

she looked out the window and saw people moving about on the streets and sidewalks below her. it was daylight and it was supposed to be. the sky was not cloudy and nothing was falling from it. the girl could not see smoke or hear sirens, there was no shouting or crying. while she stood near the window she felt better, she felt that things were more right than they had been, and she sat back down. but as soon as she was in her chair she knew that something was not right after all.

she checked her accounts for overdue bills. she reviewed her calendar for missed appointments. she searched her desk and drawers for not-quite-empty food containers or coffee cups. all of these things were right. "i am forgetting something," she thought, and grew optimistic, but could not think of what she was forgetting, and so could not make it right. this cancelled out the optimism, which she immediately missed.

"i will retrace my steps," she said--she had heard of people having great success with such a method on various occasions--and set about it.

she walked down into the lobby of her office and out the door that she had gone in through, across the street and around the corner to the subway station she had come aboveground at, onto her train which took her back to her neighborhood. she walked from the train to her apartment, looking at the ground for things she might have dropped, listening for someone who might be calling for her to stop. she went through her building's front door, up the staircase, into her apartment, and still she felt that something was amiss, and still she could not say what it was.

"i will retrace my steps farther," she said, because she didn't know what else to do. she liked saying this, but she knew that not saying it was not what had not been right.

she went back outside and got into her car and drove to the last place she had lived in, but everything seemed right there. so she drove to the place she had lived in before that, and before that, and even before that, all the way back and back to a place she barely remembered, to the first place she'd ever been a person in. "there are only a few steps left," she thought, and was suddenly very nervous. but something was not right, and so she went on.

this first place had a porch in front, and on the porch was a small pruny woman rocking in a small creaky chair. "oh," the woman said as the girl stepped onto the porch, "it's you!"

"is it?" the girl asked.

the woman leaned forward, squinting, judging, and then sat back. "no," she said. "not really. something is not right."

the girl's heart rattled and flopped and banged a drum and waved a flag and made a general spectacle of itself, and the girl rushed both of her hands up to her chest and covered it, to keep the woman from noticing. "what?" she asked in what she hoped was a very calm voice. "what is not right?"

"well, that," the woman said, and pointed at the girl's hands. they both stared down at the place where the girl's small palms were spread and pressed over the rippling, thrumming, flashing patch below her collar bone. yes, the girl thought, yes, this is not right. but why is this not right?

"why is this not right?" she asked. her heart lit three red flares and launched them toward the porch, but the girl crossed both her arms in front of her, and the torches rebounded and sputtered under her sleeves.

"a girl lived here once, a long time ago. she lived upstairs, and i lived down," the woman said. she rose from her creaky chair, and her creaky legs tottered her slowly across the creaky porch. she stood very close to the girl and extended one creaky arm up to the girl's wrists, crossed tight and hard over her noisy, embarrassing heart. the old woman closed her crinkled fingers about the wrists and tugged, but the girl pulled her arms tighter to her and took a step back. "that is the wrong direction," she thought, but didn't undo her move. the woman lowered her hand to her side, frowned gently, shook her head. she made her creaky way back to her creaky chair and lowered herself into it.

"the girl i thought you were," she murmured, "would never have done that."

the girl let her eyes fall to the wall she had built to keep her heart in its place, her two mortified hands leaning hard against the clanging and whistling and jigging, the colored lights and firecrackers, her crazy clown of a heart covered in bells and spangles, its unicycle careering into the barricade over and over and over again. "of course," she said, and smiled, and was relieved, and had great hope, and lifted her hands up into the air over her head.

her heart, with all its momentum, accustomed to having to use a great deal of force, hit the wall once more and shot right through and out, and disappeared, leaving a trail of rainbow glitter in the sky like a pixie-powered jet, a wild, flying mardi gras party favor. the girl and the old woman watched it until it wasn't so much as a speck among the clouds.

the woman sat back in her chair, satisfied. "that's you, then, after all."

"it is," the girl answered, dropping her arms. "it is, and it's right."

and then she died.