Dale’s Doll Listening, listening while I wash up all of the breakfast bowls, cups and cutlery before needing to take my little girl to nursery and get myself to work on time. I like these moments. No, I love these moments. I treasure capturing my daughter sweetly and innocently chatting away to her toys before we both have to leave the house; usually in an hurried and stressful fashion. As a mother, I adore my precious pre-schooler. Delilah is a much-loved and much-wanted little girl, by both myself, and my husband of eight years. Having had two heart-breaking miscarriages before Delilah, each and every anxious month into the pregnancy with her, meant that both Vince and I, were getting ever closer to being the parents that we always longed to be. So when the dark haired Delilah was finally pushed out into the world, all of our hopes and our dreams were at last held by us—safely swaddled within the softest lemon-coloured blanket that we could buy. Our darling Delilah is a cherished child. A charming and sentimental child. As doting parents, we shower her with love and with everything that our little girl needs. Probably with more than she needs. And the dusty old doll that Delilah found at a car boot sale a few weeks back, is definitely something that she didn't need. It was so old and so worn, Vince didn't even want our sweet and clean little girl to pick the grubby doll up, at least not until he had a chance to disinfect it beforehand. Smiling now, I funnily remember how father and tiny daughter grappled over that tatty doll. How my thirty four year old husband tried to negotiate with our determined three year old daughter, trying to persuade her to choose any other toy but that one. But Delilah refused. Refused, with adorable tears in her pale hazel eyes. Those teetering tears on her innocent little lashes, meant that there was no way that either myself or Vince, could ever say no to our strong-willed little princess. Even the man selling the doll, seemed temporarily touched by how this ugly, scruffy old thing could captivate Delilah over all of the other toys that he was selling at the car boot sale. So touched in fact was he, he quickly gave the doll to Delilah and said that we owed him nothing for it. So that ugly, scruffy old doll came home with us on that sunny Sunday afternoon. And that ugly, scruffy old doll and Delilah have become inseparable. So inseparable, I flit between it being thought of as sweet and cute, to wondering whether I should actually be worried or not. Delilah calls the doll Dale, even though the doll is supposed to be female. But then again, we've got two female Guinea Pigs called Ant and Dec, so that itself doesn't overly worry me. Dale is now as clean as we could possibly get her. But she still has stains all over her plastic face and limbs, and her hair is now a cleaner mass of plastic-coated fuzz. But we are still not allowed to call Dale a she. If we do, Delilah always cutely pouts back at us, with her arms crossly folded up by her tiny little chest, saying. "He doesn't like that when you call him a she. He doesn't like it at all." Of course, we both laugh it off. Like amused parents do. But there's still a part of me that wonders whether the attachment that Delilah has to her doll is normal or not. When she has a bath, so does Dale. When she eats, Dale also has to have a plate. If we go anywhere, Dale has to come. At nursery, Dale has to go with her. Bedtime, Dale has to be tucked up safely beside her. There are no moments in the day or the night anymore, when Delilah doesn't have Dale with her. Pulling off my washing up gloves, I hurry over to where Delilah is with Dale and her other toys. "Come on, sweetpea...we're going to be late." Gently ushering her towards the hallway, I then reach for her lightweight jacket. "I don't need my coat, Mummy." Delilah tells me. Smiling down at her, I proceed to put it on. "We might have a little rain today, best to take it with you to nursery...just in case." Frowning up at me, in that adorable way that Delilah does, she confidently then replies back with. "It's not going to rain, Mummy." Then she tries pulling out one of her arms from the jacket. Sounding sterner now, I try putting her arm straight back into it. "Put your jacket on, Delilah." Pouting AND frowning, she sulkily does as she's told. "It's not going to rain today." Is her angry reply back. "Why are you so sure?" I jestingly ask, turning Delilah so she can now see my motherly smile upon my face. Delilah gloriously smiles. "Dale told me." With affection, I stroke the tip of her immensely cute nose. "Well, sweetpea, Dale is a doll, and dolls aren't that great about knowing the weather." As confident as can be, Delilah's answer comes out real quick. "Dale knows everything, Mummy." "Does she now?" I teasingly ask. Scolding me with her young stare, Delilah doesn't look happy. "Dale is a heeeeeeeeeee! He gets angry with you, Mummy, when you keep calling him a sheeeeeeeeeee!" Playing along with my feisty three year old, I look down at Dale, who is now tightly being held by Delilah. "I'm sorry, Dale...it won't happen again." To appease my little princess, I gently pat the doll on its scruffy head following my playful apology. Sighing softly and still not looking all too pleased with me, Delilah waits for me to open the front door so I can finally take her to nursery. "He knows that you don't mean that, Mummy." Opening the door for her, Delilah then happily skips out towards our car. As I am fastening Delilah securely into her car seat, she suddenly places her tiny little hand onto mine. "What does third time lucky mean, Mummy?" Her hazel eyes are wide with needing to know the answer to the question that she's just asked me. A little taken aback, I smile with a confused frown. "Um, I'm not sure what you mean...why do you ask, sweetpea?" With no smile, Delilah's reply comes back to me with no hesitation whatsoever. "I'm your third baby, Mummy. There were two more before me who couldn't be with you and daddy." I think the colour from my face must have all drained out. Shaken. Floored. And unexpectedly a little heartbroken. I truly don't know how to correctly respond to my little girl. "How...how do you know that, sweetpea?" My eyes meet with Delilah's, wanting the innocent and unknowing her to tell me how she could possibly know such a thing. Cuddling her doll ever tighter against herself, my darling daughter answers with soft yet chilling clarity. "Dale told me, Mummy...and heeeeeeeee knows everything." Chapter Two "It was weird, Vince...like really weird." Just thinking about what Delilah had said to me this morning, still coldly creeps up the length of my spine. "She has probably heard us talking about it." Vince tries to offer up a perfectly sensible explanation to me. "Mmm, maybe...but it's not something we have ever discussed in front of her, is it?" My husbands perfectly sensible explanation, no longer feels perfectly sensible at all. Getting into bed with a tired but reassuring smile, Vince reasons some more as he pulls me against his chest for an affectionate cuddle. "Maybe she's heard our parents talking about it or something?" Enjoying being in my husbands big and loving arms, I think for a second. "Mmm...maybe." Is warily mumbled from between my lips. Yes, our little girl could have maybe heard our parents talking about the miscarriages, but that explanation alone just doesn't settle me. That explanation alone, doesn't settle the worrying storm that's building momentum within me. Something isn't right. In the deepest and darkest depths of my maternal intuition...I just know that something isn't right. Chapter Three Day by day, I have been feeling like my beautiful little girl is being taken away from me. All she wants, is her tatty old doll. All her time and her affection, is spent with that tatty old doll. Maybe I have failed Delilah as a mother? Maybe I shouldn't have returned to work so soon? Maybe she's attached herself to a plastic doll, because she feels like I have unattached part of my motherly role to her? Vince thinks I'm overreacting, while I'm thinking he's not listening to my justified worries—and it's causing a lot of marital friction between us. I feel angry with him. Angry at myself. This is our doing. Delilah has become more dependent on a stupid doll, because she no longer feels like she can depend on us. Vince leaves the house at 60 AM and gets back just after 60 PM, while I drop Delilah at nursery for 8:30 AM and collect her at 50 PM—no wonder her separation anxiety has manifested itself into an unhealthy attachment to that old doll of hers. I had always planned on reducing my hours once Delilah had started school, because I felt it important that I could do the school runs in the mornings and the afternoons, but when I suggested to Vince that maybe I should reduce my hours now, he went off on one about me 'not sticking to the plan'. The plan, means nothing to me now. The plan, actually makes me furious. Vince, makes me even more furious. We should be putting Delilah first, not the stupid bloody plan! I'm losing my little girl. And it hurts. It hurts, that all of her time and her affection, now belongs to that damn doll. That needs to change. I need to change. I want my precious little girl, to want her mummy again. I want her to need me again. I want her to chatter and to giggle, with me. Since we bought her that stupid doll, I feel like too many things are changing—my marriage, my motherhood, my home #life—it's all slipping through my fearful fingers. Chapter Four The nightmares began, right about the same time as things began going wrong all around me—a load of files for work simply vanished from my computer, the boiler packed up, the car had a nail in one of its tyres—a succession of inconvenient bad luck. I don't know, I just feel like since that doll has come into our home, everything has been going wrong. It could be complete coincidence, it could just be a series of really unfortunate events; but for some strange reason, my gut is convincing me that all this sudden string of bad luck, stems from that grubby little doll. Which is why I have a plan. The unfortunate attachment that Delilah now has with her doll, well it's about time that it was severed. I spoke yesterday with the nursery teacher, and together, we have come up with a really good weaning-off-Dale plan. Each week, one of the children is going to be responsible for Mr Snuggles, a cute brown otter soft toy. The children will be encouraged to take care of the toy, to explore and try new things with it, then talk about their adventures with Mr Snuggles to everyone at the end of each nursery week. The nursery teacher said that if Delilah has Mr Snuggles first, it should be an exciting distraction from Dale. After a week with the cuddly toy otter, we are both hoping that Delilah's strong attachment to Dale will finally be broken. And once that strong attachment has been broken, Dale is going straight into the bin. That doll can go and rot with the rest of the rubbish. I just want the damn thing out of my house and out of Delilah's #life. I think all this recent worry, is the reason for the onset of my nightmares. Such awful and disturbing nightmares. The kind of nightmares that just stick to my waking consciousness. And it's always the same nightmare. The same and unforgiving, disturbing nightmare. There's a garden, a bright and beautiful garden. Then in an unnerving second, it's not. The garden becomes quietly gloomy, devoid of all colour and all birdsong. In this dream, I am trying to make sense of where the sunshine has gone, and it's while I am thinking about the missing sunshine, that I see Delilah. She's waving at me, calling out my name. So, I hurry to get to where she is. My legs are moving quickly, but Delilah doesn't seem to be getting any nearer. I start jogging, but she's still the same distance away from me. The garden is getting darker and darker, so I start running faster and faster—frantically faster. I just want to get to Delilah. I need to take her into my motherly arms. To keep her safe. To protect her from the dark garden. My heart is pounding, as are my feet against the shadowed dry grass. Still, I can't get to Delilah. Panicking, I start screaming. Screaming at the darkness. Screaming at being unable to reach my little girl. I begin crying at Delilah to run towards me, just begging her to stop waving and to just come to me. But she won't. She just smiles, and continues to wave. Then just as quickly, her smiling and waving stops. Eerily comes to a stop. The darkness is thickly now around us both. Enveloping us within its inky chill. All I can see of my little girl, is just the lightness of her skin on her preciously innocent little face. I keep watching her face. Watching it begin to smile again. A smile that no longer belongs to me. I plead with Delilah to look at me. Only me. No matter how hard I run or how loud I scream, I can't get to where she is and I can't get her to listen to me. My pleading turns to despairing sobs. My arms are outstretched to Delilah, desperately wanting my smiling little girl to come and fill them with the warmth of only herself. Then from out of the suffocating darkness, two monstrous arms appear behind Delilah, beginning to slowly engulf her. I expect Delilah to scream. To scream out in petrified terror. But she doesn't. Instead, my little girl starts to giggle. Then she excitedly and so sweetly talks to those arms that are about to swallow her up. "Dale! Dale!" She calls out, just as those monstrous arms fully engulf her whole and then disappear back into the darkness from which they first came. That's when I wake up. I always wake just as my little darling has been taken by those sinister arms. I always wake, unsettled and with my heartbeat thundering between my ears and in my stressed-out chest. There's something about that doll that I don't like. That I don't like and that I confusingly now fear. It may seem irrational. It may seem stupid. That's exactly what Vince thinks as well. But I don't care. I only care about getting rid of that doll...which is why the plan has to go ahead. Chapter Five I know someone is talking to me, only their words are coming out sounding so distant and so distorted. Staring at their moving lips, I'm trying so hard to take in all that is being spoken from that mouth—from all that is being so disturbingly said. "We're all just trying to get our heads around it. We are just so shocked and saddened to find out that she's gone." Leah gravely stares at me, before needing to emotionally look down at the floor. "I just can't believe this has happened to her." Quietly comes my reply, sounding stunned and at a complete loss for comforting words to offer. "I know, it's just so unbelievably sad." Leah sniffs back all of her emotions, trying to professionally hold herself together because she knows she has a nursery full of lively young children, who are all innocently unaware and playfully oblivious to the tragic loss of her colleague and her longtime friend. Offering a weak and sadly given smile, I decide it's time for me to go. Trying to get Delilah's attention, who is happily already playing with the wooden kitchen and wanting Dale to take a sip of the imaginary drink that she's only just made, I lovingly wave across to her. "Bye Delilah, I'll see you later...have fun, darling!" Waving back at me, my little girl gives me the most sweetest of high-cheeked grins. "Bye mummy!" She calls out, before giggling at Dale while she's wiping the plastic chin of her doll using the sleeve from her pink crocheted cardigan. With heavy feet, I turn to leave. "I'll see you later." I gloomily say, suddenly feeling unsure of whether or not I should actually leave Delilah this morning. All the staff are wearing such forced smiles, trying their very best to just keep doing their jobs, all the while so deeply upset about the death of Debbie—their friend and their manager. She was fondly all of that to them, but to me, she was selfishly also the one who was going to help me to wean Delilah away from Dale. Now, I just feel kind of lost, sad and so directionless. As I give one last lingering glimpse to my very happy young daughter, I know that she's going to be completely unaffected by the untimely death of Debbie today...so I turn and finally do leave. All the way to my car, seeds of anxiety begin to take firm root within me. As I turn on the ignition, I feel like ice is now flowing through my veins. Debbie's death is troubling me, so deeply troubling me. I know that accidents happen every single day, but I have this frightening sense that this was no accident at all. Debbie slipping in the shower and hitting her head so hard on the taps that she instantly dies, just seems so unreal to me. Unreal and unnerving. This deeply embedded feeling that this is much more than just a freak and horrible accident, just doesn't want to leave me. The very same can be said for this headache that I have as well. As I am driving along, it feels like my forehead is being excruciatingly squeezed tight. Grimacing at the pain, I focus hard on the road ahead. I focus on safely getting myself to work, where I can take something for this horrific pain. Everything is just going wrong. My marriage. Motherhood. Work. Debbie's death. My headaches. None of it is a coincidence. They are all an occurrence. An occurrence since that ugly doll came into our lives. There is something really wrong with it. It might sound far-fetched and it might sound completely and utterly irrational, but my gut is telling me what it knows—that hideous doll is cursed. "Jesus!" The pain in my temples, causes me to now loudly cry out. My face is contorting with the blinding agony. It feels just like skewers are being very slowly pushed and turned right into the centre of my head. Pressing down on the brakes, I know I need to pull over, because the piercing pain is now making it unsafe for me to drive. Knowing what I have to do, I indicate left, wanting to hurriedly just get to the side of the road, but just as I am, the agony intensifies. It's now excruciating. I can no longer see. I'm screaming loudly in distress. Loudly traumatised by the tormenting discomfort. I become absolutely immobilised by my own membrane misery....until I literally cannot take it anymore. Chapter Six I am back in the garden, the bright and beautiful garden that I have come to know so well. Just like it always does, the garden soon becomes dark and so eerily quiet. I wait for Delilah to appear, just like she always does, but instead, I see a tall and wide man—looking so sad and so vulnerable while he's pruning back a shadowed yellow rose bush. Then in just a blink of an eye, I am no longer in the gloomy garden, I am now standing in the corner of a bedroom. The tall and wide man is sat in a chair, hunched over someone who is lying unnaturally motionless in the bed. "Mummy! Don't go! Please don't leave me, Mummy!" His deep and distraught voice sounds so despairing; so despairing and childlike. I watch as this large framed man, cries like a baby over the death of his mother. While I wonder how I am to react to all that I am seeing, I am once again, back in the bright and beautiful garden. I can hear the birds. I can smell the aroma of the flowers. I can feel the suns rays shining down on me. And that's when I see them; a group of about six men, all looking wild and ferocious as they angrily enter the garden. "Dale Dodds, where are you, you thick freak?" One viscously shouts. That's when I see the big man, who has a doll under one of his large and muscled arms, with a butterfly sat on the top of his other hand. He is smiling, enjoying the simple pleasure of the butterfly stretching out its wings while it sits on the top of his strong hand in the sun. This man is a gentle giant. Gentle in his manner and defenceless as a human being. The more I watch him, the more I realise that he doesn't have the mental age that a man of his stature should have. His smile is childlike. His demeanour is inexperienced. His eyes are full of immature wonder. "We're coming for you, you sick perv!" Another man from the angry mob shouts out. "We know you killed little Lizzie! The police might think you didn't, but we know you did...you've always been the village weirdo!" When Dale notices them, he looks terrified as they angrily approach him. Not wanting the butterfly to get hurt, he gently places it on a rose, before trying to run towards the safety of his small cottage. "I didn't hurt Lizzie. She was my friend. She was nice to me!" He huffily explains, while just trying to reach the safety of his back door. "You sick shit! You did hurt her! You did sick things to her before strangling all of the #life from out of her little body! You did that! You did that, you perverted freak!" The first man spits back. "And now, you're gonna get what's coming to you!" Dale is trying to get away, but his hulk of a frame and how his huge sized feet both turn inwards, prevent him from being quick enough. In no time, two of the mob dive onto his back. Once Dale is down on the ground, they drag the doll out from under his arm. "What grown man plays with dolls, huh? What sick shit pushes them around in a pram, huh?" One of the men is now dangling the doll by its leg, angrily jerking it around in front of Dale's terrified face. "Give me back my doll, that was Mummy's favourite." Dale sobs, reaching up for it with his arms desperately outstretched. All of the mob just laugh at Dale. They are laughing at his desperation. Laughing at his low IQ. At his vulnerability. "Well your mummy isn't here, freak!" With that, the man rips off the head of the doll. "She's gone and so will you be!" He then rips off the arms and legs of the doll, cruelly enjoying the cries of Dale who is being brutally held down onto the grass. "Stop it! You're hurting her!" Dale continues to plead and sob. Dangling just the torso of the destroyed doll, with only a sneer of pure satisfaction spread all over his cruel face, the lead man of the savage mob throws it hard at Dale. "What? Just like you hurt little Lizzie?" He then violently kicks the gentle giant right in the mouth with his big black boots. "This has been a long time coming, freak! You killed Lizzie. It's time to pay for that." All of the violent vigilantes then begin their vicious and unforgiving attack. They kick, punch and pound Dale. This beating is personal. Viciously personal. The kicks are powerful. The punches are brutal. The poundings are sickening. I start screaming at them to stop. But they can't hear me. They don't even know I am there. But I know. I know I am there, and I can't watch them killing Dale. I can't watch it a moment longer. With my crying eyes covered. I just want it to end. I just want it to stop. And just like that, I get my wish. I'm surrounded by cold darkness. Cold and merciless darkness. It's so quiet. Too quiet. I am surrounded by a nothing. Immersed in a chilling nothing. Then, a television suddenly comes on. Amidst the cold darkness, only the light from the screen can be seen. It's a news report. The sound isn't on, but I can clearly read the headline: Innocent Man Is Found Beaten To Death. Lizzie Loustan's Real Killer Has Finally Been Arrested. Dale was killed for nothing. Because he was different, he was murdered. Now knowing this, the darkness begins to slowly disintegrate all around me. Glittery shards of light are disbanding the cold shadows that chillingly still surround me. And I hear voices, voices that I know, voices that I want to be nearer to. The nightmare is beginning to end. I'm beginning to wake. I will myself to now fully wake up. I long, to just be warmly awake again. Chapter Seven "She's waking! Thank God, she's waking!" Stroking the side of my face, I hear the relieved voice of my husband. "You're okay, my darling...you're going to be okay now." I feel his soft lips, gently kissing my forehead. With my weak eyelids fluttering, I try to keep them open long enough to see his worried face looking down at me. "Wh...what...happened?" Weakly passes my dry and sore lips. "You and the car had an argument with a tree, and lived to tell the tale." Vince feebly tries to joke, before feeling the desperate need to lean over and kiss me again. "I thought we had lost you." He so sadly goes on to say, lovingly now caressing my jawline. "I don't know what I would have done if I had—" he looks so emotional, so choked up. "Hey, I'm okay." I wearily tell my forlorn husband, feeling so happy that it's his face that I first woke up to. "Where's Delilah?" I anxiously ask, suddenly feeling the need to have her beside me. In a loving and assuring way, Vince comforts me with more of his husbandly caresses and a small smile. "She's just outside with mum and dad, I'll get her in a minute." He then frowns, sighing a little while he does. "What happened, Jules?" His fingertips gently trace across my bruised brow and forehead as his concerned eyes stare down at me. Trying to remember, it hurts to even think. "I'm not sure. I had this awful headache. It got so bad, that I tried to pull over...that's the last thing I remember." Quietly satisfied, Vince smiles again. "I know things haven't been great between us, but I love you, Jules...I want you to know that." Content to hear his loving words, I reach for his hand. "I know, and I love you." Lacing our united hands together, we both fall quiet for a little while. Just glad I think, to be able to have this feeling of togetherness again. "Did you hear about Debbie from the nursery?" I weakly ask, beginning to remember all of the horrible events before I had my car accident. Nodding with understanding, Vince holds onto my hand even tighter. "It's not exactly been a good day, has it?" He's looking at me now, smiling softly. It is while Vince is smiling at me, that the enormity of what has happened today suddenly hits me—Debbie, my headache, the nightmare—it all unnervingly hits me. "Vince, I need to talk to you about Delilah and that—" "Mummmmmmmmmmy!" Our eager little girl comes running over to the hospital bed, interrupting all that I was just about to say to her daddy about her doll. "Sweetpea! I'm so glad you're here!" Elated to see my darling daughter, my aching arms are waiting for her to just fill them. We cling tightly to one another, with such happiness and such love. "You got a baddie, Mummy." Her tiny fingers point to an aching cut that I can feel I have on my cheek. Smiling away the ache, I nod gently. "I do, but baddies don't last for long, do they?" Delilah blinks quickly, cutely pursing her cherub-like lips. Then, bringing up her doll, to sit it right onto my slightly sore stomach, she is now beaming in my direction. "Don't worry, Mummy. Dale said he can keep the baddies away." Looking into the brown eyes of Delilah's doll, I see the same dark nothingness that had surrounded me in my nightmare. I want to look away, but can't. I want to ignore the empty gaze, but can't. Trying to sound cheerful, I look back at Delilah. "That's good to hear, sweetpea. I'm sure Dale will take very good care of me...of all of us." In my nightmare, Dale was a gentle giant; a gentle giant who had been wrongly murdered. Our little princess now grins, holding her beloved doll by its waist. "Yaaaaaaaay Mummy! Dale said you would learn to like him. Yaaaaaaaay!" She excitedly bounces where she's sat closely beside me, still holding her doll in place on my stomach. Gazing into the dark depths of emptiness in Dale's eyes, I know that I can't fight this. He is here to stay. He showed me why and how he has ended up here. He has also shown me the lengths that he will go to, just to ensure that he stays. So no, I can't fight this. Dale isn't just a doll. He is a dead man inside a doll. In #life, he felt like he had no control. In death, Dale does.