The Problem with Living Dolls
‘I’m sorry Mr Campbell; we tried to contact you at home, your wife passed away this morning.’ A numb shock hit me; all I could do was stare blankly at the empty bed through the glass doors. I’d been hit with some invisible force. It was like that small moment when you are injured and there is that strange tingling sensation just before the pain.
‘Mr Campbell?’ I half awoke from my daze, ‘Mr Campbell, would you like to collect her things? -Perhaps you would like to come back for them another time?’
‘N-no, I’ll take them now’, the doctor guided me to reception where a young woman with a sympathetic smile handed me a box of Jennifer’s things and cooed some comforting words which were lost on me.
I was vaguely aware of my surroundings when I got in the car and drove home from the hospital. I imagined the doctor’s face again; it was a sympathetic face, I felt anger suddenly as I realised with frustration that I was completely unworthy of this man’s sympathy. Images of perfectly shaped white houses flashed before my eyes, they were all jumping out at me trying to get my attention ‘Look at me! I’ll give you the perfect home, the perfect family, the perfect life!’
The disjointed thought of ‘how did I get here?’ passed through my mind as I put my key in the lock. I gently pushed the door open and gazed into the house. It was odd, I felt like I shouldn’t be there, like it was someone else’s house. Yes, it was someone else’s house. It was hers, it was never mine. I was just a dweller, a parasite that used her as a tool to cover up my own offensive nature. I stepped into the perfect, carpeted sanctuary clutching the cardboard box, and shut the door behind me. I trooped up the stairs to her room; it’s a strange sensation walking into the bedroom of someone recently passed away. It’s like exploring cinematic images of their life and everything about that life suddenly becomes so small and compact, so delicate.
I lay the box down on the bed and examined the contents; inside lay her wedding ring, and a brown leather bound journal. I tried to place the ring on my smallest finger and smiled as it got stuck just below the nail. I was surprised by the weightiness of the journal as I picked it up; I sat with it on my lap staring at the initials set into the front cover. The anger and frustration that overtook me was frighteningly powerful. If she’d just tried harder then I might have heard her cry for help over the mess of noise that surrounded us. Instead she had flitted about making things pretty in some hope that she might please me. I was angry that she had never let me see who she was, this powerful intelligent being who I could have been happy with. I gently brushed my fingers over the worn leather. I imagined her writing taking up every blank space in the journal filling it with life. I opened the top drawer of her bedside cabinet, placed it gently in the drawer, and shut it. There it will stay for now, I cannot think of facing her, not yet. Not now.
