The pink dollhouse and other short fictions

Alyssa Caroll

The pink dollhouse

The speckled egg carpet is hidden beneath the garbage bags and toys. Dozens of black garbage bags half open, pulled shut, sagging, and full. Sticking from bags:  

• Pink tutu skirts  

• Light up fairy wands  

• Taylor Swift concert t-shirts  

• Rhinestone Skechers sneakers  

• Soft toys as dogs, cats, bears  

In another pile is a bundle of dolls. Monster High Dolls with twisting hands and arms, clutching hairbrushes that match their hair. Bratz dolls with missing feet and tangled hair, scowling through heavily made-up eye shadow and mascara. And Barbies: half naked, fully nude, clothes on backwards, faces covered in Texta, hair matted and thick, legs bent out of shape. Each doll having lived in bright red and yellow plastic tubs under the bed, now to be shoved in a garbage bag and into the Vinnies bin.  

Near the doorway is a pink dollhouse. It has three levels: level one as the kitchen, level two as the lounge room, level three as the bedroom, and then at the tippy top is a tiny attic. The dollhouse furniture is packed neatly on level one: the two beds with their soft pillows and doona covers, plastic dining chairs, a pink plastic couch.  

An iPod touch is lying on the bedside table. Its screen shines, and a text message appears: 

“are we going to freo or are you still scared to take the bus lys? lol”  

Around the block

“Alyssa, can you please walk to the shops to get some milk?”  

Book is turned down, spine in the air. Sneakers are hefted onto feet. Take cash from Mum. Begin walking the gravel pavement uphill. Our street is long, my eyes focused on the green trees at the far end that mark the T-junction. Finger the money in my pocket. Take hand out. Finger money again. Take hand out. Check a third time. The breeze cuts against my bare white cheeks, hair is ruffled. A dog barks from behind a gate somewhere, I flinch. Imagine a German Shepherd or Pitbull the size of a pony leaping from its confines and hunting my scent. Tackling me to the ground, its white talons ripping into my unblemished flesh, tearing limb from body. Blood pooling, skin landing pink and raw onto the street. My screams obscured by lawn mowers and cars, my body left to be consumed by this beast until nothing is left but my shoelace and a patch of blood half licked up.  

Shiver, pull jacket closer. “Fairies, fairies, there are fairies in every blade of grass and tree and flower, and they are watching me and protecting me.”  

Sneakers continue that same long street. The ground hard and harsh beneath feet. Check pocket for money. Take hand out. Each house passed emits a specific scent or releases a specific sound. Chickens clucking. Laundered sheets drifting on the breeze, lavender notes. Roses once plucked and pruned, now crimson pinpricks, heavy and heady. The clang of metal against metal, hammer into a nail.  

The motor of a car, quiet at first, before loudening into that shoosh of a car passing. Tense, eyes down, scowl on face. Eye the car as it passes. Is it a white van? No, just a big family car, children in the back.  

Another car moves into earshot, passes by. Is it a Ute? Is it a white van? An arm reaches and presses a cloth onto my mouth, I faint, and am dragged into the back of the white van. While I remain unconscious, it drives me hours and hours away to a shed in the middle of nowhere. There I am thrown into a basement and tortured and mutilated until my body is unrecognisable and my face is a purple blob without teeth or eyes. Nobody can hear my screams thousands of kilometres away from civilisation. Only the cockatoos and the kangaroos. So, is it a white van?  

No. Just a small Toyota.  

I take the right at the T-junction. Upcoming is a crossroads: take the shortcut through the bush, heavy with gums on either side, or the long route up the hill. In the bush: men with sharp fingernails, bodies reeking of cigarette smoke, faces hidden by black masks. They reach out with knives and stab from behind these gums, afterwards faceless beasts suck my flesh from the bone. The long route: walking alongside a busy road, open to being perceived. Also, the long route: alongside a busy road.Take the long route. Avoid looking into the Girl Scouts building that’s old and crumbling and where you swear suspicious activities are taking place. Trek up the persistent incline.  

At the shops, get the milk. Hope that I have enough money. Begin the trek home. The milk is an uncomfortable cold hug. It sweats onto my arms and burns the bare skin. But at least it is a weapon, a heavy jug to swing against a delicate face. Right foot left foot. Soon, home is visible.  

The bush

I ran away from home. When my parents were upstairs drinking their second coffee I slipped through the back door and raced up the street. My feet were bare, my only company the white satin dress upon my skin. I ran for the first five hundred metres, a tightness in my chest and churning in my stomach. I smiled wide, relishing the wind blowing my dress and caressing my legs. Ran from the future and the present, ran toward a new reality. I wasn’t meant to be here.  

After my five hundred metres of running, I walked. It was summer, and soon my arms were bright red and sweat covered the back of my neck under my layer of long hair. The pavement scalded the bottoms of my feet, but I didn’t turn back. Walked past the golden creek where the frogs were in a perpetual chorus, walked past the Girl Scouts building where I swore I heard a scream. Walked past the skeleton of a home that had been burned down two months before. Walked past the deli with its sausage rolls and choccy milk. And walked into the bush.  

The soil beneath was dry and covered in a thick carpet of brown, papery leaves. A fire hazard, I knew, because my dad was a fireman. The air was thick with the stench of eucalyptus and the stinging, peppery smell of dirt. Through the flowering wattle and the gum trees I was shaded from the red sun, yet still my feet and arms burned.  

“I know you’re all in here,” I whispered. The wind rustled through the leaves, and the trees swayed.  

“I know that you can all see me and hear me.” A magpie chortled, and I heard the song of the willie wagtail. Brushed through a grass tree, reached arm out to graze the pale ghost trunk of the white bark, feeling its smooth surface.  

“You can take me away,” I said. “I don’t want to be here. I want to be with you.” A bandicoot scuttled across my path and dove into the woolly bush. Particles of bright yellow wattle flowers floated through the air, and the breeze shifted, blowing the petals against my skin. The eucalyptus perfume grew stronger, and the trees danced frantically against each other.  

I approached a broad gum tree and laid my palm against it.  

“Let me in,” I whispered. “Please, let me in.” The trunk widened and stretched until a hole about five metres in height circled its bark. Through the hole I could see waterfalls from mountains that sparkled and glowing orbs that leapt through the air.  

I disappeared within the tree trunk. The gum shook its branches and the hole thinned while leaves fell to the bracken below.