The Empty Doll

The rain was pouring down outside again.

She was all alone.

Her maker had been asleep for years,

or was it decades.

She'd lost count.

One by one her siblings slowly followed.

She went about her chores again,

caring for her unmoving family.

A golem, a doll, this is what she was.

A music box dancer without her music box.

Her silk shoes barely made a sound

as she glided across the ballroom

to a nearly forgotten melody.

Why was she the only one awake?

What made her different from the others?

She knew not,

but she continued her dance.

Day after day, nothing changed.

For the last time

She danced to that song.

As she left, she looked around

and once more, tears couldn’t come.

She stood upon the rim of the long dry well, knowing…

her porcelain body would perish should she fall.

For the first time in over a century she sang that song.

Her gemstone heart cracking

under the pain of her angelic voice,

tears that should not be able to be borne

fell from her glass eyes.

As she sang the last note she let herself fall,

down, down, down.

Years later her music box song

still echoes in the woods

under the ruins of an old mansion

as the birds remember her pain

and teach their young so…

her song may never be forgotten.