Pristine

Chapter 7 - Dollhouse

Christine rubbed the shackle bruise on her ankle as she flipped through pages of homework. She always worked on her toughest assignments first and made her way backwards. She often wondered if that was masochistic or the intelligent way to work. These were the thoughts of this particular fourteen year old. And after finishing her last assignment, she looked forward to playing with her dolls.

There was much adventure to encounter in the kingdom of Maple Meadow.

Princess Sonia (her only Barbie) was trapped away in the castle (as she normally is), taken captive by Dio the menacing general (G.I. Joe) of the army of lizard people (plastic dinosaur set) of the opposing Kingdom of Kothra. The towns people are a collection of porcelain dolls left in the house from the time her grandparents owned the home. Each have ghostly faces and various colored gemstone eyes that seem capable of wandering at any given moment. The dolls sit on the various stacks of books Christine keeps in her room, watching their kingdom get torn down in the war torn struggles. Many of the dolls are laying dead on the ground, pricked with sowing needles acting as arrows, causalities of war.

Mr. Socks sat in her lap, an omniscient and omnipotent bystander in the affairs of the kingdoms.

"Bio is kind of hard huh Mr. Socks?"

Thundering footsteps escalated towards her bedroom. The door flung open.

"Yes, Daddy?"

Her father Peter was an oafish caveman. His block head, lack of neck, and rotund shape all correlated to his favorite things: kegs, bowling balls, and being spineless. He wore an open denim shirt with a stained white wife-beater underneath. His belly spilled over his only pair of holey jeans, and donned socks with sandals at his feet.

Being unemployed allows him the ability to stunt any sort of shot Christine has at independence, he is always watching her. To hear himself criticize her is his only happiness. That and the bottle.  Her father started really paying attention to her school work and extra curricular when his drinking ramped up and thus work was impossible to find, which at this point meant many years now. Whatever he could not accomplish himself he pushed on her. And whatever anger arose his lack of accomplishment he also pushed on her. He felt the need to teach her how to "live life" and to "win". He reiterated this same mantra on the drive home from robbing the goodwill clothing bins.

Gotta be tough in this dog eat dog world Christine. I had ten confirmed kills in 'Nam ya know? I want you to be like me.

"Have you finished your homework?"

"Almost Daddy."

"And when does your report card come?"

"We just received them a month ago, Daddy. The next won't come until the semester is over, Daddy."

"And what did you get again?"

"Straight A's, Daddy."

Peter belched a response of  "good", rubbed his chest, looked around her room for anything out of the ordinary like an article of boy's clothing or something horrible, and when he found nothing he shut the door. Before it clasped he opened it one more time, gave her a look, and then retreated back.

Christine continued to stare at the door, breath held. She didn't blink and didn't flinch. She felt a sting from her ankle again, and started to hear the deep groaning laughs from the basement. Eventually, a final thud of her father hitting his recliner downstairs put her at ease, and the laughs subsided.

"Well finally done with our work Mr. Socks - let us save the princess."