Doll House

III. Blindness

 "What's the Overall Man?"

"It's not a what, it's a who. He comes here sometimes and Miss Francine gives him the toys children no longer play with, the forgotten ones that sit on this ledge until they can sit no longer. Like me, for instance."

And if the girl was just a little bit older, she'd lie. She'd try to reassure Tara that she's wrong, that the Overall Man won't come for her for a long time yet. And it wouldn't have worked, but at least, they would've both been a bit more comfortable, hiding from the truth together. But the girl doesn't lie. At her age, there is no point in lying – and right now, there is just the Overall Man, whom she's suddenly picked out through a sea of memories. An old man with a grim face and mean little pig eyes, who smells weird and scares off the children, sometimes.

"Will he take you soon, d'you think?"

"Yes, quite soon I'm afraid."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Why are you afraid?"

"Because I don't know where the Overall Man will take me and I don't think it's somewhere very nice. There have always been stories about the Overall Man, about what lies beyond the dark forest, but nobody seems to know exactly. The Overall Man takes, but never brings back."

"But isn't there something you can do?"

"No, not really. I can't make you children play with me when you don't want to and the truth is, I don't know I want to. I think maybe I am getting old, maybe I'm not supposed to do this any longer. My legs would get tired and so would my eyes. My eyes, it seems, are always tired these days. Like there's a thin film of dirt covering them and I can no longer see the light."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't rightly know. Naturally, I can't see my own eyes, so I don't even know what you're referring to. Why, what do you see when you look at my eyes?"

"There's something yellowy covering them, like jam or...or honey, but browner. Like burnt sugar. It's not burnt sugar, is it?"

"I don't think so, I don't know what burnt sugar feels like, all I know is I can't really see clearly anymore."

And the doll's eyes stare on blindly before her, not looking at the girl, but somewhere over her shoulder, her eyes permanently fixed on an almost invisible speck of dust, on the hardwood floor.

'Your eyes are dirty, but maybe I can clean them. Would you like that, if I tried to clean them maybe?'

Tara hesitates, imperceptibly. "Would it hurt, do you think?"

And it's the girl's turn to hesitate, because she doesn't honestly know and she can't imagine what a doll's eyes might feel like.

"I don't know, I don't think it should. It's only a bit of water, maybe a bit of soap."

"Is soap strong?" the doll inquires mistrustfully. Unlike the girl, she knows fully well what pain feels like, even for a doll, and knows the dangers of something seemingly so simple, as cleaning her face.

"No, not really. It won't wipe away your eyes or anything like that."

She's seen things, in the long-ago past, she's seen acid burn right through the skin and that always made her a little more comfortable in her vague haze.

"Do you promise?"

Agitated, the doll tries to steal a glimpse of the little girl's face, but she remains out of focus. Still, the girl promises and slides away, tip-toeing out of the room as quietly as she tip-toed in.