Dale's Doll

Dale's Doll - Part Six

I am back in the garden, the bright and beautiful garden that I have come to know so well. Just like it always does, the garden soon becomes dark and so eerily quiet. I wait for Delilah to appear, just like she always does, but instead, I see a tall and wide man—looking so sad and so vulnerable while he's pruning back a shadowed yellow rose bush.

Then in just a blink of an eye, I am no longer in the gloomy garden, I am now standing in the corner of a bedroom. The tall and wide man is sat in a chair, hunched over someone who is lying unnaturally motionless in the bed. "Mummy! Don't go! Please don't leave me, Mummy!" His deep and distraught voice sounds so despairing; so despairing and childlike.

I watch as this large framed man, cries like a baby over the death of his mother. While I wonder how I am to react to all that I am seeing, I am once again, back in the bright and beautiful garden.

I can hear the birds.

I can smell the aroma of the flowers.

I can feel the suns rays shining down on me.

And that's when I see them; a group of about six men, all looking wild and ferocious as they angrily enter the garden.

"Dale Dodds, where are you, you thick freak?" One viscously shouts.

That's when I see the big man, who has a doll under one of his large and muscled arms, with a butterfly sat on the top of his other hand. He is smiling, enjoying the simple pleasure of the butterfly stretching out its wings while it sits on the top of his strong hand in the sun.

This man is a gentle giant. Gentle in his manner and defenceless as a human being. The more I watch him, the more I realise that he doesn't have the mental age that a man of his stature should have.

His smile is childlike.

His demeanour is inexperienced.

His eyes are full of immature wonder.

"We're coming for you, you sick perv!" Another man from the angry mob shouts out. "We know you killed little Lizzie! The police might think you didn't, but we know you did...you've always been the village weirdo!"

When Dale notices them, he looks terrified as they angrily approach him. Not wanting the butterfly to get hurt, he gently places it on a rose, before trying to run towards the safety of his small cottage. "I didn't hurt Lizzie. She was my friend. She was nice to me!" He huffily explains, while just trying to reach the safety of his back door.

"You sick shit! You did hurt her! You did sick things to her before strangling all of the life from out of her little body! You did that! You did that, you perverted freak!" The first man spits back. "And now, you're gonna get what's coming to you!"

Dale is trying to get away, but his hulk of a frame and how his huge sized feet both turn inwards, prevent him from being quick enough. In no time, two of the mob dive onto his back. Once Dale is down on the ground, they drag the doll out from under his arm. "What grown man plays with dolls, huh? What sick shit pushes them around in a pram, huh?" One of the men is now dangling the doll by its leg, angrily jerking it around in front of Dale's terrified face.

"Give me back my doll, that was Mummy's favourite." Dale sobs, reaching up for it with his arms desperately outstretched.

All of the mob just laugh at Dale. They are laughing at his desperation. Laughing at his low IQ. At his vulnerability.

"Well your mummy isn't here, freak!" With that, the man rips off the head of the doll. "She's gone and so will you be!" He then rips off the arms and legs of the doll, cruelly enjoying the cries of Dale who is being brutally held down onto the grass.

"Stop it! You're hurting her!" Dale continues to plead and sob.

Dangling just the torso of the destroyed doll, with only a sneer of pure satisfaction spread all over his cruel face, the lead man of the savage mob throws it hard at Dale. "What? Just like you hurt little Lizzie?" He then violently kicks the gentle giant right in the mouth with his big black boots. "This has been a long time coming, freak! You killed Lizzie. It's time to pay for that." All of the violent vigilantes then begin their vicious and unforgiving attack. They kick, punch and pound Dale. This beating is personal. Viciously personal.

The kicks are powerful.

The punches are brutal.

The poundings are sickening.

I start screaming at them to stop. But they can't hear me. They don't even know I am there. But I know. I know I am there, and I can't watch them killing Dale. I can't watch it a moment longer.

With my crying eyes covered. I just want it to end. I just want it to stop. And just like that, I get my wish. I'm surrounded by cold darkness. Cold and merciless darkness.

It's so quiet.

Too quiet.

I am surrounded by a nothing.

Immersed in a chilling nothing.

Then, a television suddenly comes on. Amidst the cold darkness, only the light from the screen can be seen. It's a news report. The sound isn't on, but I can clearly read the headline:

Innocent Man Is Found Beaten To Death. Lizzie Loustan's Real Killer Has Finally Been Arrested.

Dale was killed for nothing.

Because he was different, he was murdered.

Now knowing this, the darkness begins to slowly disintegrate all around me. Glittery shards of light are disbanding the cold shadows that chillingly still surround me.

And I hear voices, voices that I know, voices that I want to be nearer to. The nightmare is beginning to end. I'm beginning to wake. I will myself to now fully wake up. I long, to just be warmly awake again.