It's Still Life

Flowing in a Stream of Consciousness

When I wasn’t old enough to know better, I gave my favourite doll a haircut—she had a string in the back of her neck that you pulled, and then she’d say stuff—and being quite pleased with her haircut, I showed her to my mum, declaring that when I grow up, I am going to be one of those ladies who cut hairs (obviously, I was going to cut more than one hair, so hairs it was), to which Mum responded—No, you’re going to be a nurse, I just made you a little white nurse’s apron with a red cross on the chest!—and then, to keep me from cutting any more hairs, she took all my dolls and put them somewhere, somewhere I never knew or discovered… until a few years after Mum died, when my sister asked if I wanted my dolls back because they’d been in a box in her basement all this time.

And so, my sister and I took my dolls to the charity shop, including the one with the lovely haircut—whose eyes, it seemed to me, were as lifeless as rained-upon newspaper.

Image description for the visually impaired: The image features a vintage doll in a plaid dress, seated in a rocking chair next to a small table with antique items. Some artwork is created using Midjourney AI, and is identified as such in the ALT text or captioned. Images are copyright and not to used without permission, which I willingly give when asked, and when not for commercial use. Imagery and poems/prose ©Misky 2006-2025.