08/05/2025
“I Wish I Were You”
The doll was wrong.
Its limbs were stitched from uneven fabric—burnt velvet, ash-gray wool, and something that looked like skin.
But it was the face that didn’t belong.
A face too human, too soft.
A face that someone once loved.
He placed the second face in the drawer.
It stared back with closed eyes.
Still warm.
The girl watched from the corner.
As always, silent.
As always, shaking.
“Who was it?” the dollmaker asked, though he knew no answer would come.
He began to sew.
Blood seeped through the seam where the face met cloth.
The thread pulsed as if alive.
The doll didn’t move, but from its stitched chest, a message slipped free:
“I WISH I WERE YOU.”
Then came the voices.
“Help me.”
“Love me.”
“Why…?”
The girl covered her ears.
The room trembled.
He pulled the thread tighter.
When the final stitch closed the face in place, the whispers stopped.
He turned to the stone behind him.
Etched freshly into its surface:
“THE ENVIOUS ONE, AT REST.”
Only then did the drawer shut itself.
And the second face, still warm, began to cool.