The Doll's House

110

He marched away from the cell, muttering obscenities. He passed through the second door, then turned down the left-hand corridor towards the third and final door. Unlocking then relocking it, he climbed the ladder back to the ground floor.

The house was even more of a mess than usual and it fitted his mood perfectly. His brain felt scattered, his head throbbed violently. He kicked the kitchen chair savagely, then before he knew what he was doing, he’d picked it up and hurled it against the wall. It broke into several pieces but he felt nothing. Just a crushing emptiness.

Already he could feel the darkness creeping up on him again. Those familiar feelings of desolation. And deep, deep loneliness. He had been cursed since birth – he knew that. Born to a whore of a mother in bloody degradation, he would have never survived infancy had it not been for Summer. He had always worshipped her – for her love, her patience, her kindness. Now he bitterly regretted her charity – why hadn’t she left him to die? Why had she consigned him to this?

Was their love a curse? She had been ever present in his life, teaching him to navigate life’s many dangers, teaching him to give and receive love. Latterly, she had been absent of course, but she always came back to him. In the end, she always came back.

As he snatched up the shattered pieces of the chair, ramming them into the already overflowing kitchen bin, which belched some of its contents on to the floor, he felt the full extent of his foolishness. Why was he so easily duped? She was out there, always so close to him that when one of these girls drifted into his life, purporting to be her, he fell for it. He believed. But he couldn’t have got it wrong again, could he? He had watched this one for months, seen the emptiness in her life, witnessed the arguments with her so-called family. They didn’t know her, didn’t understand her, but he did and he’d seen her searching for him. Searching for her missing half. But what if he was wrong? He had been so sure…

This thought took all the strength from him and suddenly he sank to the floor. Curled up in a ball amidst the broken wood, rotting food and the dirt, he started to cry. He never cried but today he couldn’t help himself. He cried for all the disappointments and anguish over the years. For all the false starts and false idols. And for the girl he had loved and lost.