Storybooks and Babydolls

Celeste doesn’t have a driver's license. She doesn’t know how to drive at all, in fact. But she has a car— She has a car? She thinks she has a car. How else would she be driving it? Driving? She doesn’t know how to drive.

She stares blankly at the steering wheel under her palm and the pedals under her shoes, before her grip tightens and she panics. She can't drive, why is she here? On a highway? But she needs to drive.

It hurts how tightly she’s holding the steering wheel. She doesn’t know how to stop the car, park it, or even what the pedals do. Yet… She does. And she doesn’t really want to stop enough to try to understand why.

She knows where she's going. But where is that? She wants to pull over… no, she doesn’t. The highway is so big and there are so many cars, she might crash. She’s navigating it fine so far though, she thinks, as she hasn’t died yet. She’ll be okay.

Driving to who-knows-where. Well, she knows. Sort of. She knows she’s going there. She doesn’t remember the car or the highway or learning to drive. She just has to keep going and she’ll get wherever there is.

The vehicle chugs to a stop in front of a house she doesn’t quite recognize, but she knows somewhere in her this is where she was going. She leans down with her head in her hands, she doesn’t understand. She wants to understand so bad and everything in her mind is begging for answers.

Nothing comes to her.

She carefully exits the car, brushing down her bright yellow sundress, and makes her way to the door. At first, she tried the handle. It jiggles and attempts to open but, unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge.

The key is under the potted plant. She doesn’t realize until it’s in her hand and she’s putting the plant back down, and looks at it in confusion. Because she doesn’t live here, and she shouldn’t know where the spare key is. Despite that, she enters the key into the lock, and the door lets her in with a click.

The house is lived in, she can tell, as she immediately steps on a toy upon entering the home. The little fire truck pathetically tries to siren and chugs across the floor before coming to a stop as it hits the wall. A cloud of dust comes off as it goes— It hasn’t been touched in a long time.

She only has to wonder why someone would leave a house like this, completely abandoned, children’s toys still scattered across the floors. But in the same vein she should be asking why she just broke into a house… she decides to not think too hard about it.

Stepping around it, she enters the living room. Clothes are draped over chairs and there are stains on the wood. Two juice boxes stand on the coffee table. A playmat for a child rests on the ground… toys, similar to the firetruck, are scattered across the floor.

Stepping over the toys, trying her best not to disturb the dusty things as she did the firetruck, she makes her way to the fireplace. There are photos of a family on the mantle. Her hands gingerly wipe the dust off of their photos… Her eyes strain and urge her to look away, because it’s hurting her head to try. But she doesn't look away.

She recognizes them. She knows them and they’re what she’s here for— she knows it, she can tell. Oh, where are they? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t know anything, oh… why can’t she just remember? Why is it so hard to remember anything?

It hurts her head too bad to try to make sense of the photos. She doesn’t understand, she wants to… she has to go.

Celeste quickly exits the living room, entering the kitchen, but it isn’t much better. It’s in a similar state of disrepair— dirty plates and utensils are scattered across the counters. The fridge gives off a lingering smell, and she knows opening it would make it worse.

She opens a cabinet and is greeted with plates, but that isn’t what she’s looking for. She scours the cabinets before coming across one, full of mugs.

Her eyes search them— There’s one she sees that is colored bright, in stark contrast to the neutral colored mugs surrounding it. She reaches in and pulls it out, lifting it over the others like a prized object.

Carefully turning it around, it’s clear to be a handmade cup, “#1 mom” carved into it with terrible handwriting. She turns it upside down, and a name is written on the bottom with pen. Malachi Anahera, she reads. She supposed that was the kid who made it.

She likes the name Malachi. If she ever had a son, she thinks that’d be his name.

Celeste goes to place the mug back, but she hesitates at the last moment. She’s not sure if she wants to leave it here. It seems like such an important thing. She’s sure the #1 mom would want her to have it… so she holds onto it.

She goes into the last room connected, a dining room, but it doesn’t seem to have been used for dining. Boardgames line the table, and she sees one is open. It has the little figures still on it, and the fake money used with it is still placed around it. It looks like they were in the middle of a game.

She inspects the board and counts the pieces. There’s four. She thinks it’s sad that the party never got to finish their game… they should’ve, before they left. She grabs one piece, a tiny silver cat, and places it in her mug.

They wouldn’t be able to finish their game, but that’s okay. They won’t mind.

She exits the dining room, the kitchen, and the living room. The only place to go now is up the stairs.

Looking up, she feels uneasy. She doesn’t want to go up, but she has to. The stairs seem to go on forever, infinity upwards.

They creak with every step she takes and let out handfuls of dust. She’s determined to get to the top despite it. When she does, she stares down the hallway, and goes to push open a door.

The first she peeks into is a master bedroom, but the blankets are pushed to one side of the king mattress. Only one side was in use— the other was empty, a lone lamp sitting on the end table.

She walks in and runs her hand along the mattress, she can feel the dents from where people slept. Despite the one side not being in use, there’s a sizable dip there anyways.

On the end table, she picks up a pair of car keys. The person left without even their car… With nothing. It felt almost… Haunted. But she knew it wasn’t. Maybe there was such a severe emergency, they had to leave, without taking so much as a grain of dust.

From the key ring, a tiny sunflower dangles. She likes sunflowers. The mother who used to live here and her have a lot in common. They’d probably get along, if she hadn’t left in such a hurry.

Instead of putting the keys back down, she leaves with them.

She heads to the door nearest the master bedroom, a similarly plain white door. Every door is plain, and the dread she feels opening each one is palpable. On this one, however, there's a small sign hanging from the handle. "Baby's sleeping," it reads, carved into the wood. She'd like to think it's handmade, but chances are it was bought from the store.

The door creaks open only a few inches before hitting something. Celeste tries forcing it open, but even after putting her entire strength into opening it more, she can't get it to budge. She sighs and squeezes herself through the tiny opening, trying to make herself as small as possible to get into the room.

Try as she might, she can't manage to get herself fully into the room. She gets in almost halfway, enough to stick her head in and an arm. The room is pink, all sorts of flowers adorning it, though the few that appear to have been alive at one point are nothing more than curled up and dead. In a corner, there's a crib, and the entire room seems untouched, similarly to everything else. It's sad, the emptiness of this room. Whatever child used that crib, is long gone.

She cranes her head around the door to look behind it, to find whatever was stopping her from opening it fully. Maybe she can move it and fit herself into the room. But what greets her she never even considered.

It's a sizable pile of toys… Cars, dolls, dress-up clothing, an entire playhouse. It's all been shoved into this corner without so much as a care, based on the messy nature of it. She can't explain why it's like that, she has no idea. Maybe so they can be quickly taken later, or to easier choose what to keep. Either way, it's evident they didn't get much time.

Close to the top of the pile, her attention is caught by a small baby doll. It's dusty, as is everything else, but she feels drawn to the little thing. It's big eyes and long hair, all matted from use, missing all it's clothes except for a shirt… It's charming to her. And similar to the car keys, she reaches out and grabs the thing, holding it tightly to her chest as she squeezes out.

The next room she enters is much different.

Hand painted clouds scatter the blue walls, similarly painted airplanes racing between them. Two bookshelves are pressed against the walls, and the small bed is a mess, only one thin blanket covering it.

Out of every room she’s entered so far, this is the only room where it looks like things have been taken. And it looks like it was taken in a hurry, too; just like the pile of dolls in the baby room. Clothes and decorations are scattered on the floor, everything seems misplaced. It's a panicked sight.

It’s obvious this is the room of an older child, one old enough to collect their own things. Maybe this is the Malachi she read on the cup earlier. Celeste can only hope to herself that the child is okay, better then however they were when creating the state of this room.

She places the objects she’s accumulated on the tiny bed, the empty bookshelves catching her eye. They're completely emptied, nothing but spider webs, except for a singular storybook on a bottom shelf.

The pages flip, the only noise in the entire home. She’s read this before, somewhere. It’s about a mother, telling her babies every way she loves them. She's almost in tears, over this child's storybook. Some quiet laugh escapes her at the idea of crying because of this book, because she's not even a mother. It's dusty and old.

She turns the page, and she recognizes a note in a familiar handwriting scrawled across the page.

“For Malachi, my darling baby

— Mommy”

She runs her hand over the writing, and she doesn’t understand why. She wants to leave. She doesn’t like being here, it hurts her head so badly. But how can she leave this all here? What if they come back? She doesn’t want to leave. But she doesn’t want to be… here. She doesn’t understand, once again. She never does.

The bed lets off dust as she lays down on it. She holds the old picture book close to her chest. The babydoll is cradled in her arms. She can barely hear the clinking of the sunflower keychain. She rolls the tiny game piece between her fingers. She delicately traces the carvings in the mug.

She thinks it's odd she’s laying down on a random child’s bed. How creepy it is, to do such a thing. What if they come back, and see some strange woman on their bed? With all their things?

But deep down she knows they won’t come back, not now.

Her slumber that night is only accompanied by the remains of a life long gone from her.