About Living Doll
by Kevin Clarke
26 pages
/ 11500 words
ISBN: 978-1-60370-487-8, 1-60370-487-6
Available file types - html. lit, pdf, prc
Peter Holz still talks to his dead sister. Well, he still talks to his dead sister's doll. Seemingly imbued with her living spirit, Marie's old rag doll takes on new life, giving Peter advice, even when he doesn't want it. He's not sure what the doll will have to say about warm, caring Evan, and he doesn’t care. He and Evan have hit it off too well to back off now.
Nothing is perfect, though, and soon enough, Peter is having trouble with a homophobic stalker. Gay/Straight Alliance member Evan encourages Peter to take his problem to someone with some authority, but when things start to get dangerous, it might just be Marie's living doll that helps Peter out the most. Can Peter find love and let go of his sister's ghost?Sample
“You chickened out, didn’t you?”
Peter Holz didn’t answer. Bits of melting snow dripped from his shoes and coat to the cheap blue carpet. He dropped his backpack, flung himself onto his narrow dorm-room bed, and glared across it at Marie. Above her on Pete’s tiny bookshelf, the Bunny Brothers and the Big Bad Wolf surveyed the scene with plastic eyes that seemed to glitter in disapproval. In the front room, Pete’s antique answering machine winked a red light to indicate a waiting message, but at the moment he didn’t care who’d called.
“That’s what I thought,” Marie said. She occupied one corner of Pete’s pillow, her little rag doll skirt spread demurely over her knees like a spring leaf. “Geez, Pete. Evan likes you. Just ask him if he wants to grab some coffee after class and talk about homework. It wouldn’t have to be a date -- but it could turn into one.” She gave him a hard look. “You spent the entire afternoon moping at the rec center, didn’t you? Crushing your sorrows beneath the weight machine?”
Pete sighed. “It’s better than drinking, Sis,” he said, staring out the window instead of at Marie. Late afternoon sunlight poured through the glass and over a framed memorial collage hanging on the wall opposite the window. The collage was made from photos of Marie that Pete had put together after her death.
Everyone used to say Pete and Marie looked enough alike to be twins, though Marie had been a year younger. At one time, they had both had the same curly black hair and dark blue eyes, the same fair skin that freckled in summer, the same tall, rangy build. Now, only Pete had them. In the past year, Pete had also acquired newly-broad shoulders and a powerful set of muscles, partly because gawky adolescence had ended, and partly because lifting weights and kicking a bag worked off any number of issues -- temporarily, anyway. Unfortunately, all those hours at the gym meant his new body was rapidly outgrowing every article of clothing he owned. As a starving sophomore with no parental support, Pete was now forced to shop at thrift stores to eke out the clothes he’d hoarded since high school, but he couldn’t find much that fit well, and he always felt like he was bursting at the seams.
Pete got up to pace over to the window. Clumps of gray snow lay like tired land mines outside below the glass. Across the courtyard, someone had left up window decorations from Valentine’s day, even though it was almost Easter. Big red hearts danced around a saccharine little Cupid. The latter was aiming an undeniably phallic bow and arrow.
Cupid, Pete thought sourly, couldn’t hit an elephant in the ass with a shotgun.