| 10/11/2005 |
HAPPY PUPPET
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Pamie.com recently wrote about a subject near and dear to my hea-... Wait... I mean near and fear to my heart.
DOLLS!!
Maybe you've not heard, but I am terrified of the damned things. In some circles it's a running joke. "Oh let's scare Cris with a friggin' creepy doll," they'll say. Perhaps I should stop running in those circles.
It's hard to say that my automatonophobia or pediophobia is irrational when for many years growing up I was pretty sure that there was the soul of a serial killer posessing the ventriloquist dummy the remained deep in my closet.
There have been several incarnations of such evil that I've known. When I was just a little kid my Grandmother pulled a bunch of toys out of a storage chest that used to belong to her children, my father and aunt. One doll in particular she claimed belonged to my father. It was a frightening combination of features painted on a hard plastic head that was stitched on a poorly stuffed cloth body. At the end of each appendage was a hard plastic hand or foot. It was dressed in a red and white striped nightgown. I don't mean, sexy teddy here. I mean nightgown like a character from a Dickens novel would wear and thus be haunted by former partners turned poltergeists.
Which brings me to another block in the foundation of my phobia. Have you seen Poltergeist? What adult my age isn't afraid of clowns because of that scene in Poltergeist? You know the one. The camera pans from the kids in the room to the corner where the clown doll resides. Back to the kids. Back to the now empty corner! THE CORNER IS EMPTY!! Of course you know the clown is now under the bed waiting to snatch at the first leg it sees dangling over the bedside. It was such a movie that caused me to create a forcefield of pillows around my bed as I slept.
There is a scene from what I believe to be an episode of the Twilight Zone where a woman is driving down a desolte road. Stops her car as she comes upon something in the way. She gets out to find that it is a doll. As she bends down to pick up the doll (DON'T!! NEVER PICK UP THE DOLL! KEEP DRIVING! FASTER! ACCELLERATE!! RUN IT OVER!) it grabs her hand as she shreiks. (What did I tell you?!)
My Grandmother in a stroke of wisdom (or perhaps just during a stroke) decided to purchase a ventriloquist dummy for Christmas one year. I open the festively decorated package just enough to see the lifeless eyes peering out from inside it's cardboard and plastic prison. I didn't even finish unwrapping that. That job fell to my semi-mentally handicapped Aunt, who freaked me out as a child in her own way.
I was in Hell.
My Grandmother insisted that the dummy be in my room when I wasn't playing with it. Which was odd since I never played with it ever anyway. I was truly in fear of it. Burn it! Fuego! Fire and lots of it! That's the way I wanted to 'play' with it.
We lived in an modestly old house. It would creak occasionally anyway. But with the addition of the Seed Of Satan, I was convinced that any noise I heard was now made by the dummy as it crept out of my room long enough to go to the kitchen and fetch the biggest knife it could find.
Remember that pillow force field I created? Well, I managed to convince myself that if by some chance some dark magicks had posessed the dummy to come to life and kill kill kill then some good force would also allow the other stuffed animals in my room to protect me. I had a big bear for a long time. I knew I was safe.
I finally convinced my Grandmother that I hated the thing. Rather than destory it in some sort of cleansing ritual she decided it was better left in the living room. I didn't go into that room for two years. I'm not kidding. If I did have to go in there I peeked in to see where the creature was and make my escape as fast as I could. Occasionally I would be brave enough to stroll in, turn the dummy around so it faced the cushions of the couch. Of course it freaked me out even more to find him turned back around a short time later. HE HAD MOVED!! I was sure of it.
I think it was when I was in junior high that she finally sold the damned thing at a garage sale. Unfortunately it was to a neighbor. If I recall correctly my good friend Chris bought it. Chris always had a thing for the macabre. He kept the thing in his closet. Not as a punishment, but as a place where it could plot to return to my own home and stab me in the eyes.
Chris would taunt me by daring to open the closet and release it. He was sure that it was angry enough by now just to jump straight from the closet and latch on to my head.
Dick... Why am I still friend with him?
Even as an adult the damned dolls just kept torturing me. My best friend's ex had a collection of dolls and figurines. The figurines were fine. Weird, but fine. Yet, the collection of ornately dressed Victorian looking dolls had to be destroyed. Luckly they were precious enough not to be kept in the public area of the abode. To this day, I don't know how anyone slept in the same room with them. Constantly watching. Never needing sleep. Always plotting. Stabby, stabby!
When I worked at the Hotline we had an auction. One of the items was a foot tall porcelian doll. On many occasions during the two weeks of the auction, I found the doll in my dark office sitting at my chair. One time a note had even been typed by "Dollie" wishing I would play with it. Does playing baseball count? Using it as either the bat or ball... I don't care.
I've never seen the movie Chucky. Nor do I intend to. I've never seen The Puppetmaster. Do I need to explain why?
While I would say that I have a very vivid imagination, I also would say that I am a rational person. I know deep down that such a thing is not going to spring to life and cut me so bad. Even having the adult side of me remind me of this, it still doesn't help the kid in me he screams a little silent scream everytime I see figured like this. |
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I posted this @ 10/11/2005 02:35:00 PM.............Need a link?..........
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