#dollters if one would be so inclined

[patchworkcuddlebug]

The Doll In My Brain

Allison wakes up, feeling well rested. She's still in the doll's uniform, a simple yet elegant maid outfit, as she finds herself politely sat at the edge of her bed. It's perfectly made, and the rest of her room looks immaculately tidied as well.

She stands and stretches her body as her grogginess slowly fades, and as the first part of her morning routine, checks the whiteboard on her desk. "This one has finished our chores earlier than expected, Miss." it writes in a handwriting much better than hers. "It has decided to spend the rest of the night still, to rest our body. It hopes that is acceptable."

Allison grabs the nearby marker, erasing the message with the wipe that the doll so graciously provided. "Thanks again for all your hard work! I feel great this morning. You're a very good doll."

Wishing her doll nothing but satisfaction, Allison begins to change into something much more befitting of a person. Once it tried asking the doll to select outfits for her as part of its nightly routine, but the poor thing doesn't seem to understand fashion all too well if it isn't playing a game of dress-up.

. . . . .

Allison inspects the cucumber closely. She's already collected everything on her list, and is now filling out the doll's list. It took the poor thing a while to build the courage to ask for food, and she wants to do her best to make it happy. She just isn't sure what counts as a "good cucumber" or not.

It's been a conversation in the past. Dolls aren't really supposed to feel hunger, they usually just subsist on tea and magic and the will of their witch. But while constrained to her body, her doll feels the need to care for it as it would a witch, and that includes preparing meals for her. While Allison usually makes herself something best described as "sufficiently caloric", her doll enjoys the act of service too much to simply fuel her rather than nourish her.

"Excuse me, do you work here?"

Allison turns to see an older man, supporting himself on the handle of his cart. She looks down and notices she's wearing a colour a bit too similar to the employee's apron. He continues before she can speak up, asking "I'm having trouble finding the instant mashed potatoes."

He turns and leaves, packets in hand.

Allison blinks, looking around. She's in a completely different aisle. She shakes her head, trying to free herself from the remnants of her haze of docile obedience. Nobody's looking at her, so it seems like the doll didn't do anything a person shouldn't do. It even remembered not to leave her... their? Purse in the cart that time. What a good doll, she thinks to herself, promising to add an extra thank-you to the whiteboard.

. . . . .

Allison sighs as she places her second, and last, grocery bag on the kitchen counter. It wasn't unmanageable, but lugging the food up to her complex's top floor never got easier. Maybe once the temperature wasn't such an issue, she could leave it in her car and ask the doll to fetch it for her... but that would require her body to venture outside, with the doll's uniform and mannerisms. Even under the cover of night, the idea was mortifying.

As she unpacks, her train of thought continues. She wonders if the doll feels the same way about her, if it ever finds itself concerned with how she acts in its body. She's sure it couldn't mind, she couldn't imagine a doll that would dare. Well, now she just hopes the poor thing doesn't feel to bad about borrowing her body...

She's been standing in the kitchen for a while, borrowing the doll's stillness. The food has been put away some time ago.

Regardless, Allison feels the need to check. Sure enough, everything is filed away with an almost mechanical consistence, including the canned soup being alphabetized.

Thank you, doll, she thinks to herself, just in case it can hear her. Part of her laments not doing the work herself, but she cuts herself off before getting caught in the weeds of defining what constitutes 'herself' considering the circumstances.

As a habit, having regained control, she checks the doll's chore list. As reliable as it is, it can forget to keep track of chores it does when it's 'off the clock' during the day. She crosses off "Organizing" and shuffles to the couch, eager to relax.

. . . . .

Allison slowly drifts awake. She looks down at the floor, past the doll's outfit, and sees tea spilled on the kitchen's tile. She quickly figures that she must have passed out on the couch... and that her doll must have felt so emotional about spilling its drink it had to take a break. She can still feel the anxiety in her body, the seizing of muscles and the hastened breathing.

The first thing she does is retreat into her room, grabbing a marker and sticky note. Returning to the scene, she places it on the cabinet just next to the spill, somewhere the doll would surely see it. "It's okay, don't feel bad!" she writes. "It was just a mistake, everyone makes them. I'm more than happy to help out."

There, only now can she risk starting to clean. She places the unharmed mug on the counter, getting on her knees to wipe the spill with a nearby rag. It isn't long before that familiar fade starts to threaten to overtake her, the soothing repetition of her task lulling her to sleep and coaxing the doll back into place.

Her last act for the night, with what willpower her personality had the presence to muster, was to smile as bright as she could. Hopefully, when the doll came back, it would be just a little happier.