Putting them away

     They covered the serene, plastic faces with tissue paper, placed the cardboard lid on top, and slipped the box under the bed.

     "There, Darling," she patted her daughter on the head, "we put them away."

     But the girl knew they hadn't put the dolls away; they'd murdered them.

     Wrapped in tissue paper, Sophie with the chipped eye, couldn't jump off the bed.

     Closed-up in the box, Red with the yarn hair, couldn't clap her hands.

     Shoved under the bed, Max with the pretty plaid shorts, would never slide down the stair rail again.

     That  night the girl listened for her dolls.  If they made a sound, if they rustled or whimpered, she would rescue them.  But there was only silence in her room, because the dolls were dead.  She laid in the dark, crying for them.