The Collector's Hoard

Okay, are you really that surprised that once again I have nothing to report? I mean seriously. But unlike last Sunday, at least I've got a prompt story for you today. Once again it's a first line prompt and I freely admit I was influenced by television for this one. At first I was going to make it a creepy serial killer thing where he turns his victims into dolls (Criminal Minds), but I figured that would be too obvious. So instead I made use of all those hours spent watching Hoarders.

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As a child, he’d been told dolls were for girls. Henry didn’t really believe this, but he came to realize it didn’t matter what he believed, it was what his father believed that mattered. It was a lesson that did not come easily though.

The first time he asked for a doll he was five. Naturally he didn’t understand why his father got angry at the request. Nor did he understand why the logic of “then I want to be a girl” was met with a spanking.

It was about a year later, after he’d started school, that the subject of dolls came up again. Apparently dolls weren’t just for girls, at school boys were allowed to play with them too. But Henry was a bright boy and knew better than to say anything about it to his father. Instead he traded his red dump truck to the little girl next door for her second hand baby doll.

When the doll was eventually discovered hidden in the back of his closet, Henry was not just yelled at but slapped across the face when he dared to protest it being taken away. His mother had gotten yelled at this time too, for raising a pansy-assed wimp. The doll had been torn limb from limb and tossed into the trash.

The next time, his father found the rag doll he’d made himself. It wasn’t much of a doll, but Henry had been proud of the painstaking work – gathering the scraps, learning to sew by watching his mother’s quilting group. This time his father built a fire in the fireplace and made him throw the doll into the flames. He had to stay watching the fire until there was nothing left of the doll but ash.

“You’re lucky I didn’t make you eat the damned thing to teach you a lesson,” his father growled when Henry couldn’t hold back a sniffle.

Which is exactly what he did when he found Henry’s paper doll family between the pages of one of his school books. Fortunately they weren’t large paper dolls, and Henry just sicked them up again later that night. But this time, much to his father’s satisfaction and his mother’s relief, Henry appeared to have learned the lesson.

By the time he finished middle school, it seemed he'd forgotten his desire for a doll, and thanks to an adequate showing on the high school football team, his father no longer harbored worries about him being a sissy-pants.

As soon as Henry graduated high school he got a job at the city chemical plant and moved out of his parents house into a studio apartment. At last he felt like a real man who could do as he pleased. The first thing he bought himself was a doll. But not just any doll, a porcelain “fairy” doll with blond ringlets, blue eyes, and gossamer wings. He placed her on the bookcase opposite the door so she was the first thing he saw when he came into the apartment.

Over time she was joined by many others – Betsy Wetsy and Chatty Cathy, Barbies and Big Sisters, apple-headed dolls and rag dolls. Henry gained a reputation amongst the thrift stores and pawn shops as a collector, and these establishments would often set aside dolls for him. Of course he bought them all. Soon there was very little space in his apartment that wasn’t covered in dolls.

The years passed and Henry was content, working in the factory so he could afford more dolls, enjoying his dolls when he wasn’t working. If space was becoming tight in his tiny apartment, well, really, he lived alone. How much space did he really need?

Just as Henry was contemplating cutting back on his collecting so he could afford a bigger place to live, salvation and tragedy came at the same time. His parents died in a fiery car crash, leaving him the mortgage-free family home.

Without rent to worry about, Henry was able to indulge in dolls he previous had to pass over. He went to yard sales and rummage sales, but eschewed the internet as too impersonal a source for his beloved dolls.

Time passed, his doll collection grew. Most of them stayed safely sealed in their boxes, only the favourites made it to the special, custom made display case in the living room. Several more graced the bookcases lining the hallways, narrowing the space so it was all but impassable. And still Henry bought dolls. They filled his furniture, his closets. his basement. They narrowed his living space but still he bought more dolls.

The day of the earth quake, communication grids were overwhelmed with family and friends checking up on each other, making sure each other were safe. Henry had no friends. He was quiet and kept to himself at work – his co-workers thought he was an odd duck, but he was a good worker.

It took several days before it registered he hadn’t been into work recently, and two more days of calls to his house being unanswered before anyone thought to contact the police. When the police forced the door open an avalanche of dolls greeted them. It took days for them clear a path through the house, although by the time they did the smell alone told them Henry’s fate. They found him buried in his dolls, trapped under the custom made display case that held his favorites.