Emily's Zenith

by Anonymous

In there country there were many houses. Some were in forests, some were on the plain, some were located on hills. The old rickety house was placed on the latter. The structure loomed above a forest, and though the ancient dwelling seemed to reek of a foreboding sense of despair, its decorations held a cheerful sense of renewal. Inside, Emily happily made conversation with her dolls at a nonexistent party, which included the involvement of just as imaginary tea. "How many lumps of sugar would you like, Miss Polly?" Emily pleasantly inquired at the inanimate entity which resided in her rightmost direction. The porcelain figure continued the act in which it had kept since the beginning of its creation. Its intricately carved juvenile, yet feminine face stared forward with a twosome of equally fine carved eyes of marble. The light breeze which cascaded into Emily's room through an aged finely ruffled the silken dress, and the even finer auburn hair of the doll that Emily had so delicately addressed. "Yes, very good, two for you. And Miss Judy?" Emily had proceeded in succession to rotate herself in the direction of another of the ever-quiet never-moving mirrors of humankind which had the liberty of being at Emily's left. The other doll resembled its ever- watchful neighbor across the lightly varnished wooden table, though its phenomenally light tresses reflected a pitch darkness of a color. Its lightly flowered blouse fit with exact perfection on its impossibly smooth body. "Oh, that's right, you don't care for sugar. Well, I'm very pleased with your healthy choice." Emily tinged with excitement as her final bodily movement lead her to look straight ahead with incredible accuracy at her ideal of the goddess incarnate. The doll with the name, "Sarah."

Richard contained not a drop of dislike for his sunny yellow dump truck. His energy filled time of youthful animation lead him to every conceivable scenario in which his wheeled toy starred. Every nook and cranny of Richard's home was a stage for his antics. The basement, the hallway, the kitchen, the stairway, the living room, the bathroom, and even more locations, if the land outside of Richard's dwelling was accounted for. Almost as Richard cared for his truck he felt love for his mother. Katherine Smith converted the passion that was in her possession for her offspring into a more material for of items that were the ultimate in pecuniary expenses. She was able to maintain the position almost of this caliber in her occupation in which she had so carefully opted for after the split in which her husband invoked. Katherine was a woman of aggression, and tolerance, causing her to continue the involvement in life without painfully dropping for a temporary respite. "How were the children today, Minerva?" "The children are fine, Mrs. Smith." Katherine stepped past her treasured, though exorbitantly priced, maid, whom had indulged in her passion of reading and simultaneously keeping watch on the bright lad and his truck. Katherine rose each foot in succession to rise on the steps, the trek she never failed to complete each day to see her daughter. "Emily!" she called while peeking into the sharply bright pastel place in which the young female of the family spent her lonesome days. The girl sprinted to her progenitor, and with the commonplace shiny smile she called out, "Mother."

The extreme darkness at the end of day dropped its entire bulk on the home. When the beloved task of listening to her caring mother completed itself, Emily quietly moved herself into the vicinity of the place of her slumber. She played to the extent of her heart's desire, when she had not been obtaining knowledge presented to her courtesy of Minerva, an efficient mentor and educator. In this abode a centralized single furnishing stood in spite of any other fixture. Emily's shelves of dolls. The gargantuan container of oak consumed the entirety of a wall in the commodious room. Rows of bright ever-monitoring orbs peered even in the ink black that stealthily covered all as the light bulbs were triggered into a state of non-use. Emily gladly trotted inside and jogged in the direction of the precious metal studded bed on the opposite side. Prostrate on it laid Emily's favorite, which Emily carefully gained a hold of raised her flawless image of perfection to another antique, the tired and true mirror which faced perpendicular to the immense collection of quiet figures. Emily carefully examined the vision of her person holding the glazed eyed doll. The inevitable frown gained ground on the field of her face with each tiny collection of time in which the comparison was made between herself and the unmoving miniature mannequin. In the extremity of her self-pity, Emily finally forced out a thought which seemed to have carefully wedged its way into the stream of though which she possessed. "Oh Sarah, I wish I was so beautiful as you!" The distressed look of Emily's young face turned to a look of distant longing. She plopped the ideal of her comparison onto the definite hardness of the wooden floor, and crawled in her bed. The blackness of the night remained nothing but immense.

"Emily! Emily!" The disembodied voice seemed to drift in an ever-present void. The voice sounded familiar, and Emily had the ability to place it as the thoughtful speech of her teacher Minerva. Emily managed to move the protective lids of her two eyes to the position in which they were no longer rejecting the idea of seeing. Emily groaned in an exhausted fashion, "Yes?" "Your mother has left already. I am going to pick up some groceries with Richard, and will be right back. Will you be all right by yourself?" Emily was fortunate enough to have the inexorable sadness of being alone at a previous time, and she was able to blurt out another answer "Yes." "All right, I'll be home in just an hour. You'll be fine." Emily remained with her back to her mattress for another brief period, in which she drawn for a second time into dreamy nothingness. She thought she could grasp the audible and distinct closing of the main entrance of the house, followed by the mechanical rhythm of an automobile motor. What came across Emily's mindscape as an eternity seemed to move to a conclusion as Emily startled to awakening. She gazed about her room, and she neatly pulled the fabric central to her quilt away her mind launched a projectile into her consciousness that something was amiss. She plopped out of her bed as was common to her schedule, but before she could engage in any usual activity, something with an event with an extremely uncommon frequency occurred; a golden strand which Emily granted was a hair moved into Emily's field of vision. A gasp naturally formed as the girl raced in the front of her mirror, and instantly the truth unraveled itself. The infinite verdure green eyes, the streaming yellow locks, the unblemished epidermis, the flawlessly created face; Emily found herself realizing she looked more or less to the exact detail of a living version of her most beloved possession. The surprise washed itself away, and the feeling of immense joy set into Emily. She gracefully pranced around in total excitement and continually observed her now perfect shell of existence. Though her giddiness now seemed eternal, Emily was able to calm, and she came to the conclusion that the resemblance to her beautiful item could easily come to completion if she could find the most beautiful clothing to grasp her form of beauty. Just at the point in which Emily anticipated she was unable to achieve a higher state of happiness, she flung open her closet door and she beheld the sparkling green dress which her doll constantly modeled. Emily's excitement peaked constantly, as she removed her trusted nightgown and nearly thrusted her person in the near magical clothing. But then a thought wiggled its way into her mind.

"If I look like Sarah, is she still the same?" Emily speedily whirled about the vicinity of her place of slumber, and she created a cacophony of screeches as she peered into a porcelain figure resembling Emily the very night before. "No! It's just a doll! I'm real!" "Are you?" The eyes of the doll that spoke seemed to Emily to rip a portal into her very inner depth as its head twisted with a squeaking sound. Emily immediately threw her pace an extreme increase as she darted toward the egress. As she ran she felt more and more force on her limbs, and she thought nothing but escape, to the outside world, to her mother, to anywhere, but the exception remained the spot in which she ran. The height in which the brass knob which extended from her door was extended from Emily's point of view, and her molasses-like movement of her digits made the shininess of the knob a near-impossibility to grasp. The clarity of the current situation was increased as Emily turned to dash down the stairs, and she was made aware of her miniature proportions. With much excruciating trouble she tilted her head, and caught a glimpse of herself, or what she used to be. Emily pushed her arms and legs with as much might as she could muster, and descended each stair. Her doppleganger began to try to catch her, and the very second she pumped her near solid legs and soared to the next wood stair, which she elegantly balanced herself upon. Again the hand attempted a snatch, and Emily was in succession able to bring herself into the air, and she was flying in mid-air, when underneath her a familiar bright yellow object took off with a high velocity, forward, and Emily took off the stairs. She felt herself flying, and the top of the wall, the mid section, and her time to view the bottom was limited as she felt the most immense anguish she ever had experienced in her entire life, the most painful point the very base of her legs, and the agony exploded massively higher, until the base of her neck, when she was surrounded by utter blackness.

"How were the children today, Minerva?" "They behaved very nicely, and Emily behaved very well by herself... except..." "What is it, Minerva? I would like to know." "Well, you see, Emily's favorite doll... It..." "Oh dear! I should talk to her!" "Amazingly, Mrs. Smith, she didn't seem that distressed by it." Minerva whispered her final comment in the conversation as Katherine trotted over to the stairway, in which she felt a pain in her foot, and extracted from the area a sharp piece of porcelain. She continued up, and steadily went into her daughter's room. "Emily, I heard what happened to your doll, you want to talk about it?" "Oh, don't worry about it, mother. I think I have outgrown dolls by now." "All right dear... are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" "Don't worry mother, a doll is just a thing, it's not like a person died." "I'm very proud of you dear, usually a girl is quite mature before she will say something like that." "Sometimes I amaze myself, mother." Katherine smiled widely, and then turned around, satisfied by the precocious remark she heard. She almost thought she had heard an eerie laugh behind her, but she figured it was nothing, her daughter wouldn't make such a strange noise. "After all," Katherine thought, "she is perfect."

Emily's Zenith copyright 1996 by Anonymous.