Nursery Rhyme

I reached out into the darkness and found a friend. It stared at me with button eyes and stretched out a paw that felt like yarn.

“Come join and play!” it said, moving closer into the light to reveal bunny ears and a fluffy tail.

For some reason, it was comforting to me. A stuffed animal beckoning you to come play was like a childhood dream, innocent and carefree.

It led me away from disappointment, down the hallway and into a large room, filled with yarn dolls of every shape and size. All around, they leapt down from their place and gathered before us. Curtsies and hand waves rippled through the crowd, a welcoming sight for me. It soothed the loneliness in my heart.

I stared at my own hands, stubby and short, as I reached out to grab one, a funny little caticorn the size of my head. It was warm and soft, delightful to touch as I snuggled against it.

“Here you go. Let’s begin the game!”

I turned back to the yarn bunny, who held a pair of scissors in its paws. They were dropped in my hands as I fumbled around with them, unwieldy to open and close. Yet, there was a satisfying sensation as they came together with a snip.

“Don’t worry. Yarn doesn’t feel pain.”

Next to me, a set of ten dolls had lined up in a row, waiting for me to approach.

Suddenly, a music box played, and the dolls all sang together.

There were ten in a row, let the little one know.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

So he pulled on a string until one fell out.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

The string stood out and had to be cut.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

Once one was cut, another came loose.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

More chopped off and came undone.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

Cut and cut until everything is gone.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

I stared at the doll before me. The caticorn from before had become nothing but a pile of loose yarn. Strangely, I grinned. Seeing something cut away until it was no longer recognizable intrigued me. I started to wonder if the bad things could be cut away like that.

One strand loosened, and it was a mistake. That strand cut and a frayed end remained, taunting you. At that point, no matter what you did, it would never look right again. And slowly but surely, it would unravel.

But that was okay. No one liked seeing mistakes. Mother said that dolls had to be perfect, their beauty remaining no matter how much they gets played with. She didn’t need failures. She didn’t like loose ends. She didn’t want to see them at all. The sound of scissors snipping echoed in my mind.

That’s right… just like Mother.

“Unravel! Unravel!” I sang along with the dolls.

As the song mentioned, each of these dolls in a row fell short of expectations, so now, they had to be unraveled.

The snip of the scissors made a satisfying cut each time, as I watched with eagerness at the dolls falling apart at the seams. My smile got wider as the number of dolls counted from nine to eight to seven.

A goldfish with cartoon eyes, a purple narwhal, and a rainbow monkey. They fell apart into a pile of threads one after the other, no longer childish as they were made.

“Unravel! Unravel!”

Six became five and then four.

A walrus, a marshmallow man, and a zebra this time. The tusks were wrong, the fluff wasn’t round, and the stripes came patterned the wrong way. Their imperfections were all the excuse for me to unravel them.

A few snips of the scissors and those mistakes were no more.

Three, two, one.

A sun too bright, a warm kitty cat, and a loving heart.

Jealous at the joy they brought, even those fell to the cold metal of scissors.

Ten piles of thread all in a mess, with only memories of what they once were.

I looked in a nearby mirror, wondering if I was the next mistake. I reached up to grab a lock of hair and snipped it off. Staring at the piece in my hand, I giggled.

“I guess I’m a mistake as well…”

Even as the other dolls sang “Unravel” over and over, I wondered if I was any different, or just another doll created by Mother.

In the mirror, I eyed myself as the scissor blades touched the side of my neck.