Dolly
Kaylie entered the room with her chaperon and sat in the waiting area as directed. Her chaperon continued on to the fish bowl office to find the secretary. There was another little girl in the waiting room. She had a corn-husk doll tucked under her arm.
The little girl looked at her doll, then turned to Kaylie and said, "My dolly says you're here to get tested for magic. They told me I don't have any magic, but my dolly says it doesn't really matter."
"Your dolly can talk?"
"Yeah, but most people can't hear very well. Would you hold my dolly while I go use the potty? My mommy says I can't take my dolly in with me because that's how germs spread." Without waiting for an answer she hopped down from her chair, handed her doll to Kaylie, and walked out into the hallway.
"Can you really talk?" The doll continued staring off.
In the office, the chaperon chatted with the secretary. "Another child without any magic, huh? I don't know why they bother testing so many children. Chances are the parents already know by now if their kid has any potential. Seems like a waste of time just to pander to their denial."
"Well, they have to be sure. Can't have any special little snowflakes out there miss out on the exciting opportunity to change the world."
They both laughed.
"Okay... Huh, that's weird. I guess she's been tested before?"
"Yeah, twice."
"Well, third time's a charm, right? Head to Room 2A."
"Alright, I'll see you later, then," and he headed back to the waiting room to collect Kaylie.
"Where'd you get the doll?"
"Her name is Molly. She's Rachel's, but Rachel had to use the potty."
This was my entry for @swissclive's Short Story Initiative which I think is also technically flash fiction. I'm quite enamored with the whole idea of flash fiction, but I've not done very much of it yet. Here's the only other piece I've done: A FlashFiction Christmas in 2050.
Artwork is my own.
Flash!
So I am not quite as flash, I merged your pull request! It should go live very soon now. You can now make a utopian post! Be sure to follow all the rules, they are quite picky, but they just raised the payout for development articles! Huzzah!
Edit: Here's your link ;p
Awesome! I'll be posting as soon as I can on utopian.
magic dollies and magic children, not sure if it's science fiction or horror lol truly a good read (and i agree, seems a lot like flash fiction).
There's nothing scary about mysterious powers wielded by small children that don't yet understand consequences...
It’s a good start to a story, but I’m not sure I get the end. Is it the end? Thanks for participating!
I suppose if I have to explain it then I failed :-(
The story was about the children needing to be tested for magic. Rachel has magic, but the testing process failed to detect it. The doll she has imbued with a kind of magic is evidence of this. We don't know how many times it failed, as the testing that Kaylie has undergone shows that they do, at least sometimes, test more than once. Rachel is completely okay with the idea of not having magic.
The interaction between the faculty shows the indifference that many have to the prospect of magic and the incredible things that could be done with it. Jaded adults? Or just realists? They live in a land of powerful magic, but in a way it's so commonplace that people don't realize the value of it.
In the end, Kaylie is on her way to be tested. The bit of dialog at the end was supposed to be more of a big reveal showing that at least one of the children does have magic. Kaylie discovered the names of the doll and the girl by talking to the doll. But that wasn't enough of a twist. So earlier on in the story, Kaylie asks the doll if it can speak, but there's no reaction. This could lead the reader to believe that it was actually Kaylie that brought it to life, but then, how could it have spoken previously to Rachel? Well, either she made it up as a result of internalizing her experiences of interaction with adults, or the doll really did speak to her and it was, in fact, Rachel's magic that brought the doll to life.
I was hoping to leave the impression that since Kaylie has been tested multiple times, someone thinks she has the potential, even though no one has detected it. Her interactions with Rachel are to show the typical innocent child-like acceptance of the facts of the world as they're presented to them by adults and authority figures. They lack the experiences of adolescence where children begin to doubt what they're told and begin to realize that adults and people of authority or in archetypal roles do make mistakes.
Kaylie's interaction with Rachel helps to demonstrate some of what I've explained, but I think as the story evolved she became more of a tool to tease information out of Rachel rather than to become her own distinct character. I think it might have been a stronger story if I had put more emotion into Kaylie's character to show that she was actually enthusiastic to go to take part in the testing.
But then, three hundred words, right?
Voodoo Doll spotted
That's a corn husk doll... no voudon here. It's made of corn husks, bound together with twine or string...