Three Cages

The harsh metal bars held a china doll of a girl. She knelt serenely with her hands settled on her lap, her ears long since failed. Whispering and humming to herself. Songs of childhood. The soothing vibrations of her voice were all that kept her within a semblance of sanity. But at what volume is a void? And the man had treated her to silence, for she could not hear otherwise.

A second cage surrounded a porcelain doll of a girl. She sat delicately with pale knees cradled lightly, in slender, wraparound arms. Loose lids told of empty eye sockets. The girl spoke hopefully, requesting only the day’s details: how bright is the sun, how green the trees? But what colour is a chasm? And the man had told her lies, for she could not see otherwise.

Finally, a third cage encapsulated a ragged doll of a girl. Laid foetal, unfixable, her gaze downwards atop a dried rivulet of tears. She heard all and she saw all, but the world had rendered her voiceless. The naked bulb shed weak light on a ruby bloodstain that she contorted herself to conceal. Her spirit fraying, her fight lost. But how to explain an emptiness? And the man had forced her, for she could not say...