"When I woke up, everything around me was wrapped in black. I checked again whether my eyes were really open and, to my surprise, noticed something rather strange: they could no longer be closed.
I panicked and tried to reach for them, afraid they would dry up if I didn't get them fast enough, but to my horror my arm didn't rise as usual on command, it didn't rise at all, as much as I did tried. It was a strange situation that panicked me, but I forced myself to calm down. Something was wrong here, at least I knew it.
Now I just had to find out what it was. I left it at one try and concentrated on my legs instead.
The little glimmer of hope my eyes would get used to in the dark went out with the awareness that I still couldn't perceive any contours.
Anyway, where was I?After countless pitiful attempts to lift my legs up, or at least to some extent to move them from one side to the other, I was frightened. "Melvin put a cup of hot tea in my hand.
"And then?" he asked with an incredulous look. "What happened next?"
I stared at him as if he had uttered something quite surprising, although it was a given that he asked me to continue. After all, that's exactly why I was here. He had asked me to be allowed to record my story, before the other newspapers would notice me and possibly dispute a story with him.
Melvin was a journalist for the "Free Flight", which was a newspaper that was less respected in our city and was actually only meant to bring the senselessness of the rainforest extinction to its climax. And he was a good acquaintance, stupid but kind-hearted, which is why I couldn't refuse when my phone yanked me out of bed this morning and his voice, his friendly voice, invited me to lunch.Not without ulterior motives, of course, but luckily he revealed that to me immediately instead of surprising me with a plate of potatoes with sauerkraut. Fortunately for him, otherwise, I thought, I would have put his lunch where it would never have ended up on its own without my help, at least not undigested.
I took a sip from the cup. The tea was awful, but I said nothing. And after the even more gruesome meal, the tea was something of a relief. In general, everything that had to do with Melvin was horrible in a way, starting with his name, but the good guy couldn't choose that one after all. Forgiven, but what about the cruel outfit he wore through the streets day in and day out?
A yellow T-shirt hidden under a black jacket and when he was in a sitting position, today's woman could even enjoy his white tennis socks. All small things, do you think?Too superficial? Could be, but you're not the one who gets to sip unsweetened tea at this man's and tell how one wrong step almost cost you your entire life.
"And then," I said, "the light went on. All of a sudden the room became damned bright. My eyes, just familiarized with the darkness, began to hurt like hell when the bright beam of light hit them directly. In the affect tried." I put my arms up and protect them with my palms, but it didn't work. How could I assume that it would work again from one moment to the next? I was still motionless. Was I breathing at all? It had to be that way, otherwise If the pain hadn't jumped through me like that, I mean if I had been dead, and so I lay there, silent and helpless, and the sounds that I tried to make with all my might got stuck in my throat one after the other.Only very roughly did my eyes get used to the new situation and I tried as best I could to look around. However, my field of vision was limited to the ceiling and the upper edges of the furniture around me.
At least I assumed it was furniture. I had never seen this room before. Everything was strange to me, the dark shelves with the fine dust blankets and the dirty, white ceiling were the only things I had a way of identifying my surroundings. Then I started to wait. I waited to see what should happen next. After all, I was firmly convinced that I was no longer alone in the room, because the light just couldn't go on by itself. "
In the middle of my report, Melvin suddenly jumped up. He said he had to get something and disappeared into the kitchen next door.
I was left alone with his tea in hand, which I hadn't touched except for the sip a few minutes ago.It was the first time that I sat in his apartment and so I took the time to look around a little.
Cosiness was a word that would be denied to this room. I would have tended towards "crowded", "messy" and "scary" if someone had forced me to describe the atmosphere. There were two sofas in the room. The journalist used one of them to sleep, the other, on which yours truly had taken a seat, was intended for the guests, he had explained to me as soon as I arrived. Right next to it was a small television that no longer looked functional, but the first glance was usually deceptive. Beyond that there were tons of bookshelves. All very antique and used and full of all kinds of literature. As stupid as Melvin had seemed to me, his enthusiasm for books made me think a little differently about it. A full bookshelf is of course not a prerequisite for an intelligent owner.Some people use these partly holy writings by Goethe or Schiller as a kind of decoration when their flower vases and porcelain cats screech for company. I didn't stop my gaze at it for long and instead kept looking around, more or less fascinated.
Melvin had placed his desk to my right. This was crammed with tons of notebooks and stacks of paper, but it also contained a few copies of his employer gazette. Less spectacular, next to it a stereo system. Just like the television apparently from a century in which people still moved on with the help of horse-drawn carriages. An old clock adorned the wall, the only sizable piece with a red-brown border, adorned with small, golden shapes and completely out of place between the whole - scrap.

And when I turned around I saw her. They sat side by side in a row on an empty shelf that looked like the rest of the room in every detail.Each of them wore a white hat with a blue bow. Their china bodies were wrapped in white cloth and they weren't smiling.
Dolls.
They wore brown shoes on their delicate feet. Her lips were formed into little red pouty mouths, her eyes shone lifelike in that strange light that went through this even stranger room. It scared the way they looked at me. And yet I couldn't take my eyes off them. They sat there, so neatly and exactly like each other like twins, in their poses and in their clothes. The only difference was the color of their eyes and hair, otherwise one could reasonably have assumed that they all came from the same production.
Despite the perfection, something was wrong. There was just something wrong with their position, and that's when I noticed the empty space. Unlike any other area of ​​the shelf, there was no dust on this empty spot next to the doll with the blue eyes and black hair.Something must have been there before, something ...
“I found cookies.” As Melvin's words echoed through the silence, I felt as if I had just felt my heart plop into my pants.
"Cookies" he repeated again as if I hadn't heard him. "I just thought, maybe you would like the tea a little better with it."
I was embarrassed, he had caught me, it would have made no sense to talk your way out. In my warmly charming manner, which was available to me thanks to my mother - and may her soul rest in peace - I thanked them for the unnecessary gift, but I also put the cookies aside. Not even a chocolate biscuit would have made a Melvin Burderline tea tastier. In order to avoid further embarrassment, I therefore waived both as a precaution, instead leaning back further. He also sat down and picked up his pad and pen again, which for me should represent an unmistakable invitation to continue.I would continue, I thought, but before that a question burned on my tongue and I asked it before my sacred speech would resemble a lump of coal.
“Where did you get the dolls from?” As the words left my mouth, I paid more attention to his reaction. Carefully he looked up at me from his block, then wandered to the objects that had drawn my attention so much just a few minutes ago.
"They belonged to my mother," he said finally. "After her death I took them over. It was - they were very important to her, you understand? Almost holy and she asked me to take care of them, but above all to give them an appearance that would have made them proud.
You know, Helen ... "The fact that he addressed me by my name led me to conclude that the whole doll thing was very dear to his heart. He rarely used it, and even when he did, he didn't pull it that way the length.At least it seemed to me as if he had dragged it out unnecessarily, because it sounded terribly wrong from his mouth and I caught myself almost asking him who Helen was.
"When she gave them to me, they were all naked. They wore nothing around their petite bodies, their hair was disheveled and didn't shine as it should have shone. Lynni-Ann, that's the one with the long, black hair, even missed it one eye. They didn't look good, but mom loved them and because I loved mom I took them home to fix them in. In time, I added hair to them, just enough for me to be able to To be able to conjure up hairstyles for them. And instead of one eye, Lynni got both changed. I liked that about her, she became my darling. And because it was pretty, I exchanged the eyes of the other darlings too. Then came the clothes .. . "
I listened to him with fascination. Not because I was so interested in dressing his "sweethearts", it was much more the way he spoke that pulled me into this maelstrom of fascination and also a little disgust and that is why I listened spellbound, listened to each of his words, which were so full of devotion seemed to be, but also harbored a little pain, I thought I heard exactly.A man cannot talk about porcelain objects in