The Story Of Love

I bought a haunted doll off Facebook. 

It didn’t come with any guarantees of course. But Sky, who was selling it, said it was definitely haunted.

She said the doll had belonged to a bright young girl who had loved it deeply and unconditionally. When the world felt untrustworthy, she felt the doll spread peace through her body.

But eventually the girl grew up and found other things that gave her comfort, things that didn’t ask her to believe in anything.

It was her young self that would return to the doll.

I asked how I could know if the story was true. Sky said: “Everything is a story. You and me right now, we’re a story. It’s already written.”

When you buy a haunted doll on Facebook I guess you should expect something like that.

I took the doll and made a comfortable place for it at home, so the spirit girl would know she could always come.

Nothing happened of course. There were none of the usual signs of haunting, no sudden chills or disembodied footsteps.

Eventually I guessed that Sky was the girl so I messaged her to say that if time is relative, somewhere the story of their love was always true. 

Fuck off she replied. But then later she added two sad face emojis.

Some stories are so beautiful they can stay with us in the infinite now. 

We just have to take care of them, even if we don’t believe in them any more.

Analogue social post, menu frame, closed down restaurant, Redfern.