Micro fiction, Slawka G. Scarso 

And then she told Jack off

When Jack ripped my favourite doll’s arm, I would no longer play with her.

‘She’s ugly,’ I moaned.

Grandma yelled at me. She said love isn’t about prettiness. Then she put a ‘doll hospital’ sign in the front garden: 

‘Any girl can bring her doll. Go tell your friends.’ 

In line, Lorena, Angela and I we waited our turn: torn dresses, broken arms, half-shaved heads, loose button-eyes. 

She took our crippled dolls, with their lopsided haircuts, their lives already damaged, and turned them into models – like those in Paris, she said. So, when we hugged them back, we said Merci.