I love dolls, but there was one time when a doll scared me. This is the story of that time.
From a young age, I spent most of my time alone.
By the time I was old enough to understand things, my mother was already a single mom. She worked as a nurse with irregular hours, so our schedules rarely matched.
Occasionally, my grandmother would come from the neighboring town, but because her legs were weak, we only saw each other about once a month.
On top of that, I was shy and reserved, so I had no friends. The only playmates I had were the dolls I owned.
Even so, I didn’t feel very lonely.
Looking back now, I think it’s because I was completely absorbed in playing with my dolls.
My play with the dolls was mostly “pretend play,” like playing house.
I had many different kinds of dolls, and each one had its own role.
I would set up houses, schools, and other settings, and even though I was the only one controlling them, the little dramas that played out were endlessly entertaining.
I had my own world, and I was completely immersed in it.
One morning, I woke up to find my mother still asleep, but breakfast had already been left on the table.
I reheated it, watched TV while eating, and then it was time to go to school.
Before leaving, I would usually call out to my mom, but sometimes she responded and sometimes she didn’t.
On my usual way to school, I noticed there were more things than usual at the garbage dump.
It must have been a bulky trash collection day.
Ah…
Among the trash, I saw only a doll’s head lying there.
The body was completely gone, likely broken beyond repair.
The head was probably about 3 cm in size. When our eyes met, I noticed it, but I couldn’t take it with me to school.
After school, on my way home, the bulky trash was still there.
The doll’s head was still lying there, and without hesitation, I picked it up and brought it home, adding it to my little collection.
The doll had a small scratch on its forehead, but I didn’t care; in fact, it became a unique feature of the doll.
Since it was just a head, I played with it as it was. But suddenly having a new member felt like a new student transferring in, and my pretend play became more intense than ever.
At one point, I went to the bathroom, and when I returned… a girl I didn’t recognize was in my room. I froze.
“Can I play too?”
She looked to be about my age, with long hair, and I had never seen her before.
Under normal circumstances, this would have been impossible. But in my town back then, it wasn’t that unusual.
My grandmother would come and go as she pleased, neighbors often dropped by, and sometimes I even ate at other people’s houses. It was just the way things were at that time.
I couldn’t refuse, so I reluctantly played dolls with her.
But to my surprise, it was really fun, and before I knew it, it had gotten dark outside.
“Are you hungry? Do you want something to eat?” I asked.
The girl nodded. I went to the kitchen, grabbed some food from the fridge, and when I came back… she was gone.
I was a little surprised, but since she had come in on her own, I thought she had left on her own, so I didn’t worry.
I was too excited from having so much fun to sleep that night.
After that, the girl started coming over from time to time to play with me.
She said her name was A (a pseudonym), but she never said where she lived. She would appear and disappear suddenly, but it didn’t bother me because playing together was so much fun.
“My, you’ve been so cheerful lately,” my mother and grandmother would often say after I started playing with A.
I think having a friend gave me confidence, and naturally, I started making more friends around that time.
One day, as playing with A was becoming part of my daily routine, I said, “I’m hungry~.”
A replied, “Then here, have these,” and she took out two daifuku.
“Since there are two, let’s share them!”
“Wow, thanks!”
I was happy to eat sweets when I was hungry, and I finished them in no time.
A watched me smile, but she didn’t eat.
“Was it good? You can eat mine too.”
“Really? Can I?”
“Of course! I’m not hungry!”
Feeling a little guilty, I accepted her offer.
But the moment I bit into it, I realized something was wrong.
Even though it was daifuku, it wasn’t sweet—it was bitter!
As I reflexively tried to spit it out, A suddenly moved and covered my mouth with her hand.
“If you’re a friend, you’ll eat it, right?”
No matter how hard I tried to push her away, she was frighteningly strong.
“Ugh…ugh…whaah…”
With the bitter daifuku and rising vomit, I couldn’t breathe anymore.
A just watched, grinning, while I felt myself losing consciousness.
When I woke up, I was in a hospital bed.
“Geez! What on earth were you doing?!”
My mother was sitting beside me, holding me.
I had no idea what had happened.
She later told me that when she came home, I had collapsed in my room.
From my lips and face color, she immediately recognized that I had choked, and she performed first aid right away.
She made me spit out what was in my mouth, ensured I could breathe, and then called an ambulance.
The doctor told us that if she had been a few minutes later, it could have been fatal.
My mother scolded me, “Don’t do something stupid again!” but I still didn’t fully understand.
“You were choking on a doll’s head stuck in your throat!” she said.
I thought I had choked on the daifuku A had given me.
What actually happened?
When we returned home, the doll’s head—the one I had picked up that day—was nowhere to be found in the entire house.
Then my mother said,
“I’ve seen that doll’s head before.”
“Huh?”
“It had a scratch on its forehead. It looked just like the doll I used to play with as a child.”
…
“What was the name of the friend you’ve been playing with recently?”
“A.”
“A, huh… That’s the same name I gave that doll when I was a kid…”
“W-what… does that mean?”
In the end, I never found out what that doll’s head that had stuck in my throat really was.