Mini Me's

Fondly, Iris stared up at the row of porcelain dolls, lined neatly, motionlessly on the shelf. As she backed ibno her rocking chair, the images of the porcelain dolls filled her head as she dozed off.

The pale faced girl with ringlets the colour of chocolate and an eggplant coloured bonnet smiled graciously as she bent low before gracefully sitting on the ground. She looked around her, smiling at the sounds of laughter that filled the air. The sight of children running around, playing and the beautiful, clear blue sky overhead with the sun shining it's rays down on the world.

Iris smiled in her sleep, shivering with pleasure. Even though she was in her dark living room, it felt as if the sun were beating down right above where she sat, warming her too.

Daintily, the young girl rose to her feet and approached the other children, her skirts rustling as they brushed the ground where she walked. After a little chat, she began to skip happily along with a group of girls who were adorned in the same heavy skirts as she.

Iris's eyes fluttered open, and the first thing she laid eyes on was a porcelain doll that was almost identical to the young girl in her dream. Who was the girl from her dream. Slowly, she tottled over to the shelf, shakily climbed a step and cautiusly took the doll into her arms, smiling fondly at her as if she could see. "Hi Iris," she said. "I always knew it would be great to have a mini me. My family and closest friends, immortalised forever, looking exactly like we did in our youth."

As Iris returned her doll self to the shelf, she scanned the rest of the dolls on the shelf, her eyes lingering for a minute or so as she recalled a memory associated with the loved one who the doll resembled.

She stopped as she came to the last doll, a baby, which she took from the shelf and cradled in her arms. She looked down at it's snow pale face, lightly touching a finger to it's cool surface before tracing an invisible line up the doll's face as he finger brushed the edge of the baby doll's fringe. "Baby Jane," she said softly, "the only doll anyone was named after in place of named for."

The doll still in her arms, Iris glanced at a nearby framed picture of her daughter, beautiful and glowing with life. she touched a finger to her lips then pressed it ever so lightly to the doll's forehead before returning her to the shelf with the other dolls and backtracking to look at them all, the smile on her lips spreading wide.
"There you all are," she said, "right there forever. Watching over me."