Dodge

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The Broken Doll is a collection of four short stories that recount a harrowing few weeks in the lives of a half dozen characters in the rural Midwest. The stories can be read individually — each has a beginning, middle and end — but they also interlock; some plotlines jump from one story to another, and so do some of the characters (to the extent they survive, of course!). Because the narrative moves back and forth in time, I thought it might be helpful to show at the beginning of each story where each of the stories falls on the calendar, and the duration of each.

The phone chimes like a knife-tapped glass.

Not loud but enough to waken.

A text.

The message is simple:

Below is the black triangle of an attached sound recording.

A pause and then it downloads and plays.

First the scream, then the woman’s voice. “No, please... No... Kill me! Please. Just—”

A final scream and the recording ends.

Wednesday, April 5

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