Doll's Houses

She sat in front of the mirror. The single crack that trickled down the shining glass might have been a tear drop dried, a silvery illusion. Might have been midnight hours kept by passing moons in dark, breathless streets. Might have been the way her gaze held his trail of dust and ashes.

Doll's houses don't last, her mother would tell her, back in her frock-wearing, candy-licking childhood. Those days, she believed in growing up. But round the corner, even the conch shells and primeval drum rhythms that hailed the divine mother would fall silent as the Dashami sunset pours its vermillion over the festivity-worn city. And her! She hadn't even felt Eternity ripple down the manicured brown of her fingertips. Not Durga, not Mahamaya... after all, what was she but just another squalid doll?