A happy child spins in her room,
Her beloved room,
Surrounded by her collection.

Dolls line the walls,
Sit on the floors,
Well-used,
Well-loved,
Knowing they are needed.

But time passes.

The child disappears.

Dust settles.
Cloth dulls and frays.
Faces chip,
Fracture,
Crack,
Forgotten visages of an innocent time.
A younger time.

A past time.

Their owner finally returns:
Older.
Different.
Determined to update her collection,
Ignoring the cracking of porcelain fragments beneath her feet,
The small drops of red on the bottom of her shoes
With each and every stride.

Some remain pristine.
Perfect.
Applicable.
These are not the ones she has come for.

It is those which (or perhaps who) are dusty,
Dark,
Riddled with imperfections
That are taken,
Put aside in a haphazard pile,
Awaiting their fate.

Footsteps resound toward a wall,
Stopping abruptly in front of it.
A squeak of a window being forced open masks the sudden silence,
The tension.

A ruffle of fraying cloth is all that betrays
The push,
The return of the silence,
The nerve-tingling tension.

Until they hit the pavement.

Porcelain explodes upwards
Slicing rags aimlessly,
The staccato crashes a brutal accompaniment as each body hits the pavement,
Timing varying for each,
A high-pitched, horrifying keening
Seeming to echo the deaths.

The inhuman wail dies down as the last body
Smashes against the unyielding ground,
Leaving only a fragile chatter of porcelain
As it returns from its second flight.

Ignoring the carnage,
The innocent, broken forms,
The smears of blood staining the pavement,
She closes the window
And begins to position the replacements,
Happier now, but no longer innocent,
Left to only grow until the next revision is due.

Ready to let once-precious friends to shatter without a thought.