One Missing Child

The young girl sat quietly playing with something so intently she didn’t hear the man coming up behind her.  She cooed to the object that had her so completely lost in her endeavors.
“Now sit up straight baby, you’re making it hard for me to dress you.”  She continued to fumble with the little outfit as she was attempting to manipulate the stiff little limbs of the baby doll she was trying to dress.
 
The man watched the child silently and was in awe of the almost quiet calm she portrayed.  She had been missing for hours.  He didn’t understand how she could have possibly gotten this far back into the woods by herself but she did appear to be alone.  People had been searching everywhere around the area trying to find her.  At least this one is turning out OK he thought.
 
“I swear you just won’t do anything you should to help.  My mommy is always saying that children are more trouble than they are worth.”
 
The little girl appeared to slap her doll and the man winced at the force of the blow she had delivered to the doll.  It made him wonder what type of home life the child had and if her actions were any indication of what she suffered at home.  If so then he thought he understood why she had come up missing.  It would certainly explain her disappearance.  She was trying to escape from an unhappy and possibly abusive home life.
 
“There now, isn’t that much better?  See how much easier it is when you behave like a good little girl and make things easier for me?”  The little girl tried to set her doll up in front of her but couldn’t quite get the doll to bend her little legs.
The man hadn’t yet gotten a good look at the doll because he had stopped a short way from the child.  He hadn’t wanted to startle her and the child’s back was to him.  Now he proceeded to approach the child and called her by name.
“Macy.”  The man gently spoke her name.
 
The little girl didn’t even flinch when she heard her name being called from behind.
“Yes?”  Macy turned her head to face the man who had called to her.  She looked at the man and when she saw he was a policeman she smiled at him.
 
“Are you OK honey?”  The officer had slowly closed the distance between him and the young girl.
“Yes, I’m just playing with my new baby doll.  Do you want to see her?”  Macy reach to pick up the doll in front of her to show the officer.
 
“Sure, I would love…”  The officer didn’t finish his sentence as Macy brought the doll up for him to see.  His mind tried hard to keep him from screaming as it tried to process what he was seeing.  The man’s brain wanted to refuse what his eyes were telling him.  He knew that he hadn’t found just one of the two missing children from the same neighborhood, he had found both.  The tiny newborn’s head was twisted at an odd angle and the little half opened eyes would never completely open or close on their own again.
“You want to play with us?”  Macy said as she struggled to stand up and lift the dead weight of the lifeless newborn infant.
The officer was having trouble remaining on his feet.  He had never before in his life felt more alone and afraid as he did right then staring into the eyes of this five year old child.
“Mommy says children are more trouble than they’re worth but I don’t think so, do you?”  The little girl giggled as she threw the tiny little corpse into the air and let it fall.

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