The Clarabell Clown doll

I used to have a Clarabell Clown doll (Clarabell was a character on the Howdy Doody TV show). It was a stuffed doll with a thin plastic face. I used to take the doll to bed with me.

One night, I was looking at the doll, and its eyes bothered me. I knew it was just a doll, and not alive, but it felt like its eyes were somehow looking at me.

I looked at it for a long time. I couldn't go to sleep like this, with the doll beside me looking at me with its eyes. However, if I threw the doll away from the bed, I knew that its thin plastic face would probably be dented, and it would never be the same after that. I didn't want to get out of bed to take it somewhere, either. Probably because my mother had put me in bed, and by getting out of bed I would be undoing that.

Finally, I did throw the doll away from the bed. It hit the wall where the wall met the floor, and I knew that its face was probably damaged. I could get to sleep now, though.

In the morning, my mother, looking very disturbed, showed me the doll and told me that she didn't know what had happened, but she had found it over by the wall and somehow its face had gotten dented. I told her, briefly, what had happened, and she said, looking upset, "But this is your favorite doll, you sleep with this every night! We can't fix it!"

I think I probably just repeated some of what I had already said at that point. In my mind, I understood what she was saying, but it couldn't be helped.

It was very sad, but it had to be done.