Voodoo Doll Rental

Flash Fiction

Voodoo Doll Rental

By Paige Garland

The voodoo doll sat as innocent as ever, the pins beside it looking more like sewing needles than anything else. If I hadn’t known any better, I’d think that they were used to sew the doll, then were placed off to the side by whoever sewed it. However, that was not the case, as I placed the doll and pins there when I took them out of the box.

I shuddered, knowing the pins awaited me. The reality of what I was about to do was sinking in. Did I really want to do this?

It cost me quite a bit to rent the voodoo doll. It was a weird concept, and I hadn’t known that such rentals existed until I saw an advertisement on social media, and I looked into it. You could rent a voodoo doll for a day, a week, or a month maximum. They sent the doll, the pins, a how-to guide, and a box to send everything back in.

When I first found the rental site, I didn’t think I had any use for a voodoo doll. To me, they were for your worst enemies, but no one came to mind. As I read the FAQ page and the reviews, I realized that the dolls weren’t just used for your worst enemies but could also be used to bring small misfortunes to those who caused you harm. And seeing this, someone came to mind.

I almost talked myself out of, though, when I read some reviews telling of how their voodoo didn’t do what they thought it would. They said that they tried causing minimal harm that ended up being severe. The rental place replied to these reviews saying that following the how-to guide would prevent these occurrences, but some did reply that they had followed it. I thought they probably really hadn’t and just didn’t want to appear foolish.

Thus, I rented the voodoo doll. Just for one day and just for one person.

Some other reviews on the site weren’t reviews at all as there was a sub-population of people who were using the review page as a comments page instead. There were several warnings about messing with dark magic. These people cautioned that anytime dark magic was used, it ended badly for the user. They said it was a form of corruption and thus it ate away at the user over time. Some of these commenters seemed like they were affiliated with churches, and I wondered if that meant that they cared or if it was just part of their job to post these things.

Now that it was here, though, I wondered whether using this doll would cause some sort of corruption to my spirit. As it sat before me, eyes staring into mine, it sure didn’t feel like an inanimate object. It felt like it had an existence of its own and could harm me.

After all, I was planning to stick pins into it, so I was going to harm it. Each time a pin was stuck into this doll, it slowly eroded the doll’s construction, corrupting it if you will. I never believed much in karma but still stood before the doll wondering if it would corrupt me if I corrupted it.

I shook all of these thoughts away and opened the how-to guide. I paid a lot for this, maybe too much, and I didn’t like to waste money. Yet as I look back now, it would have been better to waste money than to waste away as I have from that act.

Voodoo Doll Rental

© Paige Garland, 2024

All rights reserved.