A Little Outside Help

It's only now I've realized my voodoo doll has been staring at me. It's been resting in place since I got here three years ago and I haven't moved it, so it's been staring at me all this time. Its large white teeth, its dark black head, its technicolor garb and gold sparkle eyes. These sparkles have been fixed on me for a thousand days.

I bought it at a flea market in New Orleans. It came with instructions, a small bag around its neck, two white-headed pins. White pins for good, black pins for evil, but the black pins you must provide yourself. They're not going to be a party in that kind of thing. Or maybe that's just what they want the tourists to think. They want us to think that they believe in this sort of thing. No stranger than any other belief I guess. What do I know?

The directions are long gone now, but it would be easy enough to look some up. Might as well, that doll isn't doing anything just sitting there staring at me. Or maybe it is.

That's what I'll do. Find some directions. Snip a piece of hair or put whatever I need to in the bag. Stick it with its pins. Get the energy going in the right place. A little outside help never hurts. I'm a little worried it'll work too well for good, and that I'll be tempted to go shopping for a bag of black pins. Guess I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

I'd like to believe it's real. That the woman who sold me this doll believes in it, in everything behind it, that I wasn't just another bum jerk looking for spiritual knickknacks. But I guess her belief only gets me so far. If it's going to work, the belief's got to be all mine.