"I suppose you're wondering why I gathered you all here." a harsh, rasping voice began, in a very morbid sounding voice, mostly used for dramatic affect.

"Well it's not as if we could stand up and walk." A doll, trapped behind a glass dome retorted first.

With large, vacant, colored, glassy eyes, frilly torn dresses, and the paper-white porcelain of their smooth, flawless skin, the dolls were merely a vessel for the passed on souls which took to inhabiting the glass husks.

Murmurs passed throughout the room. The first doll rolled her large eyes. "Do you realize what a situation we're in? This is serious. I didn't die from ennui to be useless in my afterlife."

"Oh, you think you've had it bad?" a gritty masculine voice challenged, "Look at me? I flew into bits! And did I get any credit for it? No! I get trapped. First a children's book, and now this ghastly female marionette. I don't even have any legs! My arms don't move! Do you know how exhausting it is to hold this sheet over my head all day? Do you feel my pain?"

"I think I do. I was run through with an awl..." a voice whispered. "Besides, you're the only one who can see outside properly."

"Will you stop quoting the Gashlycrumb Tinies!" voiced a doll, laying outstretched in a coffin.

"Anyway, can you tell me what is outside the window now?" asked the doll which had spoken first.

"It's that goth chick, and her oblivious boyfriend." he snarled.

"Yes." she continued patiently. "And," she continued in a savager tone, "Do you know what they're doing?"

"No." the male doll countered flatly.

"Well, they are acting." she said, and then added, "In a plot."

"A plot..." the whisper spread throughout the dark shop again.

"Yes. And I have seen the script to this plot. We are in it."

Gasps, and agitated mutterings seared at the last phrase.

"And," the dramatic accent had managed its way back into her tone, "We do not do anything."

All glass eyes were turned as far their porcelain sockets would allow, to stare wide-eyed at this declaration.

"What do you mean?" someone ventured, trying a little too hard to sound like a ghost.

"I mean," she began coolly, "That we are featured in this plot, and yet serve no purpose whatsoever, except perhaps aesthetically."

A dull silence filled the air.

"Are we at least being paid?" the coffin doll asked.

"No. They don't know we're alive." replied the first doll.

"You do know that this means we can terrorize them?" stated the masculine voiced figurine.

"Hmm..." said one, "I think he's right. We should at least consider it."

"Agreed." another said.

"Very well. I don't think I've had this much fun since I died!"