4/13/09
My first toy, like many, was
a friend, a soft fuzzy toy with black eyes and floppy ears. Sometimes they’re
stuffed to the gills, tough as nails, and almost as stiff, but not this one. He
was a puppet, without wood for bones, and his arms were like a great cape. And
that was his brilliance. When people hug you their arms are like two narrow
bands, squeezing you just so. When he hugged you his arms draped around you
like a fuzzy blanket.
As friends go, he was great.
He rarely spoke, but only listened, which worked fine. I was five years old,
and had a lot to say. Listened and occasionally nodded. Since he didn’t have
stuffing a rip meant nothing to him. He was always flat, flat and perfect. I
still have him somewhere, his original smell buried and beaten by smells he
took on over the years, smells that function better than any photo album. I
could catalogue them here, you’d expect me to, but really, it’s all one word,
safe.
And that’s where he is,
safely tucked away, one little kernel of ground down memory, to stand in for
all those years.
