The wall and the floor rushed to my face like a torrent— then everything stood still.
A particle of dust drifted down like a hesitant leaf, swaying side to side until it landed at the tip of Tumchin’s nose. Through the window, the sun threw a warm blanket of beams on the playroom floor. It was afternoon. The entire line of stuffed animals grew tense; the boy was coming home.
In the midst of his stiffening stuffing, Tumchin had a little bean-like knot in his tummy. It said in its tiny voice: “It might be you! He might pick you again!”
You’re lying. That’s bad. Stop it, Tumchin thought.
Then the door burst open. Little feet pounded against the floor, shaking the room. The orb-like light fixtures shivered and the multicolored table jumped like it had been surprised. Then the arms. It was always the arms. Tumchin hated those arms—they were his home, once, some time ago. Then they were his hope.
And they were his disappointment. They reached for the newest—a bear—on his right.
“There you are, Goldilocks! Neptune awaits your ceremonious touch!” Joniah, the boy, took the bear and zoomed out of the door, closing it behind them.
You missed. You missed me by a little. Tumchin’s knotted bean rose to the bottom of his throat.
The boy ran out with his prized bear, thinking of nothing else but how many planets they would visit today. All the toys fell loose.
“It just had to be,” Tumchin grumbled, his already rounded back slouching like an abandoned beanbag.
“Just had to be?”
It was the pillow-like voice of Muffinlop, the eldest of the toys, speaking from Tumchin’s left. His fur was terribly disheveled and his body was stamped with bald patches turned gray from dust. His great head leaned against the wall like his floppy ears were too heavy, and his eyes were closed.
Tumchin looked around.
“Yes, you.”
“Okay. It just had to be Goldilocks. Like why Goldilocks? For a bear of all things? I dunno if it’s ‘cause of the story they read last last night about a little girl who got scared of three bears, but her name isn’t even fitting! She isn’t gold! She hasn’t got locks!”
“You don’t… have chin” Muffinlop responded cheekily.
“Yeah. Hedgehogs don’t need chins.” Tumchin looked up and closed his eyes with his eyebrows raised, puffing his chest.
“Bear didn’t needed locks”
Tumchin frowned.
“Joking— joking… cute hedgehog.”
Cute hedgehog… that’s what Mama first called me. Does she know Sergeant Jo doesn’t love me anymore? Maybe I’m not a cute hedgehog anymore. Maybe ‘cause he’s an astronaut now?
“Why are you talking to me?”
“You’re squishing tail, owie.”
Tumchin looked down. He was sitting on Muffinlop’s tail.
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t see.”
“It’s okay. I too don’t see.”
It seemed true. Muffinlop had his back to the rest of the playroom.
“But can,” he continued, opening his eyes the same pace a snail would stretch its head out of its shell. It looked like his eyelids were too heavy. “I see white and bumps—small bumps.”
Tumchin winced. “That must be hard, facing a boring wall all day? Why don’t you move? Turn that way? So you can see Sergeant Jo?”
Muffinlop chuckled. “Cute. I am old, they telled me. I cannot carry carrot holder and furry hopper now. Can you… tell what you see?”
“I see our castle. The princess used to live there, but now she’s focusing on her studies like she said. She taught Sergeant Jo how to fight all the dragons that popped up since he couldn’t really figure it out all that much. But they always did fight the dragons and rescue me. But the castle’s ruined now—it’s part spaceship. The bricks that make the kingdom walls are up, but I dunno why they look useless and broken. The flag isn’t there now—I think it’s on the moon across the room.”
Muffinlop shook his head. “When it’s me, I saw before a big green floor. Jonie holded always a big wood stick and hitted ball, then runned at four stops then runned back. Now I see white crumpled flowers sticked under paint. They didn’t wanted to see me, I’m old.”
Tumchin’s stuffing churned inside. He was going to be like Muffinlop, turned around and with horrible grammar. Because Sergeant Jo was growing. And the problem with growing children is that they’ve mastered the art of leaving things behind. All people do, one day.
“I can move you. So you can see something else, not that wall.”
“You didn’t.”
“What do you mean? I will!”
“You didn’t. I knowed. I seed it.”
“I mean, I can still try?” Tumchin shrugged. He stretched his tiny arms as far as they could go. He reached for Muffinlop, then he reached for the gates of his castle all the way to the other side of the room. He reached for the lights and he reached for the window. His arms were too small, they couldn’t stretch past his tummy.
He turned to the side and tried to grip Muffinlop’s fur. But he had no fingers and he couldn’t grab more than one patch of loosely hanging fur at a time. He reached out and watched his little hands slide down like raindrops on a window, tears on a tired face.
“I can’t. All I can do is roll, that’s why the dragons always got to me. Maybe Sergeant Jo got sick of saving me, ‘cause I can only roll away.”
“I didn’t thinked you could move me, just Home-run Jonnuh can but doesn’t.”
“How did you know?” Tumchin looked at Muffinlop.
“I seed it. It happened in my head, then it happened.”
“So you can control what happens?” Tumchin sat up.
“I only seed it before it happened.” He sighed. Then he wrinkled his brows with great effort and, with a strangled voice, whispered “Go there.”
Muffinlop’s tail shook. It started to hover. Old bunny tears flowed down Muffinlop’s sagging cheeks, his whole body shook—and his tail pointed towards the castle.
“Where did I pointed?”
Tumchin tapped his tiny feet against the floor. “The castle.”
“Go. For Home-run Jonnuh, you be there, help him not fall.”
“You mean he’ll trip later?”
“He falled. I seed it. From the castle.”
Tumchin stood up and prepared to roll to the side of the room, his furs pulled by invisible strings towards the indicated place, but he stopped himself. The Sergeant betrayed his knightly code. He promised to stick “together forever through feathers and fetters”. And where was he? Exploring the universe made of spray paint and paper stars with a bear when there were still hundreds of kingdoms to conquer? Hundreds of dragons to slay? Hundreds of times to save Hedgehogs in Hazardous Conditions (because Damsels in Distress were overdone, according to the Princess).
“No. He doesn’t need me anymore. He’s got Goldilocks! He rides spaceships now, he grew out of horses. He wears space suits now, he grew out of armor. He fights aliens now, he grew out of dragons. He grew out of me and my care. Whatever happens, the bear’s got him.”
The toys heard laughter seeping through the space under the door. Footsteps grew closer and closer and the door burst open. In flew the amateur astronaut and his apprentice, each with a cardboard gas tank at their backs and a telescope under one arm.
“And we have returned masterfully victorious over the unmenable, uncivilized race of Ulthipiens and protected the perfect Goldilocks Zone for new life! This calls for celebration! Let us all climb to the lunching zone of the space ship walkway! Woohoo!”
Tumchin did his best not to think of Joniah. He tried to squint his eyes and focus on a little dot on the wall every time his mind decided to remind him of their many conquests together. They were all over, anyway.
From the corner of his eye, he saw his beloved Sergeant climb the castle-spaceship like an inexperienced frog. Goldilocks hung at the interior angle of his elbow, looking on the ground as he got higher and higher.
Tumchin felt himself split into two.
He was abandoned. Cast away into a world far more dangerous than fire breathing dragons and burning castles.
But he was loved. He was taken on conquests and carried when rolling would get him dirty. He was kept warm at night and was hugged so tightly he almost felt like he couldn’t breathe—when he really couldn’t breathe anyway. Because of this boy, he became.
Then Goldilocks slipped through Joniah’s grip.
“GOLDILOCKS!”
Joniah spun to turn around. His fingers slid off the tip of the castle. Tumchin rolled to the middle of the playroom floor, the friction ripping at bits of his skin. Then a large weight fell on Tumchin and the world grew black.
🦔
The day was soft and smelled like fresh meadows. The bumpy white painted wall was replaced with Easter Egg Blue wallpapers that seemed to drape from the ceiling like overstretched clouds. There was laughter, and talking.
But Tumchin couldn’t see any of it.
At least he was still here. His burst seam was clumsily sewn and his burnt patches were left untreated. Let’s keep him, please. He saved me! I promise, he wasn’t there when I entered the room! He heard Sergeant Jo’s voice swimming in his mind.
“C’mere, Juniper! You want your penguin? You want your penguin? You have to stand and get it! C’mon! You can do it!”
“What do you see?” Tumchin whispered to Goldilocks, who sat beside him.
“It’s Doctor Niah Jones, engaging in a certain way of manifesting reflection with his subsequently delivered little sibling.”
“You mean showing affection? Towards his little sister?”
“That is exactly the message I intended to impress. They appear to be euphonic.”
“Euphoric?”
“Perfect. Doctor Niah Jones is happy.”
Tumchin smiled. That was all he needed to know.
With all his strength, he lifted his tiny arms as high as he could lift them and gave his favorite Sergeant a heartfelt salute.
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