Toy

Little things like smell of sweat and leather from wrist watch or rare concentric smoke rings or one little toy after ten odd years tell that long forgotten story of one old battery driven car from long long time ago.

One little toy telling stories of myself which are memories with no good use. My first teddy bear was a dog, ha ha. And I called it something I forget. Someone bought a G.I Joe for me and I tore out its head and hid it under the bed. Many toys, them with bright colours and batteries and clockwork ones also. Toys with lights and toys that could fly toys that I could build little houses with and toys that could blink and even the hideous ones that would cry when I flung them on the floor out of curiosity, anger, disgust, boredom and about twenty other feelings you can only feel when you are a child. Colours are very nice I had all kinds of colours to learn. I never called the blue one red or the red one blue when I had the freedom. I did not know yellow or black from red or purple. But then I had to learn the fine distinction between the colour of rust and the colour of bricks they build houses with and the colour of soil mingled with blood.

Then came the Rubik's Cube and the chess board and the pack of cards and that bonsai of the instrument I loved like a toy. New toys excite and thrill and fill you with intrigue and tension and a new kind of anxiety. That feeling of discovery which is equal to invention because for you its the first time. That wooden instrument with the old world charm and the feeling of growing up twang twang twang and music was made. Suddenly out of very fine strings I could hear the sound of a million years behind me and a million more. History and future and other things and all I needed was to touch the strings with my fingers and that triangular little thing made from coconut shell. Music fascinated, enticed, amused. Held me captivated for hours together. A music that was ancient and a music that was newborn and just created that followed no rhythm but was music nonetheless. That beauty and that charm of old and new and real and dreamlike in the toy went wrong. Music went wrong.

Tricycle and the fall. No one said Marie Marie hold on tight when I stepped out of the door and cycled down the stairs. Stitch Stitch Stitch back the skin. When the skin opens up to show the flesh and veins and many other parts of the inside a lot of pain is all you know and nothing can be done but stitch stitch stitch. We are the cloth toys they make when they stitch us up. Inside maybe we have sponge and cloth and scraps of cloth and maybe even thermocol and wires you never know for how many times have you opened up your toys?

Other toys also come. With new kinds of lights and some are robots that can walk on their own but when the batteries die down you have to push them all of a sudden they spring back to life. Old toys are swept away from under the bed suddenly someone holds it up in front of your face broomstick in hand and asks whether you still need it or not. You say no because you are doing something so very important and have no time for silly old things so you say no they are not what you call important and they go away forever leaving no trace. Little pieces of old toys not so precious because they are broken and old and you need them no more. Some are very expensive ones. Relatives from abroad bringing them or very special memories like a prize thing so them you never get to play with. Kept in glass showcases the pride of your house like a little museum of memories they stay all your life, maybe for your children or maybe just there without a function and a purpose. Stupid dumb toys all of them with nothing no soul no touch no life in them shut up from the outside those little pretty ones.

This new one blinks feebly and still has a name because I name them still. After years I have a toy. It goes up and down and up and down and it is so beautiful because it tells a story I had forgotten. That old story of things all of us you and I we know we may not remember but never forget.