Tinker Toys

From the bottom of the toy chest, if you sat quiet enough, you could hear the slight wheezing of your forgotten treasure; once upon a time, they were the world to your tiny fumbling fingertips, sticky from left over lollipops and sneakily stolen chocolate squares. Just for a minute, or an hour, or a day or a week, they were everything you would need for forever. Their shiny plastic shells protected them from the walls and the concrete and the playground and made them invincible to the dangerous terrain of your innermost desires; they were a pirate map to the hidden perfection of fantastic daydreams. You could have held them for the rest of your life and never needed anything else.

Until the next one came along. And then they found the toy chest, right at the top, so their painted on eyes could watch you send all the love that they once owned into the next lucky one, playing until your eyes grew sleepy and your heart grew fatigued and you began to rub your tiny face and fall fast asleep upon the outskirts of your imagination. The lady would pick you up and slide you into your bed, as you slept, grasping tight on to the lucky one. They had all been the lucky one once.

But then the next one came along. And little by little, they would fall down and down into the darkened box, smelling of cobwebs, and memories, and forgotten promises. Once you had whispered your daydreams to them, held them close when you heard the monsters moving underneath, and kissed them with all the joy that your little heart could muster. Now, as you clung tightly to another, they felt the cold hard sides of the box of not-good-enough hitting their heads as you crammed more and more left overs into yesterday.

The tinker toys' lament played only when you had fallen asleep. You never heard, but they always hummed you a melody to lull you into your dreaming slumber. You never heard, but they always whispered goodbye when, backpack donned, new friend in hand, you skirted off to school to expand your thoughts and forget about them just a little more. You never heard, but they cried every time you opened the toy box to drop some other one into the blackness; all they wanted, every single one, even the busted up teddy bear at the bottom and the action figure next to him, even the slinky and the barrel of monkeys sitting on top, every single one was waiting for the day that you would find a toy and truly love it forever. But day in and day out, little by little, the box grew fuller and fuller until the lament was loud enough, for they all sang it to you ever night, that you would wake up and wonder what dull sound had roused you.

You are grown now, with your computer having cleared out the space that once held your Little Tykes play house, and your rock-n-roll music replacing your lullabies. There is a new darkness to your eyes and you've stopped playing with anyone at all. The toys in the box in the corner have grown too old to sing. But, from the bottom of the toy chest, if you sat quiet enough, you could hear the slight wheezing of your forgotten treasure; and maybe, if you opened it once, you would remember.