In my fiction writing group we were set the homework of writing some prose about a memory. I did that and it was therapeutic but also I quite liked what I wrote and wanted to share it, plus one of my friends keeps saying ‘WHEN IS THE NEXT GUESS I’LL DIE? WORKING ON PURPOSE* IS FINE BUT GIVE ME GUESS I’LL DIE OR GIVE ME DEATH”. So, let’s feed two birds with one scone, as PETA says. Here’s my writing exercise about a memory. Sorry it’s a bit depressing.
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I have 113 Beanie Babies. I know this because one day I took them all out of the drawer under my bed and counted as I put each one back away. I have some rare ones: the Princess Diana bear, a quartet of cats (two bought when first launched, at a zoo, two bought at a specialist toy fair at what my mum told me was an inflated price), a white bear with shimmering angel wings. It was only recently I learned that grownups kept the tags on, that this increased the toys’ worth. I don’t care. Toys are for playing with, and I don’t like the thought of an animal with a tag punched through its ear. So I snip away each one, and let myself forget where the hole had been.
Today I line my Beanie Babies in a circle, as I always do, with some segregation between breeds and natural environments. This is only natural. A lobster can’t be friends with a rabbit. The rabbits go together and they go next to the fox, and the bat can be in the same area as the cats but they’re not especially close, because I only have one bat and I’m not sure where else he would go.
My usual games are to do with battles; the community of animals coming together to fight back against something happening to their world. Like in the animals of farthing wood. Sometimes the cats, Seeka, flip, chip, and nip, become a sort of Charlie’s Angels squad and they karate kick and spin through the air. Often there’s a pride like in Lion King and my bed is the cliff where one animal is about to let another fall.
I realise it’s been a while since I last played. I get out all 113 toys and put them in their circle. I can’t remember who the moose gets on with. I pick up the best cat, Seeka. I don’t remember if my animals usually talk, and if they do talk, whether I say what they say out loud. It seems silly to do that. I think usually they communicate in my head and they don’t need to be verbal. This seems silly too. I don’t know what’s going on. I get Seeka to do a flying spinning cartwheel kick but I don’t know why she is doing this.
I feel like there are eyes on me and I don’t like it. I feel like someone is watching and thinking oh, how sweet, the little girl is playing with her toys. Then I feel like someone is saying what a baby and I remember how when we went to grandma and granddad’s house I wanted to play the squirrel game with my brother and he said no. The plot points of my Beanie Babies are out of my memory’s reach. Some of them have names and some are just called ‘otter’ or ‘turkey’. I look around at the circle and I feel like I’m disappointing them. I think why can’t I remember? Why doesn’t this feel right?
I can see a socket on the other side of my bedroom and the switch is turned to ‘on’ and I think I should turn it off, because what if an electricity spark comes out and hits the carpet and then the house burns down? I switch it to off then stare at it to make sure I really did. I decide to put my toys away, but I don’t do it in my normal way where there’s a special order and each one has a storyline for why they’re going back to bed, I just pile them in. I keep the cats out and line them up on my pillow. I lie down and look at the ceiling. I think maybe I should go tell my mum and dad that something’s gone wrong and I can’t play anymore, then I think I don’t want to do that, so I stay in bed and keep looking at the ceiling. When my mum calls me down to set the table for dinner, I pretend I’ve been playing this whole time and everything is the same way it always was. I tell my mum I need to wash my hands but I already have, so I run upstairs, clambering on all fours, and go back into my bedroom. The switch is still off but I had to make sure.