Member-only story
Tale of a Tormented Teddy Bear
A short story of loneliness, love, and never giving up hope.
The cellar is dark, winters cold. But it’s not too bad; the oil furnace constantly kicks on with a noxious odor and a bang, bang-clank, keeping me warm, but awake through the long winter months.
The awful time, the time I dread, is summer. Unbearably hot, humid and stuffy; the air doesn’t move, it stagnates. I’m a Teddy Bear. I’m covered in fur, and that makes the summer months in this sweltering basement more than miserable, it makes it intolerable.
But tolerated it I do, month after month, year after year, and sadly I dare say, decade after decade. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting on this shelf, or how many decades have actually passed for that matter. There comes a point in time where time becomes irrelevant.
So I just sit, and wait, and watch.
Some days, a delicate beam of light streaks through the small, cracked and grimy window to brighten, if only for a short while, a sliver of my dark world. During those fleeting moments I can sometimes see parties of dust tripping the light fantastic, and from time to time I am there, joyously dancing with them, until the light fades and all becomes dark again.
