Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

21 Grams

2024; Duke University Press; Volume: 2024; Issue: 102 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1215/00265667-11046965

2157-4189

Dylan Foy,

Biofield Effects and Biophysics

God must feel so alone, I thought, staring down at my unbecoming collection of stuffed animals. The newest—my forty-ninth—was a polar bear, stained brown on its breast like a bitten piece of fruit left out on the kitchen counter. As recommended by the manufacturers, I always kept them in the best condition I could—a cool, dry place. They sat in my spare room's perfect silence, and no direct sunlight ever spilled on them. I joked to myself that I was their savior. Sometimes I swore they smiled back. Yes, I was acutely aware of my complex. No, not a god but something familiar.I avoided showing people this room in my apartment. "It's not ready yet," I'd say, despite moving into the downtown suite two years prior. My hiccups came in these instances—as they always do when I'm nervous. "I'm still working on it." I stood in front of the spare room's doorframe, cartoonishly flailing my arms whenever Maria would try to barge her way in. At the time, I'd convinced myself that the most embarrassing thing about it was the idea of a single thirty-three-year-old woman having four walls congested with stuffed dolls. A room you could barely wade through without stepping on a tail. A claw. The mass of beady eyes seemed to trail my every move like some famous painting."Oh, stop, Siobhán. What, you got dead bodies in there or something?" She laughed naively. I laughed too. Everyone knows stuffed animals only die when they're forgotten.I found my first when Maria and I went to Disneyland three years ago. There it was, a Donald Duck plush just sitting on a bench. It begged for someone to sit beside it."No, that's so sad," Maria cried out through a half-chuckle. She took a chomp of her stale churro. "We should bring it to the lost and found." She licked the cinnamon off her lips. "Or something."I didn't mean to take it home. Really. I simply forgot it in my backpack at the end of the day. I stewed over the notion of bringing it back to the park, but our flight home was 10 a.m. the next morning. I didn't get the vibe that she cared much either. Two weeks later, I found a frog Beanie Baby stuck inside the rotating doors at Mayfair Mall. A month later, a Pikachu at the local park's swing set. The weight of iron in my blood must've shifted—I had become a magnet for lost items. I believed I was doing the right thing. They'd just be going in a landfill otherwise, right? If the owner was careless enough to leave them somewhere, why not?Sometimes the toys would have the owner's name written on the tags. I would chop them off."East Bay Swimming Pool. Thanks for calling, how may I help you?""Hello," I said, in my most mature tone of voice on the phone. "Sorry if this is an odd request, but do you happen to have any stuffed animals in your lost and found bin? I think I left one behind the other day.""Oh, sure, one moment, please. Do we have a lost and found bin?" she whispered to someone on the other end before the phone clunked on the counter. And then, a pause. And a ruffle. "Yes, we do! We have two little guys here.""Right." I cleared my throat and twisted a blonde lock of hair around my index. "Do you mind telling me what they are?""Looks like a giraffe and a PAW Patrol dog.""Perfect.""Great. Which one's yours?""Oh. Both. They're my daughter's, actually. I apologize, she's always leaving things behind. Mind if I pop by later this evening?"By my nineteenth rescue, I had the idea of creating a Lost Stuffed Animal Museum. I took in animals (or animal-adjacent beings—I don't consider the "monsters" monsters). I planned to set up the Lost Museum when I felt I'd had enough. It'd be a place the kids could potentially learn about when they're older and finally get reunited. But how many stuffed toys does one kid have, I wondered. They'll forget about it in a week. They won't remember this bear when they're forty, surely. Thoughts like these went back and forth in my mind. No matter the shape, size, or weight, I knew I could take care of them better than any six-year-old could. A six-year-old couldn't recognize the craftsmanship that went into designing one of these creatures. A six-year-old didn't learn to sew to put them back together. But still, I truly did want to see them all go back to their owners one day. I wanted to see their smiling faces when they'd reunite.But sadly, there were never any phone numbers written on them.If my translation work slowed down, I role-played as a doting mother at least three times a week. Rehoming became my part-time job. The lilt in my voice on the phone sometimes blended into my everyday speech patterns. The work was spotty though. Some months I'd receive nothing, some months I'd lose count. After two years of this, I began to run out of legitimate lost and found bins. The hollow husks in thrift stores didn't do it for me. I had exhumed the libraries and excavated the parks. I was getting lazy. Careless. I got caught calling the same place twice on the same day. I soon cursed my hometown for being so small. I missed Aunt Tracie's wedding because I went to pick up a unicorn Squishmallow two towns over. That was the last one I found for three months. Funny how you can never find them when you're looking.I gave them personalities, families, birthdays. Blood types. I had a ritual whenever I'd rehome, always placing them on the right-hand side of the shelf. Then the next one would replace them, and they'd all shift to the left until it ran out of space and the leftmost would fall onto the floor. I'd kiss them exactly twice on their foreheads (or forehead-equivalent surfaces). I'd grown fond of the scent of damp grass and burnt rubber, and the idea of stamping it out. If they had removable clothes—like Donald—I would hand-wash them. Cleanse their tiny souls with hydrogen peroxide and baking soda. I'd hang them to dry on pegs, being careful to only pinch their outer coat and never the stuffing inside. I'd learned their guts were delicate the hard way.For the first year, I mulled over keeping them intact or not—the way I'd found them. Was it wrong to replace one of their marble eyes? To stitch their hip shut? I'd never thought about heaven's consequences. When you imagine yourself in heaven, are you as you are now? Are you yourself the moment you died? Or are you wearing your favorite clothes? Are you clean? Are you your best?By year three, my collection had taken over my spare room, and the overwhelming embarrassment slipped off the skeleton to reveal an epidermal layer of guilt. I began to think I was lying to myself about the ultimate goal of the whole Lost Museum thing. But last week, I saw an opportunity to abolish the shame. It was muddy and raining on the day of Maria's housewarming party. On the double-decker bus to Maria's studio, a mother and daughter sat in front of me. The little girl, no older than five, had the head of a plush turtle sticking out of her school bag. The plush was dirty, with stains and streaks all over its tail and shell. Extremely unkempt. It looked like a rotten apple.But finally, there it was—a toy I could reunite with its owner.My heartbeat spiked. I just couldn't take my eye off the thing the entire ride. After stewing over the idea for fifteen minutes, the mother broke my daze by pressing the button to signal their stop to the driver. The button's plinking sound made my throat involuntarily swallow. I peeked over my shoulder, making sure no one else sat behind me. As the two got up to leave, I swiftly snatched the toy and stuffed it under my lap. I got hiccups.The surging thrill raced through my veins, and I felt like my chest could split. The mother dragged her child by the hand up to the front of the bus as it turned onto the next street, both giggling at some private joke as they trotted down the aisle, their wet boots squeaking against the floor. My breath quickened as I questioned the ideal moment to run up with the turtle. Is now a good time? The bus began to slow down. Is now a good time? Now? My shoulders tensed. Fingers twitched. I imagined how nice my voice would sound when I approached them. My candor. My countenance. Should I say I felt my toe kick it under my chair? How hard would they thank me? I imagined the child's smile. The relief. Did she love this thing?The bus came to a full halt. I skirted to the edge of my seat, one foot in the middle of the aisle before I peered down at the fiftieth plush. My eyes were fixated on its dirty tail. On its scuffed-up eyes. Its stitching separating.Did she love this thing to death?The mother and daughter walked past me outside the window. I glanced back at them as the bus pulled onto the road. The mother pulled up the daughter's forest-green raincoat hood. She still wore a smile. My hiccups persisted.For the entirety of Maria's party, I couldn't stop thinking about the contents of my purse. It'd be so easy, how I could just stand up and open it in front of everyone, admitting my actions in a drunken stupor. They'd probably laugh. When I brought the turtle home, I held it flat in my open-faced palms. It felt light for its size. The turtle appeared dirtier than when I'd remembered on the bus, although I couldn't bring myself to clean it. I planted a kiss, but a smile never sprouted. I was surprised at how sweet and saccharine it smelled, almost like candied strawberries. I stared into its cute jewel eyes and wondered how it got all its blemishes. I wondered when the little girl noticed it was missing, and how hard she cried. I wondered if the mother offered to buy her a new one, or if it'd even make a difference. I wondered if she considered them a boy or girl.