A Misplaced Toy

My purpose, I swear, is valiant. I fill in gaps of want and need. I alleviate pressure and reduce stress. I bring bliss and restore happiness. I do this all for the pleasure of others, but I must admit I too find satisfaction in my tasks.

……. Unfortunately, despite my many benefits and uses, I am a shameful thing to be caught with.

My Owner, for her sake will remain nameless (after all I am a gentleman), felt the sting of embarrassment one night when her husband came in during our play time. To save herself humiliation she flung me under the bed with her glasses. She then probed about blind in the shadowed recesses of dust bunny territory. She pushed me further back before picking up her glasses.

“I missed the nightstand,” She giggled nervously, “aww here they are,” she pretended to find her eyewear as she pulled back up onto the bed. She placed the object neatly on the corner of the nightstand; near my home where I should have been nestled.

I brooded over the filth that still snowed down as my owners husband bent to kiss her. His big toe winked at me through a hole in his sock. How romantic I thought cynically; miffed at my circumstances.

Even though I am used for dirty deeds my appearance must stay clean. Once I have been seen covered in fuzzy lint my owner will not see my appeal. Even washed up she will eye me with mistrust like a cheating lover. I am not a sentimental artifact, so I knew I would be relegated to no man’s land if I was not rescued soon. After all I had seen it happen before.

My predecessor had been stuffed at the back of the drawer and covered with mounds of frivolous reading materials and maybe a few forgotten chocolate wrappers. I couldn’t see him from his resting mound and only found out about his existence when my owner retrieved him. She gutted him for the batteries that resided in me. I remember her scoffing at the soft cylindrical flesh pale with dust. “Auck so gross,” she had said to his lifeless corps. She made to toss him but hesitated, not wanting the remains to be discovered. We are shameful things to owners, even in death.

I attempted to tamp down that fateful day unsuccessfully repressing it as I had been able to in the years of servitude to my lovely owner. Anxiety filled me as the lights went out and noises escalated above. The pair making jarring movements that rained more dust down on me. It would be over in less than a minute I knew, so I reassured myself that she would retrieve me before the ick of my surroundings could permanently stick.

With a groan and a creaking of tired springs the husband rolled to his side of the bed. The rhythmic thudding dyeing as abruptly as an aneurism, just as I had forecasted. Hope filled me as I sensed my owners need in the ensuing silence.

Seconds turned into minutes as time ticked by while my owner waited for her husband to drift off. Neither me nor she dared to breath as we willed her husband to sleep. Finally, at a moment where we both feared entering our own twilights, the sawing bleats of her husband’s snores serenaded us. I echoed her relieved exhalation of breath.

My owner dared to move. The traitorous bed croaked my owners intentions as she attempted to rollover the side and rescue me. The merciful snores ceased! More creeks and clanks ensued as the husband tossed a possessive arm over his wife. He drew her in close but did not fall into the rhythmic breathing of deep sleep again.

We waited with bated breath. This time minutes turned into an hour before I heard the snores again. It wasn’t just his snores this time, though. Her’s pinged out of rhythm with his letting me know that I was lost for the night.

My batteries drained.

The night then. Just the night I told myself. She would surely rescue me in the morning.

Mmmm but alas…they forgot to set an alarm!

Pandemonium erupted well past dawn as the two scrambled out of bed and danced through an abbreviated version of their morning routine. My presence no longer needed and unnecessary for the day ahead made me forgotten. Worry set in me as the door slammed, filling the house with inert quiet.

Later this evening I told myself. I knew full well her pleasures had been thwarted twice last night. She could not resist. I just had to be patient and will away the looming dust bunnies.

Arriving home my owner did not enter the bedroom. Instead, smells of garlic, onion and other spices wafted in through the cracks at the door, as she prepared dinner. I felt an unnerving worry growing as she continued her usual weeknight routine, a routine I was not often a part of. In her busy life the needs of others were her main priority. It was something I loved about her and used the knowledge to help me block out the horrors before my first animation. Now it only aided my fears.

My batteries sank lower, and all my hopes dimmed as reality set in. My wonderful services were not vital, and my existence was a shame, so there I would remain. The dust bunnies crawled over me and poured into my sticky cracks, thriving in this forgotten place.