The Catharsis

Chapter 13 - In My Mind

Stuffed

By Amethyst Turner

Take me down to the taxidermist

Fill me with feathers and fluff

Pack in the dead material

Until I'm entirely stuffed

XXX

For her third birthday, Daddy had gotten her two presents: a tiny stuffed bear and a package full of books.

The little bear's name was Brandon. He was Molly and Scrubbles' baby. Amethyst had a wedding for the two bears, and invited Daddy to come, but he was too busy.

Brandon was half Molly's size, small enough that if Aimee squeezed him in her palm, her fingers went all the way around his waist. He was pale with a pinkish tint and a silky white ribbon around him neck.

But the books were even more exciting.

Mama had read her lots of books, during their summers together. Books about animals and little girls and families and whimsical lands full of creatures that didn't really exist. Some of them were small books with a few words and a picture on each page. Others were thick with blocks of letters that Mama unraveled into stories.

The books her father gave her were a mixture of the two. Most of them had big letters across their pages, but lots of them. They had colorful pictures and short words that she recognized.

Her favorite one was "Alice in Wonderland". Daddy said that the original was much longer, but Aimee liked her version. She liked the Mad Hatter best of all. When Daddy read the tea party scene with a loopy voice for the Hatter, she could never stop giggling.

There was "Peter Pan" as well. Brandon liked pretending to fly the way the Lost Boys and Peter did. Amethyst would pick him up and throw him up in the air, reaching her palm up to catch him when he came back down.

And she was happy with these new toys for awhile. They kept her entertained, occupied enough that she left the glass shard tucked away in Scrubbles' bow and forgot about it. That she didn't sit at the base of the stairs for hours, debating whether or not it was worth it to go up. It never was.

But soon enough, the loneliness kicked in again. In February, Daddy started working longer hours. He said he'd been 'laid off' and had a new job now. For the new job, he had to get up even earlier, when Aimee was still asleep. He got home at night just when she was starting to get tired.

When she ran to greet him in the evening, though, he no longer talked to her or played with her or read to her. Instead, he'd close the door behind him and say, "Not now," or just, "Get dressed for bed."

Today was, according to Daddy, Valentine's Day. A holiday when everybody showed their friends and family how much they loved them. He'd woken her up early to say goodbye and "I love you".

I love you, Scrubbles said, patting Molly's creamy paw with his scratchy one. She gave him a kiss on his silky thread nose.

Amethyst tried to remember if she'd ever heard her parents say that they loved each other. Surely they did. Why would they have gotten married, otherwise?

She made a mental list of all the people she loved. Scrubbles and Molly, definitely, and Brandon. Daddy, Mama, Toto . . .

Did she love Mommy? Aimee frowned to herself, trying to decide. Mommy certainly didn't love her, or at least, she didn't act like it. What was it Mama had said? When you love someone, you would do anything for them . . . Amethyst didn't think she would do anything for Mommy.

But she couldn't dismiss the thought. Daughters were supposed to love their Mommies, weren't they?

Then again, when had her life ever turned out the way it was supposed to?

XXX

Amanda absolutely hated her job.

Hallmark had seemed like a dream job, after KFC and Burger King. But it hadn't turned out quite as great as she'd imagined.

For one, her manager happened to be her mother's ex boyfriend. She couldn't imagine a more awkward situation. For another, the entire store smelled like candles and soap all the time. Christmas, Easter, Valentine's day - -it didn't matter. All those damn candles smelled exactly the same.

The only part of her job Amanda didn't mind so much was helping the customers. She'd entertain herself by making up stories for them when they walked in the door, and then asking them about themselves to see if she'd been right.

Today, Valentine's day, was shamefully busy at Hallmark -- the store was a continuous stream of forgetful people who needed flowers for their wife or a candle for their mom or a box of chocolates for their girlfriends. Amanda didn't find it surprising that almost all of these people were men.

It had been quiet for a few minutes when a man in a beige uniform walked in, carrying a construction hat in one paw of a hand. His body was thick and muscled, and his eyes carried the red glossiness of an alcoholic.

Amanda set herself to spinning a yarn for him. He was a young man, maybe around twenty five, who'd dropped out of college to take care of his terminally ill father. When he'd died, the man had sunken into the pinching claws of addiction, and couldn't go back to school because of it. Instead, he'd married his highschool sweetheart, but his marriage was falling apart. He was here at Hallmark today to buy her flowers and hope she didn't realize he'd forgotten about Valentine's Day.

She smiled at him when he walked by. "Happy Valentine's Day."

He grunted. "Yeah, you too."

He didn't head for the flowers. Instead, he turned into the little alcove where they kept the seasonal trinkets. This month, it was was Valentine's themed stuffed animals, Beanie babies mostly. Amanda tilted her head to the side. Maybe his wife liked stuffed animals. Or maybe she was just wrong.

Boredom and curiosity got the best of her. Taking a couple stuffed animals someone had returned earlier that day with her, she walked over and pretended to be putting them away.

"Who are you shopping for?" She asked in a tone of vague interest.

The man looked up from the heart patterned bear he was holding. "Hm? Oh, just my daughter. She loves stuffed animals."

Oh, so he had a daughter, then. That made sense. "How old is she?"

"Three."

Amanda tried to keep smiling. Three. That was a good age.

At twenty six, now, Amanda was beginning to fear what her friends had said all along: she was going to end up an old, childless, husbandless spinster, still trying to climb the corporate ladder at age sixty with nothing else to live for except hallmark and maybe the neighborhood cats.

People came into Hallmark with their kids all the time. Usually, it didn't bother her. but today, she was suddenly hit with a wave of longing. This man didn't look like a father, did he? But he was, and he seemed to love his daughter. Maybe Amanda could be a mother one day as well.

When the man came to the counter with a little red and pink stuffed dog in his rough, calloused hand, Amanda turned her back to ring up the price and stuck an extra gift for his daughter at the bottom of the bag.

Maybe she didn't have much to live for, but at least this man did.

XXX

 In my mind
When I'm old I am beautiful
Planting tulips and vegetables
Which I will mindfully watch over
Not like me now
I'm so busy with everything
That I don't look at anything
But I'm sure I'll look when I am older
And it's funny how I imagined
That I could be that person now
But that's not what I want
But that's what I wanted
And I'd be giving up somehow
How strange to see
That I don't wanna be the person that I want to be

-In My Mind, Amanda Palmer