Pineapple on Canvas: The Odd Adventures of a Toy in the City

The one where Papple learns about the World outside Bad Bag

The pineapple spent the next few days acclimatizing to his new environment. He quickly learned that although Ella was over often at Maher's apartment, which he dubbed "Maher Place," she actually didn't live with Maher for much of the week. The conversation had gone something along the lines of:

"Why you no here yesterday?"

"Oh, sorry, Papple. I don't live here," explained Ella. "This is Maher's apartment."

"So you no here every day?"

"That's right."

"Where you live? Other Room?"

"No, I live very, very far away. In the downtown area of Manhattan."

"That no in Maher Place?"

"That's right. It's outside Maher's apartment."

"Okay, me understand. You live Not Maher Place," the plush toy replied, narrowing his eyes and nodding his little head up and down in feigned comprehension, the software in his head collecting this information carefully. Papple in fact did not have a clue where Ella lived, but decided not to pursue the topic any further.

The world was very big to Papple, and he had been overwhelmed when he found out that Maher Place consisted of multiple rooms. The primary one was "Room," which was where he and his brown paper bag jail cell had spent, as Papple claimed, three years, but which Maher insisted was at most two years. There was "Other Room," which was the guest room next to Room, as well as Couch Room (the living room), Food Room (the kitchen), Wash Wash Rooms (the bathrooms), and Outside Room, being the deck that Maher and Ella often frequented. Everything beyond that, including where Ella lived, was dubbed "Not Maher Place."

Since Papple had been so used to occupying a very small space, a ten by eight inch brown paper bag, he found Maher Place alarmingly large and it took him several weeks before he was willing to leave Room on his own.

In fact, for several months after having parted ways with Bad Bag, Papple insisted that Maher and Ella close the door to every single room, whether or not they were in it, as he found the large open spaces with the looming open doors to be quite intimidating. He preferred the safety of enclosed spaces.

Papple's living arrangements were made soon after his discovery--it was determined by Ella and Maher that Papple would spend all of his time at Maher's place for several reasons. First, after seeing Papple's intense dislike of open spaces, Ella didn't think it made sense to take Papple outside for fear that it might send his software into overdrive and potentially crash his system. Second, since Maher was home more often than Ella, they both felt it would be good for Papple to have someone to bond with despite his obvious attachment to Ella. More frequent human interaction would help the little toy develop, which was necessary as his learning was already stunted by his undetermined number of years in Bad Bag.

The first night that Ella left them alone together was a milestone for both Maher and for Papple. In fact, they sat silently observing each other for close to fifteen minutes after her departure--Papple trying to register in his software brain the new emotions he saw crossing Maher's face and Maher, it seemed by the quizzical looks on his face, trying to figure out what exactly he was supposed to do with a machine learning stuffed toy...