Ceramic Bears and Orphan Toys

There is a collection of ceramic bears sitting on the top shelf of my wooden bookcase from an era in my life I do not want to remember. Often, I think about bundling them up in a pretty little bag and donating them to the childrens hospital, but I never seem to find the time. So, they continue to sit on the shelf, staring at me through their evil little eyes. Haunting me.

Not all the ceramic bears are evil... there are some good innocent ones, like the girl bear in a frilly blue frock riding a white rocking horse and the boy bear holding a pink balloon sitting on top of a heart cushion which is really a box in disguise, but it has been so long that I have trouble telling most of them apart.

There are other things too. A fawn and a brown lion-dog and a ginger cat who meows and purrs if you push his stomach in, who sit among my party of stuffed toys like orphans and occasionally ask me why I have pushed away any and all memories I might have associated with them, making me wonder if I should have those memories, regardless of the abhorrence they may procure.

And then, there is little gray Totoro, who reassuringly vibrates in my hand holding his little tree branch, who tells me not to worry and that everything is okay, that the only memories that count are those of today when I am happy and unbroken and wanting to live.

I had my first paper yesterday. At the time, I had thought that it was a not so bad paper, but now I am not too sure. I am trying not to have any expectations, but I can not help but feel a little sad. I wanted to do well. I didn't go to lectures. I didn't study. I spent two days before the exam learning the work of an entire semester. And now, I will have to deal with the consequence of accepting a result which is a lot less than what I am capable of. A lot less than what I wanted to achieve.

After, we drove to the batch and enjoyed the luxury of being together without having to worry about anything and anyone. We made tired love and caught up on missed sleep, and lying in his arms with my eyes closed I was able to lose myself and forget everything.

It is where I want to be all the time: away from the evil eyes of ceramic bears and the pleading questions of orphan toys, from the pain of the realisation that the presence that roams the house, once my sister, has now become a ghost in my mind, from the constant reminders of the mistakes I made that incurably broke the hearts of some, and from the harsh winds and the cold rains that make my nose bleed when I wake up in the morning.

My next exam is on Saturday. I need 87-95% in the paper to get the mark I want. Today is my father's 50th birthday. I will be stuffing myself with food, and eating mud cake with chocolate icing decorated with white chocolate flakes, and not studying.

I gave him an exciting looking e-commerce book we bought from the bookstore after we got back into the city yesterday. There was a one hour parking mission delay, during which we witnessed a red GTO try and squeeze into a park that a Mini had just pulled out of. Unsucessfully. He drove off after the forth try, leaving me with a feeling of triumph on the Mini's part... did he really think he could fit in a Mini's park?

The bookstore has new opening hours, to midnight everyday (except Sunday). The cafeteria was full of people sitting on their cushiony pseudo-couches, lazily drinking coffee, engrossed in the books they held. Nevermind the rest of the world. I think I will want to do this sometimes. We looked at many e-commerce books, and tried to choose the right one (which turned out, not surprisingly, to be the one with the shiny cover) and I bought myself a Perl book, that I am very excited about.

Now, there are red onions, and a salad to be made. Later, there will be a troubled friend to make realise that the world does not make sense, no matter how much you try and understand it, and Boy with a video that we can all watch in a pile of giant cushions, and, for a couple of hours, pretend that we have no problems.

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