The Toy Makers
Kids or no kids — he has already made up his mind in his elusive wisdom. He’s not fond of them. They come as the spring storms in hurry, and leave destruction behind. They have brains that work just the opposite of his. They have racing minds that are normally fifty years apart from Alex’s; but the feelings come with the territory, if they should be asked. They feed on chaos. Alex has a mind that flourishes only in silence
“Alex frets kids,” says his new girlfriend of six months Edna.
“No. I fret disorder they bring!” he defends himself.
He knows that they are both right. The right could be a personal thing, created by the personal experiences in the personal time zone. He is a child fretter, by his own definition. He frets their small, almost undeveloped hands, which are constantly in search of something new to touch. He is afraid of the cuts and bruises they cause to themselves and others. He is afraid of their high pitched shrieks invading his eardrums. The unbalances of their small bodies frighten him. They sway and trip over a straw, a hair strand on the floor, a breadcrumb, a shadow of a flying bird in the window…
They, – thinks Alex, never walk normally, but just run, and run to no exhaustion; when they try to walk they exhibit all that is needed to describe a wobbly walking. They are tortures of their shoes and sandals. If those types of footwear could run on their own – they would run away from them! They would probably end up in the attics of the houses and the buildings where one must crawl to reach them. Nobody would enjoy that; but maybe the children themselves being “hired” by the adults to hunt those hiding shoes and sandals — leaving the little “hunters” right by the attic’s opening. After that, the children’s instinct would take over in creating yet another, — torturing adventure of the ‘lost’ shoes and sandals. Alex is ‘watching’ those kids, as if they were in the circus of walking (and falling down). Some of them walk sideways; because they cannot keep their bodies forward, some of them run at the straight line forward carried by their own body weight, as the small bulls in the miniature arenas; watch out, stay away or they’ll knock you down as if you were the pins in the balling alley meeting the balling ball. Some of them hop as the Easter live bunnies looking for admiration in their parents’ eyes — and always finding it in there.
Some of them have fun running backwards, at first, always breathless when landing down on their tusshies. They smile afterwards, giggle to no limit as well oiled wound up mechanical toys. Then, in an instant they’ll switch to a long cry as if someone punished them for their bad performance, when in fact no human hand touched them causing their bad balance, only the human eyes watched them in amusement from a safe distance.
Of course – once they fall down either the mother or the father or one of the grandparents will hover over them as an eagle above the pine forest…their eyes will get bloodshot from the strain.
“I know Edna; I’ll have a miserable time these few incoming days…” Alex squeezed the words out of his half-closed mouth as if afraid of Edna’s reaction.
Edna just came out of the memory hotel where her all memories have been stored, concerning her grandchildren. All the two of them. Mentally, she was doing a memory run. In this moment, her mind was on her grandson Curly, and her granddaughter Chubby. Edna was of the opinion that the physical appearances should be the basis for the real names that parents and grandparents should name the children after. The only trouble was/is: nobody is patient enough to wait till these rascals start walking and developing their bodies into small people. So – her grandson Luke in her eyes was Curly because of his curly hair; and her granddaughter Irma was her “chub-chub”/Chubby, because she was on chub-chub side. The names she didn’t form intellectually, but more instinctively, visually which it gave more credence to her name picking.
“Oh, the kids are pure fun!” said Edna.
Alex’s body stiffened at the thought of not being able to be just an observer of all those predictable actions of those two Edna’s grandchildren; but – rather being a security guard, in his own house guarding those two human dynamos that will exhaust his positive energy, and his role of the polite and patient host. They’ll turn him into a mental recluse.
As the time started passing in quick runs, his train of thoughts couldn’t outrun his fears of those two children, which will wreck his peace, his house from the second floor to the basement.
Now- he was looking at the glow of the street lamp across the street from his house, enjoying the peace and tranquility in the front of his bedroom window upstairs, as long as his tired eyes will allow him. He knew that this wasn’t going to last for much longer sensing the kids’ terror in the back of his mind.
Edna in her dream, was running on the track of time to meet her grandchildren; fuzzy with sleep, and mercifully absent from the Alex’s fear over – almost there – the kids’ hormone-induced destruction of their house.
ALEX was sitting at his computer desk when the bell rang in four long, sloppy buzzes.
Nobody rings like that, he thought to himself; not even the new mailman when the Doberman pinscher – up the block, chases him down towards their house.
“It’s got to be them!” whispered Edna, inhaling all those seconds left before than she grabs the doorknob.
Something burst in with a loud pop! Alex heard it. It was Curly with a chewing gum in his mouth making loud pops as the air gun hidden under the coat, going off. Chubby was slowly following in after him, with the tip of her security blanket tucked in her left nostril. Her eyes were jumpy with curiosity.
Alex quickly ran his slender fingers through his ash-gray hair twice glancing at the ceiling. It was light gray the last time when he painted it, this time was all white. He felt that special untouched moment, when peace and security get crazy entangled and disappear in the children uproar. Curly was already playing with the computer mouse. Chubby started opening the drawers, first on the kitchen cabinets and then switched to the file cabinet. Their busy eyes bypassed both Edna and Alex. It was only the beginning of their touching/grabbing/wrecking habit.
Alex gave Edna a petty look of defeat:
Oh my, these kids are nothing but toy makers! Whatever they see and touch it turns into a toy! Then he turned to Edna’s son and daughter-in-law:
“Welcome to the toy factory folks, the tour is free of charge. Enjoy!
X
AFTER a long pause, he warned his mouth in silence of his brain thinking:
Calm down, don’t be so anxious, we might cause the family civil war and that is not a good thing for the healthy toy-factory future, especially when the solitude takes over and starts biting everything in its way as a hungry chicken picking the corn off the ground, suspecting that tomorrow might miss its delivery!
In other words, Alex was being scared for the future that nobody would be visiting when he would like visitors, afraid of silence and solitude resonating off the empty walls around him. That would hurt him more than the chaos the visitors: Curly and Chubby with others, bring with them in the present!
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