Jasper

The next story in the Smiling Toy Shop series!

Jasper

 

 

     The headlights of a passing car cast weird, flickering spears of light onto the walls of Smiling Toys, which illuminated all the toys waiting patiently upon shelves for the arrival in the morning of beaming, excited children to, “Rip their arms off!”, thought the only living, breathing toy inside the toy store, Jasper, the Teddy Bear.  He didn’t know why he lived, or how, but Jasper was  alive, for whatever reason.  Maybe he’d belonged to a magician, who’d cast some sort of spell on him, and here he was.  In fact, the more Jasper thought about it, that explanation worked as well as any other, more so even.  He was alive, and he was pissed!  He had to sit here and be fondled and groped by children, like a cantaloupe at the supermarket was by a bored housewife with curlers in her hair.  And, he couldn’t let anyone remember they’d talked to him, either.  Whatever spell the magician had cast on him, or whatever, also allowed him to clean up a mess, be it verbal or physical.  He might be just  a teddy bear, but he wasn’t stupid.  He knew that if he allowed people to remember talking to him, he’d be caged as a freak, in the zoo or something.  “Come see the amazing living teddy bear!”  No way; so he used his power to make it seem like it had all been a dream.  Boy, he sure wished the cigarette dangling from the slash he called a mouth was actually lit.  But actual fire must be kept away from his fur; he only used it as a prop, to back up his self-image, of ‘Jasper, The Tough-A*s Teddy Bear’.   

 

 

     Suddenly, the sound of a key in the front door lock sounded, and Old Man Vesta entered the store.  What the hell is he doing here?  thought Jasper, from where he sat, high on a shelf.  It was the middle of the night.  Then, as Vesta passed the shelf where he sat, frozen, he started whistling.  It was like having an ice pick shoved into your brain to Jasper.  He hated whistling!  Try as he might, he had to say something.

 

     “Hey, cut that whistling s**t!”

 

     Vesta looked around, startled, saw no one, and said, “Who’s there?”

 

     Jasper decided to play dead.  Several silent minutes went by, and apparently Vesta decided he must be hallucinating, because soon he started to whistle again.      

 

     It was more than Jasper could take.  “Shut up, old man!”

 

     Vesta stopped mid-whistle, and said again, “Who said that?”

 

     Now Jasper was pissed.  “I did, pecker wood!” 

 

     Vesta glanced up at the sound of his voice, and exclaimed, “I must be having a bad reaction to my new medication, because I could swear you’re a talking teddy bear!”

 

     “No, you aint having a bad reaction to no new medication; you just pissed me off with that whistling.  I feel better know that you’ve shut your pie hole!”

 

     “But this is just insane; toys aren’t alive!”

 

     “Well, do you see my lips moving?”

 

     “Yes, but...”

 

     “But nothing, Pops, trust your eyes; I’m alive, and I’m talking to you.”

 

     “This can’t be happening!”

 

     “Oh, you can cling to that bulls**t, but it is happening; and what the hell are you doing here in the middle of the night?”

 

     “I, I, I...”

 

     “I, I, I; come on, you can do it; make a coherent sentence!”

 

     “I couldn’t sleep, so I thought I’d come down here and do some paperwork.”

 

     Well s**t, now he’d have to spin his mumbo-jumbo on Vesta so he’d think it was just a dream.

 

 

     

     Mr. Vesta was sound asleep, having one weird-a*s dream, when he was awakened by Sandy, his employee girl who opened the store on weekends, ever since he'd fired Christopher Shendrake. 

 

     “You looked like you were asleep; have any good dreams?”

     “Nope, if I did, I don’t remember it now.”  No way could he tell her he’d dreamed he’d been carrying on a conversation with a teddy bear!

 

      

                                                                   The End