Summary:
An aging and infirm family man feels as useless as an old toy. But even old toys are good for something.

About:
I came up with the idea for this story after I saw a movie last summer. Guess what movie that was?
I printed it out and checked for typos by hand, but there are probably still a lot that I missed. This is short compared to other things I've done. I've partly written a different long story this year too, but that one is Christmas-themed, so I thought I'd save it for later.


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"You can walk on stairs now, so let's go down here. It's hot in here and it's cool down there." Sally pointed at the white cellar door in the kitchen.

"I suppose I can. It'll be the furthest I've gone yet." David undid the safety hook at the top and opened the door, its black spade-shaped hinges whistling briefly. He felt along the wall and found the light switch. He had not seen the basement in over a year, but it looked the same as ever, dustless and neat, with old furniture and shelves with boxes lining the walls. He tucked his cane under his arm. "Go on ahead, Sally. It's going to take me a while to get down."

"I know, daddy." She ran down the wooden stairs and around the corner, behind the bottom of the stairs, which were at the center.

He gripped a handrail with his good side, and carefully moved one leg after another, his better one down first, and then his not-as-good one after it. The stairs were the very plain open-riser wooden type, so he had to be take care with his footing. He sighed aloud. "I guess this is another thing add to my list of little accomplishments."

Sally didn't reply, but he didn't expect her to. He could hear her opening boxes and plastic containers, looking for interesting stuff. The floor was clean concrete with throw rugs and carpet remnants laid here and there; clear of dirt and clutter, although Sally was changing that. "Sally, be careful not to break anything." As he turned the corner, he could already see some boxes of shoes and clothes and old electronics had been opened and rifled through.

"I know, daddy." Most of the unsafe things were already put on high shelves out of her reach thanks to her mother's foresight when they moved into the house. But if Sally moved a box that sounded like glass, she didn't open it-- it probably didn't have anything fun inside anyway.

He poked at a box containing his Apple IIe with his cane. "This Apple was my first computer. I should take it out sometime and show you it. I still have a lot of games for it."

"Oh. OK." She didn't stop looking through stuff to look.

David smiled. "Maybe some other day, then."

She found an old cardboard box that was large but somewhat light, and slid it off the shelf, onto the floor. The blue ink printed on the outside of it showed an old Zenith TV set, with dials and a rounded-edge screen. David remembered that TV well, and it had worked for over 25 years, but Sally had probably never seen anything like it in her life. It even said that is was in COLOR in big stylized letters.

She didn't notice the outside, and just opened it. "Oh, look daddy, toys!" A few stuffed toys were visible at the top.

"Oh, these." He sounded surprised to see them, having not even thought of them in many years. "I almost forgot I still had these." Looking down at their faces, he suddenly felt bad about saying that he had forgotten them, and added, "It's just been so long."

She pushed the box over on its side and a few of them fell out; the rest had been crammed in there for so long there were practically wedged together. As she pulled them out, they came free and slid out over the floor: A stuffed donkey, a wind-up plastic and metal robot, a knight doll in grey felt armor, a stuffed monkey, a plastic airplane, several plastic dinosaurs, three painted wooden race cars, and a long green and black stuffed snake.

"Can I play with them?"

"Of course you can honey." He picked up the knight. He was blond with a boyish face painted or printed on white cloth, but also had a beard with a simple black line smile. "My aunt gave me this. This guy used to go on adventures in my backyard, and at night, scared away bad dreams."

If Sally were a little older, she'd probably ask what his aunt was like, and he would've told her all about her, but she was too young to be concerned about that. She just wanted to play.

"OK. What can we do with him?" she asked.

He looked at its right hand, and noticed a loose empty thread in the middle of its palm. "He used to have a sword." Somehow, he knew it wasn't in the box, remembering that it had disappeared long before he was put in the box. "It's all right, though." He picked up a piece of newspaper padding from another box and folded and twisted it into a soft stick. "This can be a sword."

David sat on the carpeted floor in front of an old grey loveseat, holding it to lower himself down slowly. They played with them all for quite a while, taking them and making characters out of them. The story wasn't linear and changed abruptly whenever Sally wanted, but none of it needed to make sense. He had different voices for each one he had, and she loved listening to him bring them to life.

Eventually she put the wooden cars in the in the long level areas where there was no carpet, like a track. Their wheels still ran perfectly smooth, and they made the same sound they did in David’s driveway when he was a kid. It was a distinctive sound he hadn’t heard in ages.

Sandy called from the top of the stairs. "It's time for Sally to have a bath and go to bed. What're you doing down there?"

"Just playing." Sally answered.

David looked over at a digital clock plugged in on the other side of the room, and saw that it was almost 10 o'clock, and they had been down there around two hours. That was a long time for keeping Sally occupied with just one thing.

Sandy came downstairs to see the basement in some disarray and her husband and child surrounded by a menagerie of old toys she didn't recognize. "Were these yours?" She assumed that they were, but had to ask. She was over twenty years younger than him and didn't have any brothers. She didn't grow up with toys like those. She had played with girls’ toys like Barbies, and looked like it too: blond and pretty, but not deathly thin.

"Yeah," he smiled. "I don't think you've ever seen them. I just put them in a box a long time ago and moved the box when we moved over here."

"I think I left all mine at my parents' house. Mom and dad take them out for the grandkids to play with."

Sandy watched one of the little cars keep going until it hit the gray concrete wall at the other end of the house, and she became concerned for their paint, which might get chipped-- and may-or-may-not be lead paint. "Sally, you have to be careful when you play with these because they're old and delicate."

Sally deadpanned. "Just like daddy."

David felt a brief squeeze of sadness in his heart, but not from offense. He just ignored it.

"Don't say that about your father!" her mother scolded her. "He's still getting stronger. And he's not that old." She couldn't flat-out say that he wasn't delicate.

David exhaled, "I'm not that young either." That was just the problem: He wasn't that old. He wasn't old enough to have a stroke. But he had had one.

"I didn't say anything mean," Sally denied. She went over to him and hugged him gently as if to prove it and get out of trouble. "I love my daddy," she added matter-of-factly.

David smiled. "Aw, I love you too, honey. It's OK." He hugged her with his good arm. His daughter was five, but he knew she was too smart not to know that her daddy wasn't going to get much better. It was sad, but he was happy that she was aware, that he wouldn't have to sit her down and try to explain things to her, that even she could tell another stroke would someday come, despite their avoidance of the subject.

Her mother was satisfied. "All right. Now go on upstairs and pick out which nighty you want. I'll be up to give you a bath in a minute."

"OK," she said, and up she went.

David breathed deeply as he gripped the cushion of the loveseat behind him and tried to lift himself. "Getting up might take a while." He was clearly struggling with it.

"Here." Taking his hands, she helped pull him up to his feet, and then bent over to get his cane.

He looked down at the toys surrounding them on the floor. "She's right. I am just like them."

"Don't say that." She took his dead hand and squeezed it gently. "We love you."

He still looked down at them. "Well I loved them too, but eventually there wasn't a place for them anymore."

Sandy wasn't taken to empty platitudes either. She exhaled sadly, and kissed him on the cheek. His baggy blue eyes looked at her face, and she smiled a little. "Well... you've still kept them all these years, haven't you?"

"But I don't know how they feel about it. They can't speak."

Her face tightened into a weak frown.

"I didn't mean it that way. I know you’re scared that that could happen." Yet he wasn't sorry that he said it. He put his good arm around her, and his brow creased up with concern. "I trust you to speak for me if I ever couldn't." He kissed her forehead. "I would be all right with staying in a box in your basement if that's what you need to do. It's tough for you, so don't worry about what I want or don’t want." A box in a basement was a handy metaphor for being put in a nursing home, and the idea of being kept down here frankly scared him less.

She looked away. "Yes, I know. And it might not ever come to that, you don't know." Then she looked him in the eye. "But of course I care about what you want. You're my husband, not an old toy." She hugged him and rubbed his half-bald, close-cut head.

He smiled his crooked smile, "Maybe not, but I certainly wasn't 'NIB' when you got me."

She smiled. "I just couldn't pass up deal like that." They let each other go. "Sally's waiting. Or making a mess of her closet."

"I know." He watched her turn and go up the basement stairs. When he heard her going up the hallway stairs to Sally's bedroom, said quietly to himself, "But this at fifty-seven is too early to call it good deal." He looked down at the toys again. "At least you guys were built to last."

He started his long ascent up the stairs, and left the toys as they were. He could have Sally help him pick them up tomorrow.

***

Much later that night, sometime after 1am, David woke up and couldn't get to sleep again. No matter what position he took, he couldn't get comfortable. He didn't ache, but his body somehow didn't feel right. He felt hot, and his skin was clammy, even if he wasn't wearing anything but navy blue boxer shorts. The house had central air and usually it worked well, but there was a heat wave this week, and it couldn't keep up with it. At least it was nothing like how it was when he was a kid and nobody seemed to have air conditioning. He tried to convince himself that he was just spoiled, tried to think positively with memories of The Bad Old Days.

It was still too warm. After about an hour, he gave up and decided to go downstairs. He got his cane hanging on the bedpost, and slowly slid himself off the bed and onto his feet.

Sandy woke up as he did.

"I'm going downstairs," he told her. "I can't sleep. I think I'll try the chair again."

"Do you want me to go with you?" Earlier in his recovery, he had been sleeping and practically living in the living room, being unable to get upstairs to his own bedroom. He slept in a reclining La-Z-Boy chair which was easy to get into and out of, and Sandy always slept on the couch near him when he did, even though it was far less comfortable than her bed.

"No, no, you stay here. It's just the heat. It's too hot for me up here tonight."

"I think it's just fine." She was under a sheet and was dressed more than he was, in a white silk nighty that resembled a dress slip.

"Well that's just because you're a woman." He smiled at her as he started to leave, and she could see it in the dim orange street light that penetrated the window blinds."Good night, Sandy."

"Good night, David." She turned over.

He went downstairs and used the half-bathroom by the kitchen. When he was finished, he didn't feel like going to the living room, even if he was tired. His body still felt uncomfortable to be in, and he was in no hurry to lie there awake for another hour. His head was starting to hurt, like a small vice that squeezed with his heartbeat. Figuring that it was probably cooler in the basement, the door, turned on the lights, and carefully made his way down.

It was considerably cooler down there than anywhere in the house, and he walked around for a bit. The floor felt pleasantly cold under his bare feet, even where the carpets were. He looked at some of the boxes Sally had opened earlier, noticing that although Sandy did have some things, they were mostly his. After all, he had had much more time to acquire stuff, and things Sandy liked were women's things that could be kept upstairs, such as clothes, shoes, and china: things that belonged in a home. His things were men's things that belonged in basements and garages, like old computers, tools, magazines, A/V equipment, and etcetera.

When he got to the loveseat and his old toys, still on the floor where they had left them, he felt sad and a little ashamed, even if they were just toys. The place on the floor where he had been sitting that evening was still clear, and his head was starting to hurt more. Thinking that it would be cooler close to the floor, he lowered himself down and sat there, his legs stretched out in front of him and his back resting against the front of the loveseat. It did feel better, especially on his legs. He put his cane on one of the arms of the loveseat, out of the way.

Some of the toys were within his reach, and he picked them up and looked them over, trying to remember what it had been like playing with them when he was young. He got the donkey, the monkey, one of the cars, a couple dinosaurs, and put them in a little group next to him after he examined each one. For just a moment he was able to grasp the feeling of being six again, but as soon as he tried to think of it more, it was gone.

The Knight was lying a bit further away and he thought he might be able to reach him with his cane. He reached up to get it with his good hand, but wasn't looking when he did. He bumped it with his fingers and the cane rolled off the arm of the loveseat, falling to the floor between the seat and the shelves, out of his grasp. If his dead arm could move right, it could get it, but if his side wasn’t paralyzed, he wouldn't need the cane anyway. He smiled a painful ironic smile. "Damn it." He felt too tired and weak to crawl over and get it, and it was going to be hard to get up without it.

He didn't even considering calling to Sandy for help; he simply should've been more careful, and there was no good reason to wake her up. He was just going to have to sleep there, and tell her that he'd meant to. She wouldn't complain if he did wake her, but it would make her worry. She hardly ever complained about anything, but he knew it was difficult for her to work full time, raise a child, and look after her helpless infirm husband. He still had money and they thankfully weren't destitute by any means, but it was still hard. If it got worse, it couldn't go on like this. She loved him, but he didn't want to give her any reasons not to. Yet self-pity wouldn't help her either. He felt trapped, literally and figuratively. His head was starting to hurt more, and he could feel it in his neck.

He sighed and looked at the toys around him, at their familiar unchanging faces. Quietly, he spoke to them, "I guess now I know what it's like to be you. Even if they do love me, they can't take care of me if I get worse, and in who knows how long, maybe I'll be put away in a nursing home, just like you've been put away down here." He shut his eyes and shook his head. "I hope it doesn't turn you bitter." He rubbed his aching forehead. "No. Actually I don't know what it's like to be you," He corrected himself. "Do you hate me?"

They couldn't answer, of course.

"I don't know if I hate me or not. I think I might." The words took some effort to get out, and his jaws felt heavy. He looked around and noticed that his vision was getting blurry. Blinking didn't improve it, like it would if he were only tired. He tried to talk again, and found that his speech was not any better either. "Awwh naww." The pain in his head increased, and fear gripped his chest and stomach.

He tried to turn to look at a digital clock plugged in at the end the room, but found that he could not turn his head or lift his right arm, which was now as dead as his left. He tried to cry out for Sandy, but could manage nothing more than a weak moan, his jaws and tongue unable to respond to his commands. This time, he knew what was happening. But just like the first time, he couldn't do anything about it. Panic and helplessness seized his mind, and he scolded himself. If he hadn't come down here, maybe Sandy could've called for help, and he'd be with her. And yet, he didn't want to be anywhere near her like this. He didn't want her to see anything like this again.

His vision blurred more, and he prayed quickly and desperately. God no. God please help me. Lord Jesus God, please. I love my family. Don't take me away. I want to be with them. I'm sorry.

Suddenly he heard a mature but youthful voice calling his name. He couldn't recognize it, but it seemed familiar.

"...David! David!"

He tried to focus on it, and the more closely he listened, the easier it became.

"David, listen to me."

The throbbing in his head subsided, his limbs felt lighter, and as he blinked his eyes, the room came into focus again. Yet there was no one there. "Who's there?" he asked. His nerves still tingled with fear, certain that he could fall ill again at any moment.

"Right here." The voice said again. "Down here."

He looked at the floor around him and gasped. His old toys were all upright and looking right at him. The Knight was now closest to him, standing upright. It was The Knight who had spoken to him, since that was the voice he had imagined for him as a child. David shook. "What're you doing?" He was frightened not only by the sight of his toys seemingly come to life, but also by what they might want. After all, he had left them in a box for years and years.

"We're going to help you."

"Help me? How? How did--" He suddenly realized that he might be hallucinating, and that if he was still capable of lucid thought, he would need to use it before it was too late. He owed it to Sandy to be responsible and try as hard has he could to get help now.

He got up swiftly, careful not to step on the toys, as it was rude to ignore someone talking to you even if they might not be real, and jogged around the corner to the stairs. The door was shut at the top, but he didn't remember having shut it before. He dashed to the top and grabbed its handle, but it wouldn't open. His hands banged on the door, but it didn't resonate like a wooden door normally would, and the hinges didn't move or creak either. It felt like a wooden door cemented to concrete. He yelled as loudly as he could. "Sandy!? Sandy! Help! I'm--" his voice softened. "I'm..."

He was fine. He had been able to almost run all the way up the stairs. Both of his arms and legs were quite mobile, just as they had been when he was healthy. He was amazed, but it did nothing to alleviate his fears. It was too strange. Surely she must've heard him by now. He called out again, "Sandy, please!"

As he beat his arms against the door again he noticed something on his arms, and in the light of the bulb on the stairs, he took a closer look. There were large blotchy spots of fine green fuzz on his forearms, as if someone had put glue on them and sprinkled puréed felt fibers on it. He tried to rub it off, but it was stuck, even after he spat on his arms and tried to clean a spot.

"You can't get out of this room. And she can't hear you. I'm sorry," the Knight said. David looked down and saw all the toys gathered near the foot of the stairs.

"What're you doing to me?" he demanded as he came down the stairs. "Why can't I get out of here?" They moved out of his way when he reached the floor.

The donkey looked concerned and bowed her head. "We don't mean to frighten you. We're only trying to help."

Consciously aware that it was against his better judgment, he just chose to believe them. Nothing else was making sense anyway. "Help me? So... you're not mad that I left you in that box?"

"No, we're not mad," the Knight said. "We're toys. We understand that we can't be played with forever."

"You've been very good to us, David." the monkey added.

Logical thinking was still paramount for him, despite what he was seeing. "If you all can talk, why have you never spoken to me before?"

"We normally don't do it at all. It's just not something that we do."

"Then why are you now?"

"Because we can... at a time like this."

"At a time like what?" He noticed that all of the toys with faces looked sad, even the ones that didn't always look that way. He noticed finally that it was completely silent. Even the usual ambient noise of the house was gone. He looked up at a vent in one of the large metal HVAC tubes in the ceiling, and noticed a cobweb that was sticking out at an impossibly straight angle from the edge of the vent. It wasn't hanging, and it wasn't blowing. It was just hanging there like ice. He wasn't sure what to think of it, but instinctively he became afraid. He looked at the digital clock, and saw that it was 2:24am. But hadn't he been here longer than that?

Then he looked around the corner and felt a stab in his chest and a jolt as he looked by the loveseat and saw his own body. Realizing now what was happening he rushed over and knelt next to himself, grabbing his shoulders, shaking himself. "David! David, wake up! You're just having a nightmare!" Even his body didn't seem to believe that; it didn't respond, but breathed weakly. "Get up! You've got to get up!" He rested his head against his chest, and heard no heartbeat. "You can't go yet." He corrected himself. "I can't go yet... please."

"You have to. But you don't have to," the snake said paradoxically. "We're going to help you."

David was now truly panicked. "How? Can you help me wake him up? Help me wake up!" His voice began to crack. "I won't be the same if I live, but I don't care. I don't care if they put me away and never visit me. I want to be with them somehow!" He finally started to cry and sobbed, "Sandy, I'm sorry!"

The toys came closer to him. The robot toy said in a classically robotic voice, "See. You do know what it's like to be us.”

David looked at his arms, and saw that the green fuzz was spreading out and getting thicker, reaching his hands, even. It was moving faster than the last time he noticed it. "What is this?" He felt the fabric with his fingers, and it was a kind of velveteen but with short fibers; there wasn't much plush to the fabric itself.

Compared to his body's hand, his own hand also seemed slightly smaller. He looked at them both closely and it was clearly not just a perspective illusion. "I'm shrinking too?" He stood up just to feel bigger again.

"I know you're afraid, David," The Knight told him. "And I'm here with you, as I always was. You're going to be all right."

"Uh... what?" He looked down at his chest and saw a similar patch of velveteen fabric on his chest, but it was brown. He rubbed it with his fingers, but found that they were becoming stiff and hard to move. He shook his head as the only thing that could explain it felt like a fact. "No, no. Please. I didn't mean this. I want to stay here, but I don't want to be a toy. I just want to wake up.” He was almost pleading. “Please let me wake up."

"There's no going back," the Knight said simply. "There's no waking up now."

David's stomach dropped. He somehow knew that the toys couldn't actually say 'You're dead. You've died.' He knew it was true. Sally's daddy was dead. Sandy's husband was dead. He couldn't be in their lives anymore. He cried more. "Oh, oh, Sandy." The fabric traveled up his arms, and spread out in his chest. A little tingling on his back told him he was growing some there too. Patches of green also appeared on his calves and began to expand. He could tell from his height compared to the cinder blocks of the wall that he was now 2 feet shorter than normal.

He continued to cry as a mixture of sadness and trepidation overcame him. It was bizarre enough to observe and mourn one's own death, but he was not quite dying-- he was changing. He felt the fabric creep up to his face and he felt it with his hands. Underneath it he could feel his facial structure shifting "Oh no." He was literally losing his face. "I won't be me anymore!" He was finally able to articulate what scared him about becoming a toy the most. "Please stop!" he pleaded. "I don't want to become something else. I want to stay me!" It was a frightening prospect: Would he lose his mind? Not be who he was? Would that mean dying inside? Losing his soul? And if he was outside his body, was he a soul? It was hard to even imagine.

"You'll still be you, but you'll be a different you," the snake said paradoxically, again. "You will be OK."

David thought for a moment, and wearily accepted the explanation. After all, the stroke might've taken his mind already, even if he had been able to get to a hospital. It had always been a risk, and he knew too that he had been lucky the first time to have only been paralyzed, his mind spared. Now no stroke could ever take it away. But what would he be left with this time?

His nose sank into his face as his cheeks seemed to expand outwards and reshape, as if his nose was simultaneously getting bigger and disappearing. He felt his head and it was soft, although he could still open his mouth and speak. "Uhm... all right. OK. But I'll miss my face." It was almost funny, but painfully so. He didn’t feel pressured to breathe anymore.

He stopped crying, but still felt troubled. He realized that he couldn't blink and touched his eyes, finding that they had become literally beady-- as beads sewn where his eyes had been. Yet he could still see out of them as he had before. The top of his head had already been fuzzy, with his short hair cut and baldness, but now it just got fuzzier.

He was now less than four feet tall and shrinking still. As he watched the green fabric cover over his fingers, he could see that wasn't growing on his hands, but it was his own skin, morphing in fiber and shape. His fingers became fused together and lost their definition, becoming like thumbless mittens. "Oh." He sounded disappointed. He couldn't even flex them, and they had no joints. It was now becoming evident how much more helpless he was going to become. "Oh, I can't do much with these."

"You don't have to," the Knight reminded him. "You can do anything anyone imagines you can if you're a toy."

A strange chill went down David's spine. It was true: toys become whatever people want them to be. He was to become completely dependent on whoever possessed him, and yet, that prospect didn't seem frightening. The smaller he became, the less interested in independence he felt. What could he do on his own now, anyway? He looked down at his crotch and saw that the fabric had covered over his boxer shorts as if they were his skin, changing along with him.

As he shrank, his body also changed shape, like when you stuff a windbreaker into a small bag and it conforms to the space as you force it into. His feet lost their toes similar to how his fingers had gone, becoming flipper-like. He tried to wriggle them, but there was nothing to wiggle. His chest seemed to develop wide horizontal ribbed stripes and a little bit of the brown fabric puffed out where the two colors bordered near his extremities, like little tight shirt cuffs.

He realized then what he was becoming. "A turtle? I'm going to be a turtle?" He reached behind himself and felt a big soft hump in the middle of his back, like a hunchback but in the center. Out of the corner of his eye he could see it was brown also, but had some sort of marbled design mimicking the sections like one would imagine on a real turtle's shell. He became smaller still, and he felt a dull pressure at the end of his spine as a little tail popped out. He couldn't see it, but he somehow knew that that was what it was.

"You don't like turtles?" the donkey asked.

"Yes I do, but I don't-- well, I guess it's all right," he conceded. "I'm OK with being a turtle." It seemed appropriate for him: Old and slow. He could hardly even stand up anymore-- his legs shortened further, but now were losing their definition, and his knees absorbed into the shortening stumps. He tried to maintain his balance, but soon fell forwards on his belly facing his old body. "Uff!" He tried to get up, but felt so much more comfortable in this position that he knew his efforts were doomed. His couldn't even bend his arms to push himself up, now lacking elbows to do so. He'd never stand up like a man again.

His body felt both heavy and light, and he was sure he was a beanbag toy in the center, while his extremities were filled with soft stuffing. He wasn't sure how he knew; he just felt that way. He looked up at himself, his old body, and realized just how much smaller he was becoming. He was now not even a foot tall, but was about two feet long, and getting smaller.

Seeing himself from the outside, he felt as if he was looking at someone he had never seen before. Conceit was against his attitude, but now that David Estes, the one that everyone else knew, was gone forever, he felt it was all right to admit that he had been, at least, an all right guy. He crawled closer to his hand, and struggled to do so as it was getting very hard for him to move. He had hated his body before, but looking at it now, his feelings of disgust for himself were gone. He had always appreciated his family's love but couldn't see why they did, what Sandy saw in him. The wrinkles in his face, sparse grey hair, the spots and veins on his hands, and his thin, long limbs, seemed suddenly beautiful. It was Sally's dad, and Sandy's husband. A man who was gentle, kind, and strong, in his own way.

He put one fuzzy flipper under the fingers of his hand, and the other stroked them on top. The fingers seemed enormous to him now, and they slowly got larger as he continued to shrink. "I suppose it's all right for me to say that I like you now." he whispered. Pulling himself forward, he touched his lipless mouth to his fingers, kissing his old, lame hand. He leaned his turtle head on top of them, rubbing his soft plushy head against the still-warm knuckles. "I didn't hate you. Not really." It felt like ages since he had ever said anything nice about himself.

Little seams appeared around the edges of his flippers, forming tiny threads, as if he had been sewn together from the beginning. He could hear them coming in all over his body, binding him inside and out. He felt the little threads on his mouth and he almost cried out in surprise, but they pulled his mouth shut before he could. "Ummmph, ump, nnnhh," he moaned in a tiny voice. The other toys didn't say anything, and he didn't hear them moving either. What they had said was true-- they really didn't normally move and talk. They couldn't. His mouth disappeared into the bottom seam of his head, and so did his voice. He tried to lift his head to look at his old face again, but he couldn't move his neck either. He couldn't move at all. He didn't kid himself that he was not at least a little frightened that he was going to remain this way for an indeterminately long time.

He heard his bowels relax, but fortunately he was empty. It was over, and it was just beginning. He was now aware that he could hear the noise of the basement again-- the air, the water heater, and occasional traffic on the street outside. Although his beady eyes did not move themselves, he could still see out of them and even move his gaze as he could before. Comparing himself to his hand, he was about as big as it was; he estimated he was about five inches long and a little over two inches tall at the peak of his shell. I'm so small," he marveled to himself. He felt small too.

The warmth from his hand drained away. His life was over, but he wasn't gone. He was simply here. Dim sunlight eventually appeared in the basement windows and became brighter. David knew that soon he would be hearing Sandy's footsteps coming down the stairs. He didn't dread it. It wasn't that he didn't care how awful it was going to be for her, but the sooner she found out, she sooner she could move on.

***

Eventually he did hear Sandy come down the stairs in a rush, but she stopped for a little while when she got to the bottom. He knew she was afraid to look. It was silent. She was not a hysterical sort of woman, and when she saw him slumped over in front of the loveseat, she didn't know what to do. She walked over to him, and touched his neck with her fingers. He was cold, and his heart wasn't beating. Her hands slapped over her mouth and she let out a high-pitched whine David had never heard before. Then she walked upstairs, shut the door behind her, and he heard her starting the phone calls in the kitchen. Soon after, he heard his daughter in the kitchen. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but he knew from Sandy's serious tone that she wasn't waiting until later to explain. People would be coming to the house to collect him.

The cellar door opened again, and he heard Sandy say, "Are you sure you want to? You can change your mind."

"No, I said I want to," his daughter replied.

"OK, I'm coming with you." They both walked down the stairs slowly. "Remember, when we told you it might happen again? But this isn't like last time. This time, he's not going to ever wake up. Remember the last time he got sick, when I said he might not wake up and we were all really scared? This is what that is."

David didn't want her to see him in his boxer shorts, but he didn't mind her seeing him dead. The looming possibility of death had been present ever since his first stroke. She knew it was there. It was all right for her to see.

"And he's not going to be taken away to live somewhere else?"

Sandy almost sounded relieved. "No, no he's not. He's with God now."

That made David think. Was that true or wasn't it? Could it be both?

The two of them came over and looked, standing a few feet away. They both looked so big to him now, even Sally. He could see the glint of tears in Sandy's eyes, even if they were high above him.

"He was playing before he died?" Sally asked. To a child, it didn’t seem strange at all.

Sandy sniffled. "I don't know. Maybe he was."

She looked down at his lame hand. "Look. It's holding his hand."

David was surprised that they noticed him. He had almost forgotten he was there himself.

Her mother shook her head. "Honey, no, it--" But she looked at it also, and she was right. It did look like that turtle was holding his hand. Its little flippers were on top of and under his fingers. "Well... it sort of does look like it is. He must've been holding it before..." She didn't finish, and wondered to herself why he was playing with his old toys. The turtle might've been one of the last things he ever interacted with. Its little black beady eyes and mouthless face didn't look happy or sad about it. David died with that little turtle, and not her. She wasn't envious. There was no rush to the hospital, no panic, and no waiting for prognoses. Just a man playing with his toys.

"This one wasn't in the box before," Sally observed.

"You're such a smart girl," he silently praised her.

Sandy couldn't remember either way. "Do you want to take it?"

"But it's daddy's."

"It," she stammered. "It's not anymore. Everything he had is yours and mine now."

"He didn't give it to me."

"He can't give us things anymore."

Sally leaned down and picked up the toy turtle. In his daughter's hands, he felt a wave of happiness and sadness. She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly started to cry, loudly, the way that children cry. She hugged her mother's legs, crushing David between the two of them. It didn't hurt. "Daddy!" she cried out.

"I know honey, I know."

"Mommy, I wanna say 'thank-you.'"

"Huh?"

"When someone gives you something you're supposed to say 'thank-you' but I can't because daddy's not here!"

Sandy couldn't think of anything to say for a moment. David was surprised to hear her say that; it wasn't what he expected, and he was touched by her concern and gratitude. Sandy picked her up, and Sally held the turtle close to her chest, upside down. He couldn't see anything but her blue Little Mermaid nightgown.

"How can I say 'thank-you' to daddy?" Sally sobbed.

Sandy hugged her daughter, gasping with tears, and put her head against her chest. David felt her head pushing on him, and smelled her hair. Fully accepting his inability to console her, he neither longed nor wished to speak to her. He could only let her be and listen. He still loved her. But it was different.

Sandy lifted her head and kissed her daughter on the cheek. "Honey, there's a lot of things we're going to want to thank your daddy for. So much."

"But how can we now?"

"We can thank him by never forgetting him and doing things that would make him proud."

David liked that answer. She was always better than him at explaining difficult things to children.

Sandy went to the stairs. "Come on. Let's go get dressed before they get here." She carried her whole family upstairs.

* * *

Some days later, Sally took all of his old toys and put them in her room, in the closet, all by herself. She played with them occasionally because she liked them, especially the dinosaurs. She kept David on her bed, at the foot, and her mother was always careful to put him back when she changed the sheets. Sally played with her turtle sometimes, and when she left him in her dollhouse at night he pretended that he was again a full-size person in a full-sized house. But even he knew it was silly. He was more or less happy being a toy and didn’t miss being a living human the way a living human would miss it.

People he knew came into the house every once in a while, and they usually didn't come into Sally's room so he could only hear their voices. On holidays, there were a lot of them, like his own elderly mother, his younger brother Lucas, nieces and nephews, in laws, and others. He missed everyone, and sometimes he thought about them, but most of the day he stared at the room, thinking of nothing, feeling content.

Her mother would frequently come into the room to clean up or bring in clean clothes or other motherly duties. She looked tired, and he knew it must be hard for her to raise a child alone. He hoped that she would find another man. She was still beautiful. He still loved her. After a long time, David thought he heard a male voice in Sandy's bedroom, but he didn't know who it was. He did not worry and trusted Sandy's judgment; she was too smart to date the wrong man. David didn't judge anyone and hardly even made comments in his mind about anything anyway. He only watched and listened as his daughter got taller.

One morning, Sally jumped off her bed too quickly and he slid off and fell on the floor against the wall. He remained there for a few days. Some shoe boxes were in the way and he couldn't be seen on the other side. He thought she might have forgotten him, but didn't feel upset or betrayed. He was just a little stuffed turtle. However, Sally eventually started looking for him, saying "Where's daddy's turtle?" She sounded upset. She got someone into her room to move her bed for her, and someone reached down and picked him up. It was a big, thick, male hand, and when he got a look at him, it was someone he had never seen before. It was the new boyfriend. He was closer to Sandy's age, and was thick and muscular but not fat, dressed in khakis and a Polo shirt with a handsome bearded face to match. David didn't feel any jealousy whatsoever-- partly because he had just rescued him.

Sally was happy to have her turtle back, but was concerned about all the dust bunnies stuck to him. "Oh, he's all dirty!" She took him and started to rub and blow them off.

"Is this the turtle your mom told me about? The one your dad had?" After being a toy in Sally's room for so long, David thought it felt strange that he was a toy that other people had heard of. Then again, he was found under strange circumstances.

"Yeah." She didn't need to say anything else.

"So this is a very, very special turtle." The man pushed the bed back against the wall again and sat down on it. "I don't really know much about your daddy. Will you tell me about your daddy?"

She nodded, sat down on the bed next to him, and did just that, putting the turtle on the bed between them. She talked about how he liked to play with her, that he was really nice, and she missed him. David didn't feel overwhelmed with emotion much anymore, but he was deeply touched and pleased to hear her speak well of him.

He could see the doorway, and in a few minutes Sandy appeared there. The expression on her face when she saw the two of them sitting there with the turtle was hard for him to look at. For an instant, it seemed like she might cry, but she fought it off and smiled weakly instead. "So you found it?"

"Yes we did," the man said with a smile. "He was under the bed."

"Thank you, Jason." She walked over to him and kissed him on the cheek.

"We’ve been talking about daddy, mommy."

"I know. I heard you." She hugged her.

"Mommy... if Jason came to live with us all the time like daddy did, what would I call him?"

Sandy's face turned red, taken by surprise. A short silence passed.

Jason answered, "Well if we did that, you can call me whatever you want."

Sandy was satisfied with that. "OK. That sounds all right to me. If we do do that."

He smiled at her. "Do you think we might?"

She smiled coyly. "Maybe." She looked at Sally. "Get your shoes on, honey. We're going The Outback for dinner."

David hadn't thought about steak in a long time. Even if he didn't hunger, he did miss The Outback. He hadn't been there since his first stroke, partly because he was too embarrassed with himself to eat in public. If he hadn't been so vain, he could've had just one more good steak. But that's just how it was.

On the way out, Jason picked David up."Let's put him up here so he doesn't get lost again." Jason put him on the highest bookshelf in her room, but near the edge so that he could be seen. For moment David was upset, even saying so in a pouty voice in his mind, "No, not up here!" He was too high up for Sally to reach and she couldn't pick him up or play with him. For a toy, being moved to the shelf was a huge change: he was a "special" toy now, less like a toy and more like a decoration. Yet he also knew it was probably for the best because he wouldn't get lost or damaged, and he could see almost the entire room, even out the window. But he loved being touched and would miss it. She never played with him ever again.

David figured that Sandy and Jason would marry soon, and they did. He even got to watch Sandy try on her wedding dress because the sunlight was brighter in Sally's room in the evenings. Sally called him "dad," but never "daddy." They had another baby too, a son they called James, or Jim. He was happy that Sandy and Sally's family had gotten bigger, just as he had always wanted for them.

Unless he was being dusted, he was never moved from his spot on the shelf the entire time Sally was growing up. He was always looking down on her. She even took him to college, again keeping him on a high shelf. This also meant that he saw much less of Sandy, and he missed her, but he was all right with it. In Sally’s first apartment, he still sat on a bookshelf and watched her. Boyfriends came and went, and eventually one of them stayed and married her. They moved into a place of their own, and she kept him in their living room-- in Sandy's grandmother's china cabinet which she gave away to her, no less. He didn't like being behind a glass window. He couldn't hear or see what was going on nearly as well. Yet he was flattered that Sally still valued him that much; for being a toy, it was an honor.

Predictably, she became pregnant some time later and he watched her stomach get bigger. When the baby was brought home and he saw its mother and father on the couch with it, he realized that he wasn't watching his daughter grow up anymore, but was watching her grow older. He wondered how long he would be watching them.

Either way, he thought, he didn't mind it at all.