• Toys are a wonderous thing. They bring comfort to their owners in their most troublesome times or they bring friendship where there is none, or just a companion when needed, or else a beacon of light to those who are afraid of the dark.

    Unfortunately, however, toys are merely fluff and fur. While their owners can tell them their most deepest and darkest secrets, toys can't confide their secrets or their fears to their owners. They can't complain when a child accidentally tears their eye off, or leaves them mercilessly under the bed with the most monstrous of dust bunnies, or they can't cry when they are sad and lonely.

    People think that because something can't speak or move, that it can't feel, but I can tell you that toys most certainly do have feelings. Their insides may be only stuffing, but that stuffing is filled with the magic of love, and that I can tell you, is the most powerful magic of all. People are always saying so, but I don't think they really believe it.

    But I am not a good judge of people, because I haven't been around the kindest of people myself. Oh, how I wished I could move! If only I could speak..

    How many times my fur has been dampened with tears! How many times have I heard angry shouts and scolding! How many times I wished I could hug my inconsolable owner...

    If I were human, I know just what I would do. Firstly I would put on some clothes, so I wouldn't attract attention to myself. Then I would give my owner a great big hug and tell him that everything would be alright, since that always seems to make people feel better, even if it isn't true. Then I would tell him that I would always be his friend, and share some of my deepest secrets with him. After that, we would play for hours and hours, until we finally collapsed in a heap in his room, too exhausted to move, until the servant came to put us to bed.

    Yes.. I think it would be wonderful to be human. But I'm not human, and I never will be. I'm only fluff and fur, and forever will be. No one will ever know my secret desires, no one will ever know my hopes or my dreams.. No one will ever know what I'm thinking or feeling. No one will ever know my one great wish.

    Even though I can't move or speak, I still can bring comfort. I have no smile sewn on my face to be reassuring, but the soft yellow of my fur, and the steady black of my eyes seems to bring great comfort to my owner. And when I'm not having imaginary adventures in his room, we sit together and he tells me all his fears and his hopes. And I listen with the never ending patience that I have been blessed with.

    As I thought all these things, my owner gave me a gentle hug and then settled down into bed.

    "Ducky-chan," he said as he snuggled us into bed, "Sometimes I wish you could talk.. I always wondered what you'd say."

    So did I.