Slipping into Madness

D-1: Contrariwise

Write a conversation between the most unlikely of companions. Think completely opposite ends of the spectrum and what they could possibly talk about. (<1000 words)

At midnight, the air in the toy box grows starlit and magical. Beorn, the bear, oversees the tangle left over from the day's play from his perch on the rocker. He's the biggest and oldest, with a worn nose and a bit of stuffing oozing from his left foot where the girl drags him around during the day.

As the last stroke of midnight tolls from the grandfather clock, the rocking chair creaks and Beorn looks up with black button eyes. “It was a good day,” he says, and the words are more pronouncement than statement, with all the weight of ten thousand nap time cuddles. He knows what a good day is.

“We had good play and met a new friend. Nothing could have been better.” Beorn shakes his heavy head and then names all the toys who had played so well during the day. Blocks and legos, crayons and coloring pages . . . even Ipad, who Mama always treated as a problematic visitor who must be put on the high shelf except for the fifteen minutes the girl was allowed to explore educational softwhere.

Every toy has their moment of recognition. And then Beorn repeats, “It was a good day.”

The rest of the toys murmur agreement. The girl and baby boy are good children, and while they are sometimes careless, the toys are well looked after.

“A good day? More like a disaster waiting to happen,” tinkles Whirligig, the wind chime in glitter and unicorns and music that was added to the nursery this afternoon. Her voice is music and as sharp and cutting as Beorn's is soft and deeply sleepy. “Did you see them? They nearly hit me when they threw you across the room. I nearly broke!”

Whirligig is a new kind of toy—someone meant to be seen and not touched. Beorn isn't sure how to treat her.The chair creaks faster. “She can't throw me high enough for you to be at risk. Don't be silly.”

The other toys chuckle their agreement.

“You're soft. Next time it'll be a block. Then where will I be?” Whirligig shivers in a jangle of sound.

Across the room, baby boy turns over in his crib.

“Hush,” whispers everyone.

“Don't wake the children,” Beorn says. “They need their sleep.”

In a noticeably quieter voice, she continues, “I'll tell you where. Shattered. In a heap of shards on the ground, caught in their feet. Maybe I'd even get caught in your fur, and then where would you be.”

“You worry too much.”

“You don't worry enough.” She sighs. “I don't think I can handle this. My hooks aren't strong enough to keep me hanging here in constant anxiety. In distress.” She swings in a whisper of sound that makes the girl sit up for a moment before turning her pillow and laying down again.

“Don't!” comes shouting from the toy box, but there's nothing to be done.

In a suicidal rush, Whirligig falls, and in that moment the witching hour is done and the clock strikes one.

In the morning, when the girl and baby boy wake, they see Beorn, lying on the ground near the rocking chair, with Whirligig draped over his soft tummy in crystal silence.

“Pretty,” says baby boy, and he tangles her in his playing with slinky and the giant caterpillar before Mama comes and puts her up on the ceiling hook again, still whole.

Word count: 579

Attempt #1 ▼

There are four of us sitting around the table at the library. Three of us knitting, and Anne crocheting the front of a sweater in blue and white. Anne spots my water bottle and points at it.

“Louise? Your water bottle reminds me of yesterday.”

I look up from my knitting. I'm close to the end of my shawl, so the rows are nearly an hour and a half long now, but that just means I'm ready for a good story. “Yesterday?”

“Yeah. I was at a cafe with Henry, Bridget, and Lucy,” she says, and I just nod because I know that Henry is her husband, Bridget is her daughter, and Lucy is her ten year old granddaughter. Cute kid, very polite. “And it's on the corner of Main Street and a little side street that doesn't have much traffic, and this guy comes around the corner. He's pulling a trailer with three big pallets of water on them, and as he turns, the top of the last pallet loses some of its plastic wrap and there's water all over the road.”

“Like they burst?” That's Leigh, who's working on illusion knitting—a rabbit's face.

“No, just bottles of water and flats of water all over the road.”

“That could be dangerous.” Edwin says. He's working on a double knit project. “Next person who comes around the corner and there's puddles all over the road.”

Anne shrugs. “Not really. Everything'd fallen on the curve in the corner of the road. And it's not a busy corner.”

We nod.

“Well, Bridget sees the water bottles all over the road, and she gets up and goes to help pick things up. Henry, too.” Anne is currently in a knee brace, so we don't expect her to help. “I turn to Lucy, who's just sitting there, and ask her, 'Are you going to help?' She says something like she's too little to pick up water, but I just look at her and she goes to help.”

I grin and nod.

“It was amazing to see. Once Bridget started it, a couple of other people from the cafe went out to help. Even someone walking past stopped to help.” Anne nod, emphatically. “Spontaneous good deeds sent into the universe.”

We all laugh a bit, but it does make us happy to think there are people who want to help.

“But there was this lady sitting the next table over. She sees it happening and just gets so totally negative.”

Anne rolls her eyes and turns her project. “The driver got out of his car, takes a look, and pulls out his phone.

“She says: He should be punished. Why isn't he doing something.

“So I say, loud enough that she can hear: Maybe he's calling some help.

“She says: He should be ashamed carrying it loose like that. Imagine if someone got hurt when that load fell off.

“So I say: And he was to know the shrink wrap would fail? I see straps holding it down so at least it was only the top of that pallet that fell off.

“She says: I saw that flats of water were selling for a dollar at the Home Depot. He shouldn't have that much water. Hoarder.

“So I say: Maybe he's giving that water away.”

The three of us nod. After all, three big things of water were more likely for a church function or a school event than for personal use.

“She just kept saying more and more negative things, always taking the worst light that could possibly be taken on the situation when this was such a wonderful show of how people reach out and help when they're given a chance, so I kept on retorting with a more positive spin.”

I chuckle because I know Anne. I can see this whole thing going down.

“Finally, I just say, “Well, if you're so worried about the mess out there, you could have helped. But I guess your legs are probably just as worn down as mine.” And then I turned to her and said, “Bless your heart,” with the sweetest smile I could give.”

We gasp. Those are fighting words around here.

Anne sets down her crochet for a moment and readjusts her leg on the chair beside her. “She didn't say anything else.”

I shake my head. “I wouldn't either.”

Word count: 744