Flaws in Science.

Happiness started with a tear this time. What happened to stretching the lips and crushing the cheeks? Smiles are short of a heartbeat away. Lay me down in toyland, my body is plastic, wind me up and I probably won’t work. But open my chest. Go ahead, take a look. There’s a little bow right there. Pull the string and open the door. My heart still beats. Broken and battered.

I’m just a toy with a human organ.
The most vital.
The most breakable.

My eyes wander and the heat of the day envelopes me. Every day there is something new. This toy just wants to break.

Pick me up!
Play with me!

Until you get bored or I stop working the way you want me to. Then I’m back to where I started. In another bin, at another sale, waiting for another sap to cover me in pity. It never lasts long. I’ll fall off a table and lose an arm or a family pet will turn me into a chew toy. I stopped talking years ago. My first owner broke that.

I close my eyes and wait. Time goes by, seasons change, but my plastic body stays the same. The only thing that moves within me anymore is that heartbeat. You can sometimes hear it through my cover.

Lost another home. Back in a different box. Had to leave Buzz and Woody behind this time. They stopped looking for me and gave up. I think it was those damn squeaky alien toys that talked them into my supposed death. They never did like me. So I lay here, motionless, waiting for another owner. I’m fighting for a new home but there are so many elements that could ruin this for me. My head doesn’t move anymore, my legs got glued in place, and some little girl shaved my head when she was going through her hair dresser stage.

Who wants a bald toy?
A broken toy?

There’s a 50 cent sticker on my back. After a few days, that’s replaced with a 25 cent one. Days go on and I’m up for sale. Now I’m up for grabs. They just want to get rid of this old toy. This old junk. A little girl picks me up, turns me over, takes a good look at me, even plays with me a little and teases me. But I know that frown her mother gives her. I know it all too well. She shakes her head and the girl cries a little bit. Pleas for my life. But mother overrules my beating heart and I get tossed back in the box. It only takes the girl moments to find a replacement. She seems happy. The other toy looks down at me and grins, it knows it won’t get the disapproving frown. It still works. I don’t. The odds are easy to see and the toy goes to a new home.

Soon even the 10 cent sticker gets taken off and I meet a black bag. My oversized body bag. My coffin that I’m forced to share with old banana peels and crumpled papers. Lifted into the truck and carted away.

Even toyland doesn’t want me anymore.