Title: Binky Author: J. C. Sun E-Mail: Valeanna1@aol.com Size: 6.2K Rating: G Category: VAH (Vignette, Angst, Humor) Spoiler: Mockery of the most sacred traditions of KT Angst... Author's Note: Well....I've heard self-mockery is a great way to imporve your writing, see what you can improve, work on what is cliched, so being the _dedicated_ writer that I am, I had to engage in a bout of self-lampoonery. Binky J. C. Sun The glass is cold, hard against my fingers, and I leave tiny fogs across the pure surface. My fingers, sullying it's perfection, as I always seem to be doing. A bringer of sadness, of pain and that which is dirty. Impure. Impure, always impure. My eyes slam shut, but the crystal indicators of my guilt trickle out, streaking down my cheek. I hear the soft pling, the plash as my tears mix with the bourbon. I lift the mixture to my mouth. I revel in the bitterness of the bourbon that streaks to my belly: remember the taste of impurity. The guilt burns at me; it worries, it carves away at my innards like a surgeon's scalpel and I welcome the agony that shoots from my heart. A deserved torture, deserved a hundred times over, for Binky, I left you behind. Binky. I remember the crackle of wrapping paper, the rustling as I tore the red covering off the box. My parents watched me from their awesome posts with stubby childhood fingers, I ripped the glossy rocking-horse wrapping, impatient, eager to get at the prize beneath. And when I yanked away the last shred, your bead eyes gleamed up at me, your smile filling me with the soft pleasure of childhood fulfillment. I screamed and wrapped you into my hungry arms, snuggling you into my shoulder, marveling in the black buttons on your dress and playing with your cloth shoes; I fed you bits of my Christmas dinner, and my father poured you a glass of eggnog, while my mother smiled one of her rare smiles. Shy, beautiful, delicate as the the sun peeking through the clouds, the light off water, like the warmth of baked concrete. I fell asleep with your cloth face on one cheek and the brush of my moher's kiss on the other, the sound of my parent's laughter filtering through the thin cabin walls. My father, my human link, left us afterwards, and the sun did not not peek through the clouds; it moved into a permanent eclipse. My mother turned dark, like thunderstorms and the wind that whips through the bare trees of November, and the sun did not glint off the brilliant ponds anymore. Binky, you though, you were there for me. You supported me. Listened to me. Mopped, dried my smothered tears. And how did I reward you? I can see you, your red yarn hair pale with time, your brilliant bead eyes fading and your squeak no longer warm, ready and redolent of childish comfort. You are stained with the print of my dirty hands as you lie, forgotten, unloved. I left you behind, Binky. I abandoned you to the dusty realms of childhood--to the bureau case, the upstairs attic and the fragile, tired cardboard box that contains all the shards of my destroyed security. But I have no bureau case, no yellowing box to consign you to; no dusty bookshelf for you to sit on: there is no home for you, and I cannot remember where I saw your face last -- the memory of your face is smudged now. Perhaps I left you on one of a hundred transient stations, lying in a dusty corner or abandoned on a conveyer belt. Did you lie forlorn, un-noticed until the janitor came and swept you away to be reproccessed? Or did some alien child come and see your empty smile face and see the pain behind that fixed red curve, see the grief that permeated ever pore of your being and take you home to be loved? I like to think that you brought joy to another waif, and that some of your darkness was lifted by their pleasure. I like to think that there is a shelf for you, bright, sunny and beautiful. That this waif has learned to soar with you by their side, that they have experienced the boundless quandries of your faith. I want to think that, but deep down, a corner of my soul snaps that you were swept into a carbon dissassembler and turned into a leola burger for a fat businessman and his client. That is the image that haunts my waking sleep, my shamble of a life. I can see your limp body clenched in the jaws of the trash-clamp, and I can see your face, your face plunging down the reproccessing tube. Your arms, your legs being ripped apart, your torso being pulpified and strained to fit your new shape. The tear drench shirt as your face is turned into nutritional sludge and your brave, valiant face is vanquished forever in the hateful shape of a hamburger bun. Binky. My first friend, my true friend, my only friend, my comfort, my sweetheart, my ally, my confidante, my partner. We are all whirling down this endless tube, Binky -- slipping and falling in this huge darkness, screaming. You and I and Harry. Especially Harry, who seems to glow so brightly--to hide the void that eats him. We all plunge into this void without end, into this terror. And we will all fall until we feel the depolarizing arcs as our molecules are torn from one another, as our very atoms are rearranged and we scream in the grasp of realignment. Our souls are warped, yanked, stretched and squashed by the Machine, and we will fall into our slots into the shapes of Their making, to fill purposes of Their choosing. We will feel the round, fat fingers closing around us; we will scream as the darkness closes around us and we fill Their purposes, Their bellies. For Them. Oh Binky. Binky. I understand. I understand, now. I see now all the things that were hidden from my childish eyes. Binky. Falling. Molded. Controlled. Devoured. We are one. We are the same. Binky that was my first friend. Binky that was my best friend. Binky that was my better half. Binky that was my confidante. Binky that I left. Binky that I love. Binky that loved me. Binky that I am. /la fin You know you wanna do it...HIT that 'reply' button!