Winkie by Clifford Chase

Author:Clifford Chase
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781555846237
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Published: 2006-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

Part Two

“Ah, if children only had the means, what different histories they would form of themselves!”

—Frederic Tuten, Tintin in the New World

Winkie on His Own

How did the bear get from his shelf in a suburban bedroom to the shack in the woods where he was arrested? The extraordinary journey began with nothing more than an idea. It was one that Winkie had had many times before, but this time he also knew he could do it.

The house seemed to hum quietly with a new expectation. No one was home. All by himself, Winkie stood up, shook the dust off his snout, sauntered down the bookshelf, and jumped to the windowsill. The softness of his feet cushioned the landing and made him bounce up and down a little. He gazed through the clear pane. The neighborhood was sunny and absolutely quiet. A new tree had been planted by the sidewalk, and its few, pale leaves flickered in the wind. An elderly man pedaled by on a giant tricycle, and then there was no one.

Winkie knew well the stories that begin, “In the old times, when it was still of some use to wish for the thing one wanted …” Now he saw that the season for wishing was new as well as old and continued to this day. He picked up a large book from the windowsill and hurled it through the glass. The crashing sound did not startle him, so fixed was his intention. He crawled out the window between the jagged pieces.

Winkie stood on the plantless weathered window box looking around, blinking in the sunlight. He hadn’t been outdoors in nearly forty years, when he was included in a puppet party on the lawn. The dimness of that memory made him doubt himself a moment. He looked down at his soft, round little bear’s paw, the one that had thrown the book. There were no fingers or claws, no muscles or ligaments, only worn fuzzy cloth and stuffing. And yet this paw had picked up the book and thrown it. “Huh.” Winkie shrugged. “There are lots of things I can do.”

He stepped off the window box onto the hedge. He shuffled around a little on the clipped, prickly branches full of dark green leaves. The prickles poked but didn’t pierce him. The hedge quivered and shivered under his cottony steps. “Huh,” he said to himself. “So this is the world.”

Sometimes in his cell, Winkie thought about this time and wondered, why, if he could come to life, couldn’t he also now grow wings or turn himself into a stronger monster that could crash through the walls? Or even the kind of monster that didn’t care.

Back in the quiet house, up on his shelf, Winkie had forgotten ever being loved. The family moved to a new state and he was placed on a new shelf. Nothing else changed. As the years went by and the dust swirled and settled and the room grew hot and cool and hot again, he had lost all hope of ever being picked up and cuddled.

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