The Made Boy

This little boy has forgotten how he was made. He is old enough to know he can’t ask his teddy bear, but he is still young enough to love that bear and believe that it can feel the same pain and joy that the boy does. This boy knows he can’t ask his mother because she would lie to him, as she always does. The boy can’t ask his father because he is sure the two of them cannot have been made in the same way, judging by their likes and dislikes, the different ways they smell, and all that coarse hair. He is a smart boy but not trusting, so he relies on his powers of logic. He must have a poor memory because it’s strange to forget something like your origin. He can’t have been built like a chest of drawers, or sewn together like a flag, or forged like a sword. He wonders if he was made of something like ice, so that whatever water he was made of was unrecognizable because of his current state. And maybe that unrecognizable something doesn’t even have to be, say, a bone, or a heart. Maybe that thing can be laughter, or the sound of a wet finger against glass, or a wish. Maybe the one who created him is seated in the cup of the moon, looking down, still wishing. The boy has wondered if maybe he was a mistake, and that’s why he can’t remember, why he’s been left alone with these thoughts. Or maybe those wishes from the moon are nice when they leave but turn to troubling thoughts when they arrive. Maybe that distance causes interference, so the result is like a glitch in a video. He picks up the glass of water beside his bed, dips his finger in. He rubs it against the rim of the glass until there’s a whine, and another. He wonders how long it will take the little boys he’s making to find him and what will happen when they meet. When the time comes, he knows they will have a lot of questions. He wonders if he will tell them how much glass we must all be made of.