Fluff, Sweat, and Tears

It was the drums. The steady pounding beat, one-two, one-two, one-two, a rhythm that nestled itself into Captain’s Baby’s head between all the fluff and stitching. His fingerless paws shook when he looked down at them, the once sandstone fur smeared with dirt and grime. He thought it was his heart, but the old war horse didn’t have one.

The armies of the Teddy Bear Union were pinned down behind a pile of clothes stacked like a crescent-shaped ridge. Their barricade had only one entrypoint, a small gap bin between the clothes and a bookcase. Right now the forces of the Nutcracker Kingdom were across the floor crouched behind a toybox. Between them lay a bedroom littered in bits of fluff and woodchips scattered around the bodies of friend and foe alike, along with all the other toys that were not a part of this specific scenario. Captain Baby had nearly twisted his ankle on a prone Barbie doll on his retreat, but thankfully, he didn’t have bones.

The barricade provided adequate coverage, if not a little cramped.. Just high enough so that the bears could crouch in safety, but stand to take sight of their enemies, and return fire if needed. Conscious of the fact that his head was in fact massive compared to his bead-like eyes and small snout, Captain Baby tried to peer over to the field. The drums kept beating, unending, somewhere behind the toybox. Less than a few feet from his vantage point was a brother of his facedown on the pink and green watermelon carpet. A split had torn his head wide open and exposed it’s bulging insides. 

The Captain tried to think back to his days at the academy for morale, but came up with a blank. That was one of the greatest obstacles about being a figment of a six year-old’s imagination; a lack of accuracy. He tried to take his cap off in honor, a Yankees cap that had earned him the name four years ago, but it was stitched to his head. It was a bad day to be a teddy bear.

There were four of them left, Tubby and Toobie were slumped against the clothing pile, one arm around the other, quivers on their backs and bows nearby. Peetah, the green bear named by a toddler for the boy would never grow up, fished through the pack slung over his shoulder with his good hand, his only hand. This was all that was left. It was the four of them, Katie’s dad, and a kingdom of the most–wait Katie’s dad?

Sure enough, standing squarely in the opening of the pile was Katie’s father, normally the size of many bears, now equal in height to all of them. He wore a white t-shirt, flannel pants, and a pink fluffy robe that clearly wasn’t his. He slouched, rubbing his eyes as if he weren’t fully awake.

“Dad!” Captain Baby whispered harshly, “Get down!”

The man looked down at the voice and his eyes focused, “What the…”

The officer in charge sprung to his feet and grabbed a hold of the human’s robe, yanking him back to cover before a loud ‘Crack!’ echoed out and a single projectile lodged itself into the wall where Dad had been. The man stared up to see a peppermint hard candy lodged halfway into the drywall.

“I’ve got you, Dad, don’t worry,” Captain Baby told his new cohort, helping him to his feet, but keeping him in a crouch.

“Wh–what?! Katie?!” Dad yelled, looking in horror.

“No, Captain Baby Ruth, at your service,” The officer looked almost offended, almost as much a teddy bear can, “I’m Katie’s teddy bear, we all are. She’s dreaming, Sir.”

Dad’s head scanned the different forms, “This is a dream? This is Katie’s dream?? Why?”

“Hows and whys aren’t important, Sir, what is important is that you could turn the tide of today’s events.”

“Who are you fighting, why? I don’t–”

“Now isn’t the time!” Captain Baby snapped, “You’ve broken the stalemate, and now the Nutcrackers are gonna start making their moves. You are in a six year-old girl’s dreamland, if you’re looking for answers and logic, there’s a paint by numbers set not far from the coat rack. Until then, we’re the only ones not trying to floss a mint through your ear canals.”

Now fully awake, Dad slumped against the side of the bookcase, “I don’t understand, how did I get here?”

“You’re here because we need you,” Captain Baby replied, “We need Mundy, he’s the main character, he always is, but he took a peppermint to the head on the way back here. But you’re a doctor, you can save him.”

“I’m not a doctor,” Dad replied.

The four bears stared at him, unblinking.

“I’m the administrative director of an outpatient rehab facility, it’s in the medical industry but on the business side–Look how do I fix a teddy bear who’s been shot? Isn’t that, y’know?”

“Cheese and crackers, man, do you think we die?” Peeta spoke in an inexplicable cockney accent, “We’re teddy bears, you just put the stuffing back in and stitch him up and he’ll be fine.”

The cockney medic fished a miniature sewing kit out of his pack and held it up.

“You’re missing an arm…” Dad muttered.

“For now” Peetah replied, “It’ll come back tomorrow. All this stuff resets.”

Now it was Dad’s turn to look horrified, “This never ends?!”

“Oh it’s not always war, sometimes it’s space,” Toddy added.

“Or the big scary jungle gym at school,” Toodie returned.

“Before this we were on a deserted island, living with dinosaurs,” Captain Baby joined, “There was a mermaid I got to know. She wanted to be a dance instructor. She said she’d teach me how to samba…”

“When did,” Dad gestured aimlessly, but carefully, “All this start?”

“I don’t really know how to tell time,” The Captain replied, “But it’s been less than a full Christmas.”

“How do I get back to normal?”

None of the bears responded.

“Alright, save the teddy bear, save the world,” Dad muttered, “What’s the plan?”

“When the coast is clear, you and I will run out and grab Mundy,” Captain Bear whispered, “Then we’ll carry him back here and you can patch him up and he’ll take it from there.”

Dad opened his mouth to speak, only to be silenced with a gesture from the commanding bear. It was quiet, everyone realized, silent even. The drums had stopped, they were getting ready. It was now or never. Captain Baby’s shot back and forth, karate chopping the air. His message was On my signal we move out, grab Mundy, carry him back here, but between Katie’s lack of understanding of military jargon and the limited range of motion a teddy bear has, the message was unreceived. Dad simply walked carefully out onto the battlefield, his bare feet making no impact on the silence.

The Captain followed, gently. His unblinking eyes surveying. The night light near the door weakly illuminated the watermelon rug. Mundy was mere steps from their hovel so the floor was clear, but while Dad’s eyes wandered the floor, Captain Baby’s stayed glued to the toy chest. In moments he was at Mundy’s feet, while Dad analyzed his injury. 

Teddy bears don’t blink, at least not in Katie’s mind, but somehow the weary bear felt the urge to finally close his eyes. He could hear the quiet sounds of mermaids splashing in the waves, see the blinking technicolor lights of a starship, and attempted to taste the frosting conglomeration he’d made as a top chef. This was the life of a teddy bear, the many lives. Even at it’s darkest Baby Ruth wouldn’t trade it for anything.

“Are we clear to move him?” The officer whispered, mouthing more than speaking, shortly before a peppermint candy tore through his shoulder, pulling the stitching loose and exposing his fluff. As he fell, Baby Ruth missed the time he was a postman.

He fell to the ground, not in pain exactly. There isn’t a world in the cosmos where a teddy bear feels pain. It was more a deliriousness, a full physical and mental exhaustion. As he struggled to raise his head he could hear the wooden footsteps of well-uniformed Nutcrackers clattering their way into an ambush, their drummer once again beating his steady rhythm. Their heavy jaws clattered open and shut adding sound to their ornate faces painted in perpetual shock, the kind of face that terrifies a six year-old girl. Toddy and Toodie didn’t miss a beat firing back over the barricade, buying seconds for the escape of their comrades.

“Take him…” Captain Baby gasped out at Dad, “Save him, leave me… I’ve got a samba lesson…”

As the Captain’s mind drifted to the imaginary sands of that beach, Katie’s Dad gently lifted Mundy over his shoulder, strolled to Captain Bear and scooped him up by the generous scruff of his neck.

“You-your strength!” The Captain gasped.

“You’re made of pillow filling, it’s not hard,” Dad replied, briskly trotting back behind the barricade.

“We can’t stay here! They’re making progress!” Peetah cried out, passing the sewing kit to Dad.

“Can you save him? He’s our only hope!” Captain Bear gasped, slumping against the wall.

“Well it’s hardly brain surgery,” Dad responded stuffing fistfuls of fluff back into Mundy’s head. “If I know what I’m doing, which I don’t, it should take a minute.”

“We might not have a minute,” Toddy chimed in, dismayed by how ineffective his arrows were.

The Nutcrackers were made of heavy wood, a projectile like an arrow had to be aimed at the joints or it was completely ineffective. The numbers of Nutcrackers seemed to be innumerate, slowly but surely more and more impossibly poured from behind the chest. Some brandished rifles with candy cane bayonets, others carried swords that were wrapped in paper like a present.. War, it was known, was fought with codes of conduct and chivalry. Imagination had no such law.

“If this is it,” Toddy spoke to his companion, “It’s be an honor to fight by your side. I know we’ll see eachother again in the next dream.”

“I hope it’s in a pyramid,” Toodie replied, “Always wanted to meet a mummy.”

Captain Bear looked over at Katie’s Dad while he licked the thread in preparation for the needle, “There might be time for you to escape. They only want us.”

“Y’know I didn’t even know your name,” Dad replied, “And I honestly don’t know who Mundy is. I don’t know what Katie’s favorite class is or if she even really likes soccer.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to go out with the rest of us.”

“What’s my name? My real name?” Katie’s Dad asked, “I have no idea what any of this is or if it’s real or if any of it matters, but you know what? For once, I’m not running away. I’m not leaving everything behind to save myself from getting hurt. I might not be a great dad, but right now I’m Katie’s Dad, plain and simple. And that’s all I ever wanted to be. The dad she dreams of saving the world. The dad who knows the names of all her stuffed animals and why she hates the jungle gym and if she really likes soccer. I might get disemboweled with a candy cane, but I won’t run away this time.” With that last point he finished his final stitch, listening to shots crashing around them, “And if we make it out of this, I’m throwing every single nutcracker in the house into the firepit.”

“Well said,” Mundy spoke, sitting up immediately. He was a chestnut brown bear with blue button eyes and a red heart stitched into his chest, “Every night is the chance for another dream and every day is another chance to make it reality. A chance to stand for what is right.”

The other bears watched in quiet reverence as Mundy stretched his limbs. There was a heroic quality about him, he seemed to stand taller, more confident. He didn’t crouch behind the laundry mound, instead the peppermint candies whizzed past his head.

“Your Majesty, there’s too many of them!” Toodie called out.

“Consider it target practice, Toodie, and trust me, you need it,” Mundy chuckled, strolling to the base of the clothing pile.

Once there he began to shift through it gently pulling aside shirts and pantlegs and so on. The rest of the group stared on, growing deeply unnerved by the sound of chattering jaws marching closer and closer. Finally, with one tug the Prince loosed and old yellow tank top to reveal the handle of a sword.

“What in the–” Katie’s Dad looked on.

Mundy pulled the sword loose, revealing a gleaming longsword of medieval fanfare, it’s blade emitting a gorgeous blue light. Mundy climbed to the top of the barricade, arms stretched out, sword of ages held impossibly in his fingerless grasp.

“I hear your type are afraid of rats!” He called out, “Ironic, considering that all I see is an army of vermin!”

With that the heroic stuffed bear reached the sword out in front of him with both hands, pausing for just a moment. The drums ceased, the sound of chattering stopped, no one breathed because aside from Katie’s Dad none of them did anyway. With no warning or prelude Mundy’s sword flashed and a bolt of lighting fired from it. Then another, and another.

The sound of wooden footsteps scattering was deafening, as was each successive bolt and cracking of wood that followed. Katie’s Dad dare not look over the barricade, preferring to think of his daughter’s imagination in a more innocent light. Instead he made his way to Captain Baby and began threading another needle.

“Is that part normal?” He asked the commander.

“Katie’s really into King Arthur right now, blame the Magic Tree House,” The old bear’s energy seemed to return with each stitch, “You know, any one of us could have been the doctor. Or maybe we could have found a stitching berry. Or any one of a thousand things, but instead she brought you. I wouldn’t take that for granted.”

“I haven’t been around lately,” Katie’s Dad measured his response, “Being a parent is scary, so I stopped thinking like a dad and started thinking of myself. Maybe I just needed to see how scary it was being a teddy bear to realize it’s not so bad.”

“It’s not usually this scary, I rode on a dragon once,” The old officer returned, missing the point, “And if I’m lucky tomorrow I’ll be back on that beach learning to two step from a mermaid.”

“And the next day we’ll be spacemen, or riding on the back of oversized owls,” Mundy called, climbing down from his perch, “Every day you get the chance to be something new, even if you don’t realize it, just like us. Tonight you chose to be the man who didn’t run. What you are tomorrow is up to you.”

Katie’s Dad finished his work and climbed to his feet, “I can see why you’re the favorite. So what now? Are they all gone?”

“They’ve scattered back to their lairs for now, yes, but the fight never ends, for any of us. But our fight, Old Chap, is not the same as yours. You have a busy day as a doctor and whatever else it is you do to keep busy. Not to mention it is a Thursday.”

Katie’s Dad smiled, “Soccer, right, what time is practice?”

“On Thursday,” Mundy replied proudly. When Katie’s Dad did not reply he continued, “It’s time you get back, stand still now. And remember, Michael, one day at a time.”

With that Mundy waved his gleaming sword over his human friend, rays of light streaming over the man who slowly began to fade.

“I’ll miss you most of all Scare–” Katie’s Dad began before vanishing as mysteriously as he’d arrived.

The room was quiet again, no drumming, no chattering, just five stuffed bears. Mundy looked down at Captain Baby.

“Can you stand, old friend? Daybreak is soon but there’s still night yet.”

The Captain rose to his feet and dusted himself off as best he could, “I’ll live, your Highness. We should probably think of new shelter.”

“Aye,” The Prince replied, “Peetah, are you able to travel?”

“Yes, your Highness. And if I may, might I suggest the nightstand as an adequate refuge?”

“Excellent suggestion! Toddy, Toodie, take up the rear, let’s march.”

“If I may?” Captain Baby, chimed up, “How did you know Dad’s name, Sire? You spoke so confidently of him.”

At first, Prince Mundy did not reply, he simply slung his sword over his shoulder and began his walk around the barricade. Finally he added, “You could say we are old friends. It is he who is the reason I spend every night in Katie’s arms. He’s the one who introduced us.”