Stewart Dawson
Residues of Childhood
Innocence is a funny thing remembered but always from long ago.
I stared out at the rain. I wanted to use my yard for a place to put things so I could move around while I cleaned out my old studio space. But it was raining. My studio stopped being a studio a long time ago when my life stopped needing a studio. Now it was filled to the brim with stuff collected over a lifetime. I have saved some boxes of little pieces, trinkets, toys and echoes from my childhood. Some of the boxes contain old magazines, artwork or other papers that maintain my accounts. One of the boxes has letters from old girlfriends. One of the boxes is filled with 8mm films I made when I was a teenager. Another box is filled with 45 rpm records. They all contain relics that go back to an age that in the scope of my lifetime could be considered pre-historic. Most everyone else would think it was all worthless trash.
The rain was incessant. It wasn’t heavy but it was wet. It showed no signs of letting up. I sat there in a little space and picked up a piece. “Can’t throw this away.” I said to myself. Then I reached over some stuff and grabbed a box labeled “fun”. When I opened it, there at the top was a little hand puppet of Pluto the Dog that I played with when I was a child. I believe that in the Disney world, Pluto was Mickeys’ pet. Pluto had a little rubber/plastic head on top of a sock that had a hole in the neck and places for your fingers in the arms. Right below the neck was a device that you could squeeze and it would make a squeaking sound. Pluto’s sock was worn and coming apart at the edges, but the squeaker still worked. Pluto’s head was stained with dirt and smudges. The puppet was old. My hand did not fit nicely into it.
I stared at the blemishes on Pluto’s face. They were like ghosts of abandon. They were like alien tarnish from another world. There was more in the box, but Pluto was enough. I put him back. The rain let up, but I was done for the day.