'Hog-Tied' by Caitlin Baker

This bear, Ted, was my first stuffed animal. This past summer, I brought a sack of stuffed toys to Toronto with the intention of incorporating them into my thesis. I still have over a hundred of the things and the strangeness of that needs exploring.

Somehow Ted made it into the bed.

 I wake up to find him in strange places, something I haven’t experienced since I left my home and plushie-ladden bed behind. I didn’t realize how much I missed finding toys in the covers, a tiny reminder of my past mashed into my skin and lost for days in the folds of the duvet. 

Ted is monochromatic with a non-descript face and tiny thread frown. He has no chin, his ears are forgettable and is visually engaging in absolutely no way. He has a large head and dangly human-like limbs. Descartes argued “perception, or the action by which we perceive, is not a vision… but solely an inspection of the mind… it often happens that in order to be more perfect as an image and to represent an object better, an engraving ought not to resemble it.”

Ted is a sad excuse for a bear. It’s fun to be mean to him sometimes.