Animals’ Quest for Knowledge, Part Two
As Karl and I waited tensely in the shadows, listening closely for what the stuffed animal herd – waiting below the tallest fir tree in the StuffedZoo woods – were about to say, we pondered what all-important questions these furry creatures had. What is the purpose of life as a stuffed animal? How do you achieve the perfect hug? What exactly IS inside us? Are a stuffed snake and a stuffed mouse truly the same on the inside? These were the kinds of things we anticipated out of their fuzzy, pursed lips.
When all was extremely quiet, Eyewells called from his tree branch:
“I am ready. Who shall be the first tonight, to receive my wisdom?”
Herman the Stuffed Shark was first to speak up:
“Why do monkeys peel bananas from the end, while humans peel them from the stem?”
As the troupe of creatures tensely awaited Eyewells’ answer, Karl and I looked at each other in confusion and disbelief. Was THIS the type of question they’d been asking all along? Was this the kind of ground-breaking, mystery-solving things they wanted to know? Just then, another voice popped into the air. It was Quigley the Stuffed Duck.
“When I am old, will hair grow inside my beak the way it does in some peoples’ noses?”
Karl and I looked into each others’ eyes, got up, and left. No point in sticking around for this.
The next morning we pulled aside one of the previous night’s band. It was Bentaro the Stuffed Chameleon (we knew he wouldn’t lie to us).
“Bentaro,” we asked, “what happened last night? Why were you all asking such silly questions?”
“This is the way it has always been with Eyewells,” Bentaro explained. “Eyewells never was any kind of mystical sage. We only let him think that because it makes him feel good.”
“Wow,” I said. “You stuffed animals go to all that trouble for him?”
“It’s our job to make others feel good, and we’ll do anything it takes to do a good job. So we gather up in the night, and keep it a secret so Eyewells will never find out. Besides, it’s fun to go for a walk in the woods, if you’ve got a lot of stuffed animal friends with you.”
And on that note, Bentaro was right.
