Jack and the Toy FactoryA Story by J.Paddyan actual dreamMy brother
Jack is special. He's not like any other brother in the world. One of a kind-
that's what he is, Jack is one of a kind. I don't mind
telling you, and Jack doesn't mind me saying, he is a lot smaller than I am. A
lot. Sometimes people pick on him for being that way, but more so because of
his color. My brother is green, sort of a teal green to be exact. But I think
the reason some people pick on him has nothing to do with his height or even
his color. Ya' see my brother Jack is a lump of clay. A small cube of teal
green clay. O he has lips
and hair and a nose and two eyes, but when you look up close, they're all made
of green clay too. When he smiles, and he's always smiling, the thin line of
putty below his nose bends down, and when he blinks, well, to be honest, I
don't remember him ever blinking. But, whenever he walks, I mean moves, he's
sort of sluggish. I guess the reason for that is because Jack doesn't have any
legs. He's just a small green cube of clay, and I don't care in the least. I love
him no matter what 'cause he's my brother. Well, anyhow,
let me tell you all about Jack and the toy factory. It all happened a long time
ago and if my memory serves me correctly it started something like this. . . . Both of us
were so excited because we finally got tickets to visit the old toy factory
that recently opened its doors for tourists and other sightseers. We took the
subway and got off at Fifth Avenue in the heart of Metropolis. It was a gloomy
day, and I was hoping we wouldn't get lost once we left the station. After all
Metropolis is kinda big and even bigger for kids. I didn't have
to worry"the old toy factory was right next to the subway exit. It was a big
building that was shaped like a medieval castle. The old toy factory even had
one of those things that surround it. . .uh, a moat, that's the word. There was
a moat that surrounded it. Jack and I stood in the long line outside the old
toy factory and waited for it to open. That's when we saw this really big ramp
lower across the moat. Everyone there backed up a little until the steel gate
raised to allow them to enter. I started to walk across on the wooden ramp, and
Jack bounced along beside me. Inside, I
looked around at the rough grey stone walls; some were darker than the others, and
the windows"wow"the windows! The windows were made of all different colored
glass, almost like the ones you see in churches. But it was different. Instead
of pictures of saints or other religious scenes, these windows were designed to
depict the old toy factory's most popular toys. After staring
at a yellow Tonka truck on one of the windows, Jack and I moved forward among
the hundreds of tourists, still unable to find anybody making toys. I frowned
at this, but Jack kept smiling. I'm sure he was saddened by the fact that the
factory was void of any toy making, but he smiled. Seems the chill of the old
factory and the draftiness had froze his lips into a permanent smile. "Hey
look, "I heard someone shout, "there's an elevator against the
wall!" Immediately,
people began to rush toward the wall with the elevator. They pushed and shoved,
and many started to shout. It was crazy. Someone knocked me to the ground and,
in the rush, another person almost stepped on my brother. I got up as
fast as I could and stood close to Jack as we waited for the elevator door to
open. All of a sudden, the lights started to dim. Then, I heard a bell, and
some voice from over our heads bellowed: "Elevator to the basement. All
aboard." Then I saw a
strange sight and it was unsettling, to say the least. Something had changed
when the lights dimmed. All the tourists who rushed to the elevator"the same
people who knocked me down and almost crushed my brother"changed. They shrank
and were dressed as toy soldiers. Each and every one of them was now wearing a
big black fluffy hat"the kind worn by the English guards. These soldiers also
wore red jackets with epaulets on their shoulders, golden buttons, black dress
pants, and shiny black shoes. They weren't
the only change I noticed"the elevator had shrunken in size. When Jack and I
got closer, I saw two small factory workers push many "toy soldier"
tourists into the small elevator. When the bell
rang, after the elevator returned empty, the rest of the tourists were pushed
inside. Jack entered easily and positioned himself in the back of the car.
After the double doors closed, leaving me behind, I shrugged. "O, my
goodness," I said, and added: "How do I see the factory? I can't fit
in that elevator." I was starting to get frightened. It was the same awful
feeling I got whenever I was lost. It was a sensation of complete loneliness,
like nobody will find me. Ever. "Take
this," a deep and friendly voice bellowed. I looked to the side of
the elevator and below the window designed with pictures of Tonka trucks, I saw
an older man with white hair. He was smiling at me and sitting on an old wooden
bench attached to a ski lift. "Here,
Jim," he said. I was both surprised and a bit frightened that he already
knew my name. "Here, Jim," he repeated pointing to the wooden bench
he was on. When he got up, the bench moved forward. There was a metal rod that
was attached to the left side of the bench and raised skyward to a pulley high
above it. The old man
smiled again and pointed to the bench that was slowly approaching me.
"Jim," he said, "use this if you wanna see the factory
downstairs. I use it all the time." As soon as I
sat on it, the bench rose higher and began to move forward, then it turned
left, passing the tiny elevator until it reached closed double doors. I must have
set off a signal somewhere, because both doors opened, and I entered a dark
shaft. The bench stopped moving forward and I could feel myself being lowered
into nothingness. Of course, I started to get a bit nervous, that is, until
another set of elevator-type double doors opened in front of me, and the bench
I was on started to move forward again. After my eyes
refocused, I saw a great and vast room in front of me. It seemed to go on
forever. I sat on the bench, which was high above the busy machinery down
below. In the middle of the long room, I saw a working conveyor belt, similar
to ones on supermarket checkout counters. It was there that I saw a metal chute
sporadically empty toy parts onto the belt. When all the parts landed, the belt
advanced though an enclosed box. Another chute moved toward the box and emptied
more parts. I saw screws and nuts and a few batteries fall into the box until
the belt started off again, and the crude formation of a toy was visible. While I was
sitting on the bench (which was like a ski lift), high above the factory floor,
I saw the red, white , and blue tourists who were walking alongside the
dangerous conveyor belt. In their midst, I saw a tiny green cube struggling to
keep up with the crowd. "Jack!"
I shouted, and all the tourists looked up at me. "Where's
my brother?" I asked them. "He was with you all, just a second
ago!" I looked for
Jack, but he was nowhere to be found, and I was quickly becoming very worried. "Jack,"
I called out again. "Jack, are you there. . .Jack. . .Jack!" Someone in the
crowd shouted back: "What's Jack look like?" "Well,
he's green, small, shaped like a cube, and always smiling," I shouted,
"O yeah. I forgot. . .he's made out of clay." Just then,
everyone heard a frail-sounding voice echo from inside one of the metal
enclosed boxes on the conveyor belt. Everyone twisted their bodies and remained
motionless. The only sounds remaining were the metallic clanging of machine
parts and the clicking of ball bearings as they hit each other inside the
conveyor-belt pulleys. There wasn't a sound of my brother anywhere. My guess
was that someone might have inadvertently bumped Jack on the belt and then he
must have gotten trapped in one of the boxes where toy parts were collected. I felt my
chest shake when I tried to breathe, and I froze with fear, unable to speak. I
could only turn my head. But, when I did, my eyes fell on three factory workers
who were making rubber basketballs. "Hey,"
I struggled to speak, "could you guys inflate a cube to make me another
brother?" Obviously, I was delirious. Still, I pleaded with the workers. "Well,"
one of them said,"we're not supposed to." "He's
right," another worker explained,"it's against company policy, and
all." "And if we did," the third worker emphasized,
"we'd probably lose our jobs." I was prepared
to beg, when a few red, white, and blue tourists approached the scene and began
to growl. "Hey, what's it gonna be?" they barked: "One less toy
basketball or one less brother?" The three
workers looked at each other in shame and proceeded to cast and inflate a small
rubber cube. I jumped from
the "ski lift," which vanished into thin air and walked over to the
factory workers to help paint the cube teal green. After we finished, I thanked
them all and one worker said he remembered a time when he worked with four
brothers instead of three. The others nodded in agreement. I never went
back inside that toy factory. It closed its doors for good a little while after
I left it. Now the moat is all dried up, and the pretty windows are covered by
large heavy planks of wood. Sometimes, when I reminisce, I like to walk by that
old toy factory. Sure, the windows are boarded up like I told you, but there is
one spot that a plank doesn't quite hide. So, if you look real hard, and if the
sun hits it right, you can still see the part of the yellow Tonka truck and it
sometimes looks like the old toy factory is winking at you. Now make no
mistake, I know that my brother is gone. I'm no fool. But I treat the new Jack
almost like the old Jack. Kind of proud of him too, come to think of it. He's
into basketball which is no surprise and even played in a few big league games.
Every time I see him, I can't help but remember the old Jack, my favorite small
green cube of clay with a smile that would never go away. © 2014 J.Paddy |
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Added on April 20, 2014 Last Updated on April 20, 2014 |