The Subtle Art of Teenaging
October 1, 2025The Subtle Art
of Life
by Caroline Efiong
"And then one morning, there was light and a wrinkled smiling face. I didn't know who had opened my dark, dark closet that I had lived in for years."
I was made of material things; I was never taught to know. I was not to think, breathe, or live. Yet my being is that of immaterial things, wonders and feelings. I do not love as such; I am only the survival of a thought that thrived.
I was given to her when she was six. A bright yellow teddy bear with sparkly fur and sparkly eyes. I don't remember much of anything about this time, because I was not yet alive.
She was thin and short. Her skin was stretched tightly over her bones, though not for malnutrition. I am short, roundish, and, if I do say so myself, adorable even as age has darkened and paled my plush.
She was a girl of African life. From my understanding of their life from the times she held me pressed against her chest as she watched the lives on the television (a vision of the magic that sewed my skin together) they were an odd people. Customs and frail traditions held together by the frowning faces of elders who lacked sentimentalities like the obnoxious attachment to an inanimate object loved by a child. But, loved, I was.
I don't remember the day I was made, but I remember the day I was born. A flash of something, a word, a thought, an emotion so great I felt it deep inside whatever I have from her mind from which mine stemmed.
She was eight. She was playing with me like she always played with me. Putting words in my mouth, making movements for me; making me a life, giving me likes, dislikes, and talents. After the day I had been given to her, I felt a sort of awareness. Not real and yet real, not overly complex, never more so than an infused recognition for the creature that held me. Slowly it became a doleful adoration for her. I seemed to care for her, but with such sadness I could never explain. Like watching a baby slowly becoming an adult.
I had been accumulating thoughts, until a thought popped out of my own mind. She had kept me on the bed sitting upright by a bunch of my fellow inanimate creatures. I doubt any of them will have ever reached the level of awareness I have. But they loved as all things that are loved tend to. They were my siblings and cousins. When she stood up the bed quivered and I toppled over, knocking down my smaller companions and in that moment of wonder, I thought, “Oh dear, please forgive me.” In a queer British accent. She was playing a game where a Brit (me) lived in Nigeria, based on a movie she had seen a week before. I was prescribed the British accent and so my thoughts were pronounced with that stilted fake British accent. I hadn't given much thought to my amazing accomplishment. I thought she had said it, for my thoughts were in her voice. That is until I realised that the thoughts that were coming to me were not coming from her mouth. Her lips were closed. She set us up again and left to answer her mother's call.
After that, I uttered more thoughts in my head. I could not move my mouth or utter words aloud (I have no vocal cords). I can't move. Many might wonder, what is a life without the ability to move? But I who had no life before appreciated this one. I could think, or at least respond to the things I saw. In any case, I saw adventure with her, she dreamed up adventure for me and as I had previously mentioned she dreamed up a life for me.
How does one relate this to one who has never felt this? I am a dream, a figment of imagination, yet I am tangible if not in the real sense then the fantastical. If she moved me I moved. Whatever she thought of when she was thinking through me, I thought. She is me, yet separate. I am a personality that is not attached to her, but a part of her.
She never knew about my life. She grew and I aged and yet I was still a reliable companion.
She went to university, I followed. I was kept in a box and only brought out at night. As if she feared someone taking me or seeing me. I didn't mind much; I couldn't move after all.
More years passed. She married. As she built her life I felt a distance that I had been ignoring as it grew. She didn't need me as a companion anymore. And soon she didn't need me as a make-believe child anymore to hold to her chest. She was not a child anymore and I was still, in a sense, clinging helplessly to the fading mind of the child that gave me thoughts. Now the mind had matured. I had little purpose since the birth of her first child. Hence, I was kept in a closet.
It was then I hated my life. I hated the complex thoughts that I was granted, but I didn't hate her. I was incapable of hating her. I understood when something inanimate had no purpose anymore, it was gotten rid off eventually. But I wasn't exactly inanimate, was I? Yes, but I still couldn't be passed as a living creature. Even human beings in a state of comatose with no hope are let go. I was let go of.
I lived in a closet for quite a long while. I had hoped she would give me to her child, but I guess I was too old to give to a brand new baby and as the hope faded away, so was I forgotten. My thoughts started fading, as I had no dream to sustain what was given to me. No more words put in my mouth, or movements made for me. I became only a stuffed yellow bear with an ever smiling face in a closet with nothing to smile for.
And then one morning, there was light and a wrinkled smiling face. I didn't know who had opened my dark, dark closet that I had lived in for years. I didn't recognise the face. She stretched her hand and pulled out. She wrinkled her nose. I didn't know what to make of this. Soon I was in a bucket of water and soap suds. And then I was hanging outside to dry. I can't feel pain so I was okay.
It's been a long while since then. After the closet, in her old age her nostalgia brought back a memory of her childish mind. And I was recreated albeit more mature than I was originally. A grandmotherly sort of mind and voice I had now. I was still cuddled by her and her grandchildren. And I loved them all. But now I lay on her arm as she whizzes out breath after breath, and her eyelids dip and a weathered smile folds the skin on her face. Her children move closer, they pull the blanket over her and leave quietly. And she's gone forever, but I remain.
I am a yellow faded bear, sitting by the ashes of my owner. I am a yellow faded with an ever smiling face, given a thought by the persons who would look at an old bear and remember their loved one. I have a lot to smile about.
