I was most proud of my lovely floppy ears, before.  They always set me apart from the other toys, others like big ol' bear.  

I was a little jealous of big ol' bear, sometimes, because he was always so good at hugs.  She would pick him up with both arms around his belly, strong as anything, and he was so big that his own soft arms would drape across her shoulders, almost like he was giving the hug right back.  Never too much, never so that you could say for sure he was moving on purpose.  Big ol' bear always followed the rules of being-still and being-quiet.  But it was a hug all the same.  Oh, I would stare so hard at him with my little glass eyes on those days, and be so envious.

I could never do that, much as I dreamed of hugging her myself someday.  Rabbits are too small, we're for carrying and cuddling against her chest.  Which is also good!  There are many toys in the world, and we all bring her joy in our own special ways.  We all know that, even if we can never talk to one another about it.  But all the same, I loved my floppy ears, because she loved to carry me around by them, even swing me around by them sometimes, when she was feeling rambunctious.

It hurt so bad the first time she really swung me around like that, I admit.  I almost broke the being-quiet rule, when I felt that pull and that tearing feeling, very nearly let out a big yelp that would have brought down hell on all of us.  But I didn't, I stayed quiet.  And eventually, I learned that was how she loved me.  It made me special.  So I hardly minded the pain at all any more, even when she'd pick me up by only one ear and toss me all the way over the bed.

Those were the happy memories that kept me brave and strong, even when I got lost behind the desk for days and days and days, and my little glass eyes only had blank wall and dust to see.  I might have broken the rules then, too.  It would have been so easy to lose faith, and flop myself over to be just a little visible, peeking around the corner of the desk.  But those memories of play were an ember burning in my heart, and if there was a little pain mixed in with the memories, so what?  Every ember hurts to hold, but they keep us warm just the same.

I knew she would remember to look for me, in the end, and in the end she did.  Because they were happy memories for her, too.  Nobody stays lost forever, not when somebody loves them.

I have to repeat that to myself a lot these days, that hard-won wisdom I learned during my long trial behind the desk.  It still feels true to me, even though so little else does.

It was a winter morning when things went wrong.  The glass of the window-pane was cold, and on the other side, the snow was white and smooth and perfect.  She'd put me there to keep watch for Mrs. Bluebird, while she and the others had tea and peanut-butter cookies down on the floor.  There was a call from downstairs, and so of course the game had to end.  Up she hopped, and out through the door.

I will admit, I have gotten a little raggedy over the years.  We all do.  It's a part of life to wear down, and one day, to remain only in the memories of she who grows strong over the years instead of weak.  I'm not afraid of that, even if I am a little vain about the worn patches in my soft velveteen fuzz.  But I think it's why, when the door slammed so hard that day (by accident, I'm sure it was by accident), my right arm got caught on the window-latch as I fell, and I heard that terrible ripping sound.

I landed behind the dollhouse, thank goodness.  I don't know what would have happened otherwise, first me and then the severed front half of my arm, plunging down to the carpet below and landing in a crumpled mess.  The corner was out of sight of everybody, and so nobody else saw the terrible thing sticking out of me.

I was so confused, at first.  It was thin, and brown, not a beautiful smooth brown like big ol' bear but a mottled rough color.  It took me almost a whole minute to realize I was looking at fur, at fingers, at a whole hand and an arm sticking out from the fraying white fluff of my severed arm.  I didn't want to believe it.  I'm still so sorry.  I didn't mean it.

But it was there, had been there, wrapped up in the soft fluff of my arm the whole time.  Was it everywhere else?  A horrible body of flesh and bone and fur, hiding inside me?  Even now I think it must be.

It was the feeling, not the sight, that truly hurt.  Even though my lovely, fluffy arm was gone, I could still feel.  Sharper than I'd ever felt, cold air and scratchy carpet with such intensity as I'd never imagined, as if… as if I was feeling the air for the first time.  I was feeling what the arm felt.

I broke the not-moving rule, then.  The guilt eats away at me, but not as much as the horror of knowing.  So I moved, I did.  I had to!  Just to touch, at first.  To know the arm was real.  And when I tried, I felt again, the soft fabric of my left arm sparking nerves and senses through that horrible bony protrusion that drove through my mind with a panic I'd never felt before.  And then, it moved too.  Just a twitch, but it moved.  Was it me?  Did I move?

To this day, I can't know for sure.

One last motion, the last time in my existence I have dared to move.  With a surge, I shoved that ugly, monstrously fingered arm back inside my own, packing it deep inside the white fluff, digging it deeper and deeper until the tear around my arm looked like a rip, like it had never come off at all.  And the sensation in my right hand returned to warm softness, and I went still again, and long after she took me up with her own two hands and sewed me back together with love and gentleness until only the barest hint of a tear remained.

But I can't stop feeling it, now.  The body-inside.  Sometimes, on the good days, it is like having an invader inside, carrying a horrible parasite and spoiling every playtime.  But at least, on those days, I am still me.  The other days, the bad days… on those, I feel the warmth of fluff around my horrible ugly fur, the smothering prison of the thing I thought was my body.  It's so hard not to scream, on the bad days.  To burst out, to rip my own chest open and to let myself be free.

I am not a very good toy any more.  I still follow the laws, the being-still and the being-quiet, and I still endure the pain, but now when she swings me around I cannot help but picture the flesh and blood rabbit ears within, tearing and bruising and bleeding.  In my heart, there is so much doubt that I think I may drown in it soon.

I am so sorry.