Another Contest Entry

JJ is running another great contest! I don't know where she comes up with all these great ideas.

This is my entry for the Character/Object Monologue contest at JJ Bennett's blog.
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I stood in a forest, the heart of a stout birch tree. Lumberjacks sawed me down. Oh my branches and roots! What a terrific crash I made. I was loaded onto a truck, taken to a mill and formed into sheets of plywood. “Furniture grade,” they called me. I was proud. What would I become?

I was taken to a workshop in New Hampshire, where my sheets were cut Into rectangles and triangles. They used a jigsaw to cut out small openings. I was packaged with a vast quantity of other, smaller pieces, and shipped to a buyer in New Jersey.

A birthday present! But what am I? Nothing but pieces and parts.

She opened the box and spent many early mornings and late nights assembling me. She used nails and glue. She applied a gritty paste over a stencil shaped like mortar lines, which created more rectangles to cover my lovely wood. I wasn’t very happy about that. Then she fastened many flat, thin pieces in rows onto my head, overlapping each one.

She spent hours poring over books to get just the right look. She seemed obsessed with me, and I was pleased. She added little towers to my head, and applied layers and layers of watery paint to “age” me. The inserts for my openings were also carefully painted and fitted. She wouldn’t let the man help her at all.

The first of my chambers was finally decorated. She hand-made all the little pieces of my woodwork, and added lights. It was beautiful! It was even featured in a magazine.

But then she became ill, and couldn’t work on me anymore. She said she couldn’t stand up. She was tired all the time. The couple started buying strange-looking furniture. One piece was like a tall cage. What was it for? It was too high for the dog, and he already had a cage.

Then He was born, and she did nothing but take care of Him for a very long time. I waited patiently. I am still waiting.

I’ve seen all the things that are meant to go inside of me. They are tiny, exquisite, perfect. Some she brought all the way from Germany, just for me. Why won’t she finish me? That boy is in school now, but all she does is sit at the computer, or go away for the whole day to “work”, or walk those dogs, or take the boy to “socker.” When will I be finished? What work could be more important than me?

I am a place for dreams to dwell in. Doesn’t she have any dreams any more?

Perhaps if she had a baby girl…