February 8, 2012: Against All Odds

By: Tim Sheridan

Song: Against All Odds

Artist: Phil Collins

Album: Hits

Listen to the song of inspiration here

(Picture taken from dreamstime.com)

All I am is a child.  A child in a sandbox.  No, no.  I don’t mean it as a simile.  I’m not LIKE a child.  I’m not wading around in anything SIMILAR to a sandbox.  I really am a child.  I’m sitting here with a poo halfway inside my diaper and halfway inside me.  And yet, that’s not the most terrible thing on my mind.  Not in the least.  And before we go any further, I’m sorry I called it poo.  But that’s what it is.  But that’s beside the point.

The worst thing that ever happened to me was that my love was taken away from me.  Not the emotion love.  I still have so much of that.  That…that can never be taken away from me.  But my one and only true love was taken from me.  The object of my affections has been denied to me by a force I can’t even explain.

Our love affair started long ago.  Minutes even.  I was here, playing in this sandbox.  Right here.  And I was letting the sand fall through my hands.  I would pick and up and let it fall between by fingers.  And until then, it was the most wonderful thing I’d ever felt.  But then she hopped in.  Literally, I mean.  She hopped in with such force that tiny pieces of sand flew into my eyes.

But there she was.  My love.  I was struck first by her tiny features, and then by the way her jumper complimented her puffy figure.  She wore her hair in pigtails which gave her a look of maturity that I was unfamiliar yet transfixed by.

We talked, we played.  It was a wonderful experience.  I felt a connection I had never felt before.  I had never told anyone I’d eaten a crayon before today.  But we had an instant connection.  Her scent was one of rubber cement and mac & cheese.  And my word, it was intoxicating.

She told me of her dreams, her aspirations.  She wants to be mommy someday.  Of course.  She wants to be a princess too.  A princess!  Oh, happy coincidence.  I want to be her prince.  And I fully expected to.  Until the moment.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

We talked of eating paste, of the fine point of the Wiggles.  We had a laugh at those who think that Anthony is the best.  Of course he isn’t.  And she knows that.  I told her I want to be a robot when I grow up.  And she didn’t laugh at me.  She looked at me with understanding.  I was touched.

I was touched figuratively, and then I was touched physically.  That’s right.  We moved from having an emotional connection to a physical one when she grabbed a toy shovel from me, giving a cry of “Mine, I take!” which was both beastly and cathartic in its simplicity.  But when she took the shovel from my hand, hers touched mine for a moment.  And her skin was as soft as my blankee.

And then I saw the figure approaching from the distance.  She was just a shape at first, but then it was clear that this was no mere shape.  It was a person.  It was a mommy.  Her mommy.  I knew for two reasons.  One, she was not my mommy.  The other was the look in her eye.  That look said “our time in the sandbox together is done, fair sir.  Our time together has ended.”

The mommy that was not mine scooped her up and so quickly took her away that I could not even say a proper goodbye.  She was gone.   And the sandbox is just mine.  Who hurts more?

Tim Sheridan is a great guy.  If you don’t believe it, ask him.  Or his dad.  Or former girlfriends.  Well, not all of them.  The good ones.  Anyways, if you wanna find him, he’s on Twitter, @SoncoDidz, and Facebook.  And he thinks his Friendster account is still active.  But I don’t know about that.