A Brief History Of Activism

Stuffed animals have few rights.

In fact, they are the only minority in this country that people can discriminate against, and get away with it. Perhaps it's the stereotype that they're pedophiles. Maybe it's due to their insular communities, and the way they tend to leave humans out of the conversation. Dan didn't know. All he knew was that he was a small stuffed bear living on the streets.

He had broken up with John a long time ago. Dan's memory of their final argument still made him wince.

"Pay your own way, Dan. I'm tired of carrying the load for you."

"What am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know. You should have thought of that a long time ago, before you had your little `thing' with Susan."

Susan had ended up in the same predicament. Dan had tried to get in touch with her, three years ago, but she still resented him for getting her kicked out of her family's house. She was turning tricks for the stuffed ones who still had homes, snorting away the profits.

She got by, sort of.

Dan had been a regular at the mission. They'd to turned him away a few times because he was drunk. They turned him away all the time now.

He often sat on the courthouse steps, nursing a bottle of Jack Daniels until the cops chased him off for the day. Sometimes they arrested him, but they really didn't care. Dan didn't expect them to.

Bruises healed fast enough.

A tattered newspaper blew toward the steps under the scalding sun. Dan reached down and picked it up, placing it over his head to shield him from the heat. Fluttering over his head, an ad kept coming into his vision. Dan took the paper off his head and read the ad a little more closely.

"WF, 5yrs old, needs furry companion. Prefers bears, rabbits welcome too. Call 434-LOVE for more info."

Dan called collect.

She was rather pleasant on the phone, really, and told Dan that she didn't care (or want to know) how he had spent his time between jobs, just as long as he could work for her. He was to meet her at the mall at three pm.

After the long monotony of the bus ride, the mall seemed even more of a busy hurryscurry place than usual, filled with people rushing about here and there, on about the important business of spending money. He located the place where he was supposed to meet her easily enough, but he had no idea what time it was.

"Pardon," he asked of a mother of three, "What time is it?"

She hurryscurried past looking the other way, dragging off the youngest of the three who kept staring into Dan's button eyes.

Dan tried again with an older man greying around the sheen of baldness.

"Pervert," the man growled, "get the fuck away from me!" as he swung his briefcase at Dan's furred ear.

Dan tried three more times, with no success.

Finally, he stood in front of a pudgy man in a business suit leaving the bank.

"Tell me the time," Dan said, "or I'm never going to let you pass."

The man stepped on Dan and went on his way.

The hospital people weren't very nice to Dan. They took quick little glances at him out of the corners of their eyes, thinking he wouldn't notice.

When Dan could speak again (there was no clock in the room, and the nurses wouldn't talk to him), he called the girl back, trying to explain. Her new stuffed rabbit answered the phone, sounding out of breath. As Dan tried to get the rabbit to hand the girl the phone, the rabbit moaned twice. Dan could hear the soft "Oh, yes, baby."

Dan hung the phone gently on the cradle.

The .45 was heavy in Dan's furry paw as he walked up to the crowded restaurant. The extra clips clanked against each other on his back as he looked around. The few stuffed ones he saw there were too busy kissing up to their children to notice him.

Only one person's brains had to be splattered onto the soyburgers before he had everyone's complete attention.

"What time is it?" he asked.

"Twelve thirty," someone said.

"Good," Dan replied, a smile creasing his furry face as he saw a young girl and her stuffed rabbit cower away from him.

As he left the scene of the massacre (29 dead, 15 wounded, a new record he thought), he smiled, filled with the warmth of recognition; the knowledge that he finally was someone to be reckoned with.

He never saw the member of the SWAT team that put the bullet into his furry brain.

They made documentaries about him for half a century.