- Vol. 09
- Chapter 12
Postscript
You think the three of us are having so much fun, we're cute, we have smiles designed for us, we look so happy, aren't we? Children want us, it's love at first sight when they see us displayed in a storefront, they cry and tug at their mother's skirts, they even crash on the ground, throw a tantrum so their embarrassed mothers, pulling their wallet, come rushing inside to grab any one of the three of us, just to placate them, me the Three-Eyed Green Alien, or my friend, E.T. with his coffee cream complexion and perplexed azure eyes, or Godzilla with lines drawn as teeth who's lucky he's made into a mug because at least, he's useful, more respectful, with its ceramic weight, a nice choice of a gift for some grown-up movie geek from a well-intentioned girlfriend. He gets to bathe with English Breakfast tea in the morning, a latte in the afternoon, chamomile infusion before bedtime while the two of us are just plastic knick-knacks Made in China by cheap labor, found in malls and online stores thanks to global trade; sure, I have my use too, you can pop my top open, and fill it with colorful plastic beads to calm a wailing girl, or charm a grumpy boy, but nowadays, we're outdated! Who still thinks about E.T., his magic touch of a finger, his cry for "Home" – where is home for us but a forgotten shelf in the back of a toy store? Not jealous of my friend Godzilla the mug or anything, because in the end, we'll end up in the same place, but he gets too many remakes of movies in his name, Godzilla this, Godzilla that, and why does he always get the girl and not me? And you know what happens to us when we're leftovers from failed promotions, when our times are measured in trends, when we're the products of your creations, the desires you fabricate as easily as you dismiss them, when you tire of us, when your children are grown up and left home, when you renovate your rooms in your new vision, you'll clear us out without hesitation, we’re your trash, your junk, we'll be slumped together on top of each other, dumped into garbage trucks, ditched in landfills, Godzilla fractured into a hundred pieces, me and E.T.
Postscript
abandoned to contemplate the eternity of the skies, the sun will degrade us into microplastics, we'll be here until the end of time, we will poison your conscience and your world.