Michael Wombat Week 166: The Road Warrior

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Michael Wombat’s Picture Choice: One

Title: The Road Warrior

Dennis. Yep, that’s my name. Dennis; beagle-hound extraordinaire and proud warrior of the road, at your service. That’s me, right up front with the wind tossing my ears, stalwartly leading the way as usual. Of course my hat and scarf are more a muddy grey-brown these days rather than their original vivid colours, but such are the signs of a true road warrior. My being lashed up here in all weathers is bound to have an effect. My job is vital, however. Without me cable-tied to the front of their dustcart the team’s morale would soon plummet, and they’d be constantly dropping rubbish all over the road. I’m the essential glue that holds them together, really. So essential that the bin lorry even has my name in huge silver letters across the front. Quite how the team coped before they found me I just can’t imagine. Of course, before they managed to free me and adopted me I wasn’t called Dennis. Back then I was called...

Please No Duvets. Yes, yes, I know. It was a ridiculous name. You see, I’ve always tried to conduct myself according to what Mr. Kaczmarek said all those years ago, and that sign stuck to the side of the recycling skip was the only thing nearby that had words on it. So ‘Please No Duvets’ I became. I wasn’t there long, luckily, for it was a place of endless tedium and discomfort. It stank, for one thing. Inside the skip flies and other unseen crawly things moved over my bottom, and outside my face gazed out over a tedious dirt car park. The worst part was when people said bad words at me for blocking the opening and they had to throw their unwanted detritus onto an ever-growing pile on the ground. Some folk tried to pull me out, but Gwynedd, as angry as a thunder sky, had jammed me in there as tightly as the stuffing in my paws. In her incandescent rage, she had lost any love that she once had for her cuddly...

Bythie. Apparently Gwynedd’s name for me was short for ‘bytheiad’, which she had told Huw meant ‘hound’. This had been the second time that a human had named me, and I rather liked it. Life with Gwynedd and Huw was joyful. They loved and laughed together constantly in their little house on the hill, or at least they had until that last day when Huw had loved and laughed with Mrs. Probert from the corner shop instead. When Gwynedd found them together in the narrow bed everything cracked apart. I was devastated. I had held such a special place in their now-shattered hearts, having been part of their first evening together when they met at the fair. Huw had won despite all of Mr. Llewellyn’s sneaky tricks, such as weighting the hoops differently, and when he asked a delighted Gwynedd which prize she wanted she said “Can I have the ci hyll, please?” She had kissed Huw and he had kissed her back. Their future together seemed so bright when I first saw them, back when my name was...

Hoopla. In those days I dangled by my ears from a string at the back of the gaudy, flashy stall. Fairground music played every night and coloured lights dazzled my glass eyes. I looked down on an endless stream of people happy to give Mr. Llewellyn a pound for the chance to fling his oddly-weighted hoops at stubby candy-striped wooden pegs. Very few people managed to get even one hoop over a peg, still fewer two. I was a three-hoop prize, there more for decoration than for winning. The occasional person who did somehow manage to ring three pegs never wanted the ugly dog in the bright hat, and would choose a fairy or amusing hat instead. It had been just the same before Mr. Llewellyn found me, too. No-one wanted me then either, and I was stuffed into a wicker basket, half-forgotten, until that fateful day when I heard Mr. Llewellyn say “Got any cheap stuffed toys?”

“In the basket, cariad,” the shop-woman said, and I felt large hands rummaging through and around me before lifting me out into the light.

“You’ll do, boyo,” Mr. Llewelyn nodded, paying twenty pence for me and fifty for a fairy that he also pulled from the bric-a-brac in the basket. That was the moment my name changed from...

Oxfam, I’m pleased to say. Oh, I loved my life in the odd little shop full of people’s cast-away treasures. There was plenty of time for people-watching from my high shelf above the books, and on the whole the customers were kind people. My name had to be ‘Oxfam’, of course, even though to my mind it was an ugly name with its spiky ‘X’. The word was written all around me, and had even been painted in enormous letters above the door when Emily’s mum had brought me here. I had been so nervous at what to expect as she had carried me through the door. Emily’s mum had told the shop-woman that Emily had gone away to learn how to be something called a lawyer, and so she was taking the chance to have a bit of a clear out. That day was a tremendous shock to my system, I can tell you, after years of being...

Cuggly. Years of being hugged, years of being loved, years of having the bobble on my hat sucked by Emily when she was very young and very tired. Oh my, we had such a wonderful life together. We had tea-parties on the carpet in the front room. When she went off to school I was always there to welcome her home. When she cried because Danny Potts had ignored her, I was there to comfort her. I sat on her desk during exams, bringing her the luck that helped her to get into university. So many long years of friendship and love since that long-ago day that she had pointed at me in the toy shop and said “Cuggly!”

“Are you sure?” her mum asked, “There are far prettier cuddlies.”

“Cuggly!” Emily had insisted, and so I became hers, leaving behind my life as...

Ten shillings. There were four or five of us sitting above the sign that said that. We were surrounded by bright notices and shiny cellophane-wrapped boxes of vivid colour that contained new toys. The laughter of happy smiling children rang around the shop, competing with the musical box tinklings of ‘Teddy Bear’s Picnic’ emerging from the display on the shelf below us. This gaudy, noisy world fascinated me. Its entertainment value had been apparent immediately I had arrived, and it helped me to get over the initial shock I had felt when I was taken out of the dark, stifling box after hours of being thrown around and jostled. The happy, lively toy shop lifted my spirits, easing my transition from my previous existence as...

Wyjście pożarowe. That was my name when I was born. Those words in white letters on a green sign were my first sight as my eyes were stitched into place. I was passed from hand to gnarled hand, having my head stuffed, my paws sewn on and my tail attached. Mr. Kaczmarek spread glue liberally around my head. Ever the poet, as he stuck the gaudy hat permanently to my scalp he said the words that have stuck with me through all of my eight lives.

“It is odd to think,” he mused, “how all of these identical fabrications of cloth and glass will eventually end up with different names depending each upon their circumstance. People, and I daresay even places themselves, will name them and give them character.” He looked straight into my glass eyes.

“I wonder what your name will be?”

NOTE: In the UK and across Europe, many/most dustcarts are made by Dennis Eagle, and have DENNIS writ large across the front. See here http://www.dennis-eagle.co.uk/

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Michael Wombat has published several books - search for him on Amazon, or go talk to him on Twitter where he is @wombat37.

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