IN OUR IMAGINATIONS (A Lovecraftian Barney Fanfic)

Sept 30, 1993

The emphasis she put on the word children made it clear she'd much rather use a less polite word in its place.

Kara said her goodbyes as she retreated to her own classroom. The sound of footsteps and yelling as children returned to their classrooms.

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That night, Kara lay on the couch in a small apartment. The TV was blaring its second Cheers rerun of the evening. Kara wasn't too concerned; she'd seen it already. It was from back in season 1. She'd seen it so many times she could practically quote it word for word. 

She had set about pouring herself yet another glass of wine when a commercial came on. The ad was for a plastic robot that walked and spoke three different phases. Two boys looked on excitedly as their toy knocked down block structures and lit up a see-through missile, which the kids seemed to think was a pretty big deal.

Something that Helen had said to her had bothered her. They did get new toys every few years-

Well, not new toys. They never had new toys, she wasn't sure what kids from this area would know what to do with new toys. But they were newer. There were toys that lit up, that made sounds, sometimes even ones that had had TV commercials, but the green bear had remained popular despite all of that. Maybe there was a perennial draw between kids and stuffed animals; they were a classic for young kids. But she had seen other stuffed animals come and go. No matter what new toys went into the school's toy chest, the bear was king.

She sighed to herself as took another deep draw from her wine glass, pushing all thoughts of the toy and work out of her mind. 

This had been pretty much Kara's routine for the last several years, ever since she'd finished college to take the job she had at the school. Get home, eat, then curl up in her robe in front of the TV with a bottle of wine. She had fallen asleep with the wine glass in her hands so many times that she'd finally given up worrying about the stains the spilled wine left on her robe. It was now almost more red-wine than it was its original blue.

She looked out the small window. Not much visible aside from the identical ramshackle brick buildings around her, but a tiny bit of skyline was visible through a narrow alley.

She hadn't meant for this to be her life, she reminded herself as she downed the rest of her glass of wine. But somehow, it had happened. She hadn't known anyone before moving out on her own. At the time, it had seemed exciting, a proper adult thing to do. "Making a clean start" sounds much more fun before you've moved across the country from all of your friends and family and find yourself truly alone for the first time in your life. Even the apartment seemed fun at first. she'd found its worn age sort of cozy. Now all she could see were the decrepit state of it: the chipped paint, the ancient linoleum cracking the corner. And outside, the brick buildings out the window seemed to loom claustrophobically close to the glass.  She was trapped by those buildings around her, they were walls holding her, pinning her down in her decaying apartment.

The bricks were endurance hunters. She'd heard about it on the radio. Apparently, ancient humans would just walk towards their prey. The prey would run but the human would just keep on approaching, waiting for the animal to get tired. And eventually, they would. They would run out of energy. Run out of the fight. And that's when the human would come in for the kill.

Maybe that was the appeal for the appeal of stuffed animals for the kids, she wondered to herself as she felt herself falling asleep. It was something soft to hold when life got hard. Something to love you when you were all alone, surrounded by the bricks.

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The next morning, Kara was once again at her desk, watching the children during their free time. It was generally pretty uneventful, this was a quiet time after all, but this time her eyes were glued to the green bear. A familiar group of children has gathered around him: Garrett, the boy whose father had died last year, Luci, who wore unfortunately thick glasses, and David, in a wheelchair.