Forgotten

Author's Note- Tim Burton is a nearly inconceivable and slightly deranged genius; a tribute that he and I both share. Despite our similitudes, however, I am not he, notwithstanding how much I would love to be so. Ipso facto, I do not own any of his quirky and fanciful characters.

I was feeling melancholy. For preeminent results, pair the following with the Edward Scissorhands soundtrack.

Children are an enigmatic and recherché mystery. The ensorcelling riddle of such entities begins where beginnings are wont to start; at birth, the very moment that a child opens its eyes for the first time. A babe's miniature orbs are nothing less of a miracle in and of themselves. The naïve pupils of an infant are, often times, far more sincere than any of those belonging to an adult, filled with brazen and unadulterated wonderment and marvel for the foreign beauteousness of their newfound home. Such things as the shimmering lights of a Christmas tree or the humble lullaby of a mother are not seen as trifling, unremarkable occurrences like they may seem to someone that has declared himself mature. No, each seemingly pettifogging happening is looked upon in sheer awe, as though it is the single most impactful and exquisite thing that the child has ever laid their callow eyes on. To a child, a gentle snowfall is nothing less of magical, and will likely gaze in admiration for what could be an eternity at the icy flakes as light joyously dances across them, silhouetting the silvery shavings against the inky winter air. To a child, there is hardly a distinction between quizzical daydreams and jejune reality, for nothing is truly uninteresting when one makes good use of their imagination. To a child, miracles of all degrees and proportions are quite commonplace affairs, and the impossible is not truly impossible at all, but rather simply eccentric.

The mystique of these enrapturing progenies does not wane or falter after their infancy, but only escalates as they age. Their indefatigable guilelessness, unwavering optimism, and incessant faithfulness contrasts blatantly with those who consider themselves mature and hide their sentiments behind a well-practiced mien of insouciance. Children are routinely and serendipitously the fountainhead of many adults' pining; those who yearn to blindly believe, to wave aside disparagement, to allow themselves to be overcome with gleeful euphoria, but who are, by that point, much too sensible to entertain such fantasies. Thus the adults, somewhat abashed by their frivolous thinking, carefully quell their memories of ghosts and queens and magic, and resolve to somberly observe as the children unrepentantly cavort about on their merry ways.

Of course, were children to remain credulous and ingenuous forever, there would not be any adults to bemuse with their genuineness. And so, it is penitently that a child's young mind adjudicates that it is, regrettably, time to grow up. Tiaras and swords are replaced by skirts and trousers, colorful ink is deputized for books and gray quills, and Saint Nicholas fades into an insignificant, fanciful chimera, to be stored away in the back of the imagination. The children, of course, are delighted to be maturing, and do so with all haste, notwithstanding their elders' warnings not to fritter away what little childhood they have yet to spend. But despite fleeting aches for the loss of their offspring's unworldliness, the parents are homogeneously gratified that a sense of levelheadedness has, at long last, overruled the exuberant disorder of juvenescence.

The children gradually jettison all of their benevolent quixotic whims in exchange for more commonsensical ideology, until they are no longer children at all, but rather, fully-grown adults. And, after a few years or so, the adults have children of their own, and they vaguely recall what it had been like to view the world with such utter and absolute wonder.

As a whole, to grow up is not truly such a terrible happening, although it is the cause of the loss of whimsical and childlike discernment of one's surroundings. After all, as one ages, the remainder of one's kinsfolk and acquaintances continues to age as well, and thus, no breathing creature is left behind in an ever-youthful state, unable to live, mature, and eventually pass away, for that is simply not the natural order of things.

However, there are those that are not wholly alive, and, unfortunately for them, are henceforth immune to nature's methodical disposition. Videlicet, some of those who are negligently abandoned and left to simply rot away into a pitiful mound of dust are the toys that the children leave behind. Children, of course, have a pestilential tendency to, as they age, outgrow their once-cherished dolls and soldiers. The forgotten playthings are unceremoniously closeted beneath bed-skirts or attic-residing crates and cartons, often never to be recognized by the child who had, at one time, loved his or her toys more than all of the marvels in the world. And yet, the toys wait patiently for the day that they shall be remembered, but more often than not, such a day never comes.

A child's precious trinkets are not the sole things to be moored in a single place as time unmindfully slips past them. Inventions too are left behind, anchored in an era as noble monuments in tribute to human ingenuity. Inventions tend not to mind their being restrained to a single dotage, as the majority of their ilk remains quite pompous regarding their immortality. However, not every synthetic creation shares in such ideology. There was, in fact, once an invention that felt unorthodoxly near opposite.

This invention was only scarcely an invention at all. He was rather peculiarly equivalent to a toy, as it so happens, for he had been loved and had loved in return, and, analogously to a toy, had been cast aside and outgrown. The invention was, as a whole, relatively curious, from the facet of his beating heart to his metallic fingers that would mirthfully glisten in the alabaster moonlight. If one were to come upon the queer contraption, one would find, once having overcome the initial sense of disquiet, that he was comparatively ordinary-looking and that, invention or not, he truly should not be wasting away in such a dismal and empty manor. Why, he could very well be a successful gardener, or perhaps a barber with such idiosyncratic hands such as his.

The invention, of course, would have paid no heed, for like both a child and a toy, he would not allow himself to cease hoping.

And so he waited.

But she never came.