When I sleep, the small toy animals have their lives. Some of them become made of stars. Others gather plastic grasses, nuts, fruits, and tubers. The toy people hunt them, but the animals are canny, and evade the hunters. When I awaken, there are small plastic arrows stuck anonymously in the wall, the bedposts, the places where the animals never are when I am awake. One time, I awoke too soon, and all the toy animals rushed back to their previous positions, where they became utterly still, attempting to evade my not-quite focused gaze. But I knew their secret long before this for the simple reason that I used to be a plastic giraffe, before I became 10 fingers that spend their lives descending from above to strike white keys. Some child broke me, long ago, and when I broke my spirit left the toy and traveled. Now, you and I travel together… but we pretend we don’t remember. We pretend we were never toys on a child’s shelf. We pretend we don’t recognize the living menagerie that is the world. And fingers descend, and dance, and strike white keys whose symbols form the orders that resolve this thread into a web that reminds us of a history more true than any mere recording could ever be.