As I sit here in his sweat shirt smiling

the way he sometimes gives me an extra cushion to sit on when he locks me in the coal shed before he goes out. Jack says its for my own protection. He's always thinking of me like

a treasured possession. When he returns, he lifts me from the soft cushions in the coal shed and cleans me up carefully. I try to express that I'm happiest when I feel useful.

But all that comes out is a sad little burp. I am ashamed. I look at my chubby belly.

It makes me sad, that I let myself go like this. But with determination, I can fix my weight problem! I started by

clapping my hands. Hey, Richard Simmonds made it happen. I wonder if I could just go outside in the hot sun and sweat in a lawn chair while I play some oldies in the background?

Then I figured I should probably buy one of those plastic kiddy pools to stick my feet in while I sat outside so it wasn't quite so unbearable in the hot sun. I headed to the

plastic kiddy pool dealership out by the freeway. I hadn't walked that way since before it stopped being an overgrown marsh a couple years ago.The center of the isthmus was dominat

by a strange sculpture that had once been a plaster dolphin advertising kiddy pools, but years of weather and decay had made it look more like an airplane crash. I wondered whether

was truly back home, at the place where I had been born, or perhaps merely lodged inside a computer program developed for Better Homes and Gardens Magazine Virtual Reality.com.