I am a windup toy. Simply press this button and my teeth will chatter across the table. Flip this switch and I will dance haphazardly through the room. Just twist this pin in my back and I will jump for your amusement.

I am a dispensary for cheap laughs for those who have acquired a taste for my niche brand of humor. When I am activated, I live only to hear my mother’s breathy laugh and see the tears stream down her cheeks in pure enjoyment. I live to catch my father’s short, soft chuckle from the other room. I live for the sound of my sister’s belly laughs. I live for the ring of my sister’s snicker. I live for the cheaply, yet intricately constructed, single line jokes that deliver me this payoff. Each laugh is a bolt of electricity, a jolt of adrenaline, that keeps me chattering, dancing, and jumping at my own expense.

Years have gone into curating a mixture of old family memories, timely references, and tastefully placed vulgar vocabulary to illicit my beloved symphony of laughter. My lines and bits are shallow yet layered, like a beautiful, flakey croissant that has been flattened by an unknowing boot. While it is unsightly, my audience savors every bite. I am a clumsy french baker but without my trodden delicate bread, my family would be starved for entertainment.

I perform my little plastic, squished croissant shows day after day, never really changing the material or the delivery, yet they garner the same gleeful response from my meticulously selected crowd. I live for these moments. When the attention lies on me and my audience anxiously anticipates which tattered but precious line will slip effortlessly from my mouth, I fully exist. I feel truly valued.

I am a dancing monkey with two cymbals in my hands, ready to leap into action at the slightest prompting. My sister says that I am the funniest dancing monkey in the world. This is a lie. What she means is the I am the funniest dancing monkey in her world, which while still being an honor, is a participation ribbon in a realm of Olympic gold medals and Nobel Peace Prizes. I cherish my participation ribbon but I would secretly love something more. Nothing too big. Maybe a bowling trophy.

I am a monkey sitting idly in a corner with my erect and waiting arms holding my cymbals perpendicular to ground, ready to slam them together at any moment. My smile is unnervingly plastered to my face, prepared to dazzle when necessary. My eyes anxiously scan for an audience to assign my value. As I wait, my smile twitches and falters and my arms begin to waiver under the immense weight of my cymbals and fall to my sides, rounding out my shoulders. My eyes glaze over and I blink, realizing I haven’t allowed myself to miss an instant since the start of my last performance. I am a slump. I am a simple pile. A performer without an audience is no longer a performer. This is my true form. It is only anxiety and a need for approval that defines my shape and contorts me into a plastic hopping toy, a baker, or a cymbal-laden primate. I am a living thing with no purpose but to live and be. I enjoy the tranquility of being a slump. To be a slump is relaxing. To be a simple pile is to find comforting ways to spend your valueless time until you must twist yourself into a more purposeful, entertaining state.

Very few people see me as a slump as it is a very vulnerable thing to be. Without my plastic windup encasement, I am almost formless and laid bare. With others around it is much easier to be a rigid toy that jumps on command or a terrible baker who at least produces a product rather than a useless heap. Besides if someone is around, there is the possibility of another show or even an encore. But presently, there is no one here to see me as the slump that I am.

I must be careful not to go too long between performances of my steamrolled baked wares and brass stained hands or I will devolve further. I could become a puddle. I hate being a puddle. As a slump, I at least have some semblance of a form be it a tired monkey, fatigued baker, or idle windup. But as a puddle, I am liquified. I can slip away into a paper thin sheet of fluid with gears, pieces of fluff, a chef’s hat, and a discarded cymbal sitting in it. As a shallow puddle, I could seep into the carpet and evaporate, becoming nothing and leaving behind a collection of trash. I am afraid of the void of being a puddle. I am afraid that it is inevitable.

If I give myself time and have some luck, I can congeal back into a manageable slump before I leach into the carpet, into the air, into nothingness. But how long will I be lucky enough to recover? How long is too long between between shows? How long can I be a comfortable slump before I need my validating participation ribbon? How long must I chatter and bake and dance until I feel worthy? How long until my next performance? My gears are starting to rust, my croissants are growing stale, my arms are getting heavy. My smile falters.