This is a handwritten journal I have kept over the years, beginning December 9, 2021, documenting a universe I created to help me cope with being unable to feasibly buy all of the stuffies of the world, and to cope with the idea that some stuffies will end up in landfills or otherwise such dire situations from which they cannot escape and may never be squished in that form again by any potential stuffy-snuggling person.

In my youth, I had a very traumatic event where, by my own neglect, one of my most prized stuffies was sold in a garage sale by complete mistake. I was horrified, and felt I had betrayed one of my deepest connections of that age, and was affright of where they could have gone or what their fate would be. I have longed since my youth to one day recover it, but have roundabout given up hope of doing so, and this universe has helped me to come to terms with that fact, and indeed, offering hope to others who fear for the fate of their own stuffy's ultimate final state of existence.

This begins the first year of the Squishy Bebbis journal.

AG Brown formally protests the making of this journal on the grounds that it prevents the squishy bebbis universe from being soley between me and the bebbis, but I counter that the universe has already been made public to some degree, via the Fussybear facebook page (possibly now archived) ad the @squishybebbis IG acct, not to mention mom & dad have a limited awareness of it.

My name is Mike. I am 44 years old, and I sleep with stuffed animals with which I have created a personal fictional headcannon of their unique personalities and ongoing concerns. Collecting they are the Squishy Bebbis, or as a mass singular noun “the bebbis.” The bebbis encompasses not simply all stuffed animals I own, but all stuffed animals in existence, as well as objects like a toaster, an oven, a spoon, etc which I happenstanstically perceive to have a personified identity by which I might, “thank you mister washing machine; you are a good washer,” regardless of whether they are actually squishable.

I possess the ability to allow the bebbis to (a) enter a state of bonk, whereby they will experience zero pain such as when being repaired, sewn back together, etc, and (b) separate their identity from their physical form so that if they become broken or in a state of terror due to physical damage such as by fire or otherwise reason to be discarded and unuseful for their intended purpose, they are free to float about the world disembodied from the original tangible body, to experience the world outside of their prior existence, to locate previous beloved owners, visit bygone locations, or indeed visit me if they wish to discuss their adventures or new existence.

Any of the expanded bebbis outside of my direct ownership, I am able to grim-reap their storied existences and unique personal histories into a kind of soul-essence which allows the individual bebbis member to willfully, and with sentience, opt to disengage or re-engage their tangible forms in order to explore the world and no longer be bound to it, such as the case of those in landfills, junkyards, thrift shops, etc.

The members of the bed-residing Squishy Bebbis are as follows:

• Dewey

Dewey is the oldest and it shows. He is a pink bunny, with stuffing in his head and extremities, and beans of various substances in his torso. I have to make sewing repairs to Dewey a few times per year, in which the indication of needing repair is that his beans will start popping up somewhere in the sheets. He was gifted to me on my first Easter by my mother's brother Steve, so is currently 43 years old; his birthday is recognized as just “on Easter” and not whatever Sunday it was in 1978. Dewey's preference in night sleeping or napping is to be tickled by pushing in his beany belly much like the Pillsbury Doughboy, and then curls up to goggle and burrow deep into the pile of other gathered bebbis to sleep. Dewey tends to be fairly singular minded about being tickled and then retreating.

His few other interest are when notified of a bean leakage that he will become sad when learning of it and will remain so until repaired, even to the point of affecting the others who will come to his defense of needing to have repairs to him because of his sadness. Dewey realizes his age and increasing frequency of repairs, and it is a little burdensome to me to increasingly repair him that I will put it off for several days before I am willing to complete it. Dewey will accept being tickled during the sadness but will giggle of the genuine laughter of the tickle but quickly return to the sadness.

Upon repair, Dewey insists on being slept with solo, that is with no other bebbis in direct contact while I sleep but him. He is so small and I am so large, that I often must embrace a pillow as if it were a bebbis (and is one, of a hybrid type) and place him cradled in it.

• Huey and Louie

(to be continued)