[Creative Nonfiction] I will never ask you of anything (except to dream sweet of me)

Read the third-place entry for our week of May 18 contest, Eulogy for An Object

I will never ask you of anything (except to dream sweet of me)
by Anna Oh

title taken from “Heaven, Iowa” by Fall Out Boy

Good evening to everyone who has gathered here today. Thank you for your presence, and thank you for inviting me to say my final goodbyes to my beloved bolster.

For the non-Chinese-acquainted, the word 臭 translates to "smelly", but a 臭臭 refers specifically to a comfort item that you cling on to in your childhood. The physical item can be anything: a blanket, a pillow, a stuffed toy. For me, it was my bolster, or as you may have known him, my body pillow. It was a mini one, to suit my own smaller size at the time. Where I come from, almost every kid has a kid-sized bolster during their childhood years, and almost every adult has their own adult-sized bolster to help safely mitigate all the back pain. If you haven’t tried a bolster, I would highly encourage you to. They are indeed very comfortable to sleep with. But I digress! This is no speech advocating for bolsters. It is only one for the bolster from my childhood.

I recall dragging my bolster along to every bedtime, clutching it desperately as I drifted off to sleep. Even my mother has commented that this bolster is the only object she had really ever seen me fawn over. Not in the same lane as the flashy recency of a toy, but more like the everlasting company of an old friend. No judgment, no shame. Just them. She jokes that I was boring even as a child, but I prefer to think of it as loyalty. Loyalty that was most certainly not misplaced.

Eventually, I just grew too big for it, the size mismatches becoming quite hilarious to witness after a while. After about a year of trying, and desperately failing, to quit hugging my bolster to sleep, I did it the hard way and went cold turkey. I threw it into the top shelf of my wardrobe, where I wouldn’t be able to reach it without help, and I completely forgot about it. In fact, I actually purchased another bolster. This replacement was adult-sized, for the current-teenager-future-adult that I was. I thought that it would’ve felt the same, but there were no colourful cartoon graphics patched onto the fabric, and no zig-zag cover ends that offered delicious sensory stimulations. Those reminded me of scalp massages. I could still hug my new upgrade without a problem, and I still do, but I will admit that it just doesn’t draw out the same comfort as my childhood bolster.

I suppose at the end of the day, it’s my nostalgia to blame here. My loyalty. This bolster is what witnessed my growth from a scrawny, sparky, stubborn child to a significantly less scrawny, significantly less sparky, and significantly more stubborn teenager. It is not something that I take for granted. I appreciate what it has done for me, and I can only hope that we both find peace in our new lives.

A Note From Our Guest Judge,

Kathryn Koromilas

I loved reading your eulogy for the beloved bolster. It was such fun to see you, for the briefest moment, “digress” from eulogy into sales pitch because yes, when we love and honour something deeply, we naturally want to persuade others of its worth too!

I also really appreciated the invitation to peek into the cultural specifics of comfort items for the Chinese. You capture so beautifully how we carry these items with us as we grow, and how “mismatched” that relationship can become, our bodies growing larger while they stay the same. Your reflection on this is quietly profound: it’s loyalty, loyalty to a friend, to a relationship, and you say this is something not to be taken for granted.

And yet, in the end, we must graduate - from the kid-sized bolster to the adult-sized one - and that loyalty evolves into something else: nostalgia, and gratitude. You have beautifully expressed the bittersweet experience of having to let an object go (and yet also keep it in memory) so as to step into adulthood.

All the best with your future writing.

About Anna Oh

Anna Oh

is an aspiring writer from Singapore who enjoys exploring themes of existentialism. Her other hobbies include avoiding human interaction and finding her place in the universe. She also runs the Critical Thinking Café on Substack.

This piece was written in response to the prompt Eulogy for An Object.