I Am Loving You

One day, Ollie had enough. “I’m lonely,” she said to the cat. But the cat didn’t even stop washing itself. “I’m very, very lonely,” Ollie said, raising her voice. The cat closed his eyes and started purring loudly. Ollie looked indignantly at her house mate, who never really cared what Ollie did. Except that he sometimes brazenly, without asking, used Ollie as a pillow. She sighed. The cat opened one eye.

Ollie looked out of the window. The baby. There’d been a lot of talking about that since she had come to live here. And there’d been a lot of singing about it, too. But actually, Ollie wasn’t sure what that was, exactly, a baby. “Just wait,” the cat repeated while he stretched his lean body over Ollie. Ollie stared at the street and waited as only a cuddly toy elephant can do.

Ofa pressed herself against Ollie. “So we’re elephants?” Ollie nodded. Rabbit was in a warm embrace with the girl. “Am I an elephant, too?”, she asked. Ollie hesitated for a moment. “No.” Rabbit tried to wiggle herself out of her embrace with the girl, but that failed. “If I’m not an elephant, what am I then?”

Ofa looked despairingly at Ollie, hoping that she would know the answer, being the oldest in the house. After all, she’d been here long before all the others existed. “You’re a rabbit,” answered Ollie. “That’s convenient,” shouted Ofa. “That must be why you’re called Rabbit!” Rabbit kept looking a bit glum. “But,” said Ollie, who felt perfectly why, “we are family. You, me and Ofa. And we are all hers.”

“I didn’t know what a baby was. But now I do.” “Thanks to her, I’m no longer lonely, and I have all of you. And I love her”, said Ollie, moved. “Me too!”, Ofa boomed. “Ssshhh…!”, hissed Rabbit and Ollie, startled. But fortunately, the girl only slightly moved her eyelids and pulled Rabbit even closer.

“What does that mean, Ollie? Loving?” asked Rabbit. Ollie thought for a moment before she answered. “That means that you never ever want to let go of someone, or lose them. That you wish that never anything bad will happen to them. That everything else around you becomes unimportant, and only the other is the most important person in the world. It means that everyone may be alone, but together they are one.”

Ofa felt a lump in his throat and wrapped his trunk around Ollie. Rabbit felt the girl’s arms. Heard her heart beat. I’m being held really tight, she thought. She won’t let go of me, and I won’t let go of her. We are together one. “Oh, but then I love her, too. And I love you all, and I love myself.” Ollie and Ofa didn’t say anything to that.