BORDERLIVE

I'm an out-of-production plush, one of the many items which are forgot in dusty attics in the countryside cottages or, in the worst case, even disappear in some wet and dark storehouses.

But, unlike many brothers of mine, I didn't accept such a sad fate.

My name is Borderlive and this is my story. I'm just a plush, nothing more than that, but my self-awareness gives an advantage to me in respect of the other puppets, which think they are like men.

I don't remember much about my birth, from time to time fragments of a serial and violent process arise in my mind, something mechanical and deafening. Now I know what it was: it was the noise of the factory where I was born, the Black Toys Inc. Electric genesis, industrial genesis, turbulent genesis.

The only soothing joy was the warmth of some tiny hands.

That's what I remember: tiny hands, pneumatic pistons going up and down, coveyor belts with their buzzing driving me crazy.

Tiny hands.

Tiny hands, giving not only life to me, but also sight, as they sewed on my face two plastic eyes, which I maybe wished I didn't had.

As a matter of fact, sight bore the first contradictions, which soon revealed themselves as too big and heavy for such a small and light body.

The very same children who should have enjoyed my sweetness, this being the main goal of my existence, worked under very hard circumstances to bear me to life at Black Toys Inc., far from civil world, there, where "humanity" is just a nearly forgotten word.

Tiny, younger than fifteen year old hands, working hard from 8 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 11 p.m. 30 minutes.

A 30 minute break.

The factory's production was mainly composed by stuffed plushes, like me, and relevant spare parts, as well as some wooden toys.

According to local rules, a child couLd not work more than 4 hours a day and each employer should also guarantee a tailor made education plan for his little employees.

Anyway, as far as I can remember, both of these fundamental rules were not respected.

During their first nine months at the factory, kids were hired just "on trial", meaning they did not receive any loan, nor any benefits for their health.

"Loan" is obviously an euphemistic expression, not to mention that it also included money for work insurance, insuring nothing, actually.

So, when a kid was ill or got injured at work, he had also to pay medical expenses on his own.

At the factory you didn't receive any glove, children had to buy an uniform and work tools, suck as scissors and sewing set on their own.

Warm tiny hands.

I can remember them vey well, being gloves a luxurious thing only few of them could afford.

I think I owe to that warmth my first instinct of conscience.

For the night shift children received just an egg and a glass of milk.

An egg and a glass of milk.

Warm tiny hands.

Warm tiny hands, a lot of hunger and little health.

I could stand to see such a horror no more, so I took my courage, closed my mouth, and silence is a kind of protest I kept on with up to now, then I fled the factory.

It wasn't easy at all, as the factory was guarded by some advanced prototypes of military toys.

Last generation toys, built to flood the world market and promote an inconscious world militarization of youngsters' minds.

The company I was built in, gave to a so-called Mr. War (each soldier or tank had his signature on it) the duty to plan these new toys for children.

Their messages were war and death: totally different from what I bore in my heart.

Years later I found out that Mr. War was not a psychologist, nor a paediatrist, nor a toy expert.

Before working at the factory he planned and built "hi-tech" army equipment, which was successfully used even during the Fiord War.

Toy producers considered his experience in war field as crucial for the creation of toys for today's and tomorrow's children.

Toys which main aim was to combine destruction and new technology.

The famous magazine "Weird careers" interviewed Mr. War.

After I read the article my rage for this designer of absurd toys turned into tenderness.

Probably as a child he had suffered himself the effect of bad toys and it was not his fault if he wanted to create other similar objects.

Talking with the journalists, Mr. War described his childhood spent building guns, bombs and missiles.

His main goal was offering to kids the very same means used by soldiers nowadays.

I saw with my very eyes the horrible exploitation of underages, I understood the wicked market logics by means of facts' knowledge, I at last even learned that I was toxic too, because of my toxic building materials.

After all this, I decided to renounce to my recreational nature.

I didn't want to be used like a possibly damaging mean for children anymore.

I spent a long time wandering all around the word, learning that where weakests' rights are denied, there you should not lose your hope, you should fight, raising your voice until it's heard.

Your will to change things can at least restrain human baseness, if not create a better world.

I saw misery and exploitation, I lived some times of hallucinating drifting mind experiences and other times of enlighted wisdom.

But, most of anything else, one thing stroke my being during my trip: music, each and every kind of music.

Music is ransom.

Music is salvation.

Music is freedom.

Music is catharsis.

Music is magic.

Therefore I made up my mind: in front of all these lies and this violence I could not keep on being just a puppet, as if I stayed in silence I would have been a partner in this atrocious crime.

I still didn't want to talk, but I wanted to convey my message by means of emotions I, we could experience only through music.

First of all, I've got a love message.

And even if it colud sometimes be a bit rough, because of my childish experiences at the factory I still remember, it will never stop being a message of hope.