When we were selling our house last October I did the whole declutter and rearrange the furniture thing that we all have learned from watching reality TV. I also bought a few new generic looking things like scatter cushions, to give the house that ‘display home’ look. One of the objects I bought to decorate the main bedroom with was this mass-produced, south-east Asian looking statue of what I thought was a sleeping child. I had two reactions from the household. My partner said he hoped we could get rid of it once we sold the house and poppet looked admiringly and said Buddha, its Buddha. So I told him he could have it when we moved into our new house. On the day we moved in I handed poppet the statue, and he was overjoyed. Although it was too heavy for him, he managed to lug it into his room and add it to his pile of toys.

One night poppet started screaming. I ran into his room and he looked terrified. I asked him if something scared him. Sobbing he pointed to the wall and cried there, there, it’s there. Shadows, I asked. Yes shadow he replied. I switched on the night-light, calmed him down and went back to bed. Then the screaming started again. I went back to poppet’s room and noticed a great big Buddha shadow on the wall. It was looming down on him and he looked terrified. Oh it’s just Buddha’s shadow I said. And he kept repeating Buddha scare me, Buddha scare me. So I took the statue out of the room and calmed him down again.

The statue then sat in the dining room for the next month and every so often when poppet noticed it he would repeat, Buddha scare me. Last week I asked him if he would like to put Buddha in the garden. Yes he gleamed. And I helped him lug heavy Buddha into the garden. Now poppet smiles when he sees the statue and says it’s Buddha, it’s Buddha. Buddha seems happy too.