The Life of Eva Lucia – Part 1: The Code

Eva Lucia was a cat like no other. On the outside, she was the typical calico stuffed toy. She was slightly worn out and a tad bit dirty with a few stitches and a wooden button replacing her left eye that got lost in a fight with one of Tilia’s cousins. On the inside, she had a secret that Tilia and her father worked on during the summer of second grade and installed the week before the school year started. That secret was a little box of springs, coils, wires, a microphone, and a battery that made the calico walk, talk, and behave almost like a real cat. Tilia loved cats and always wanted one but, unfortunately, was allergic to them. And that summer, when her father brought home the abandoned and tortured kitten, Tilia was heartbroken that they had to give up the little rescue to the local animal shelter.

For days after that event, Tilia’s father spent his evenings drawing strange diagrams into his engineering notebook until one afternoon, he took Tilia shopping at the local hardware store. The smell of metal, wood, and paint was overwhelming. Still, Tilia took a deep breath and plunged through the isles, glued to her father’s side, watching colorful boxes jumping into their shopping cart while her Papa checked the numbers on their labels. The cashier at the register was bewildered by the selection of items in their shopping cart, but his question-shaped eyebrows couldn’t pull a single word out of the wizardly grin stretching over Papa’s face. The whole interaction triggered excitement and anticipation in Tilia’s little heart. She knew that grin and that silence meant something magical was about to happen, and she felt pity for the poor cashier who would never be a part of their secret.

On the way home, Tillia’s little hands clutched anxiously to the plastic bag with all the little boxes. She could feel their mysterious content rattle in sync with every turn and bump their truck hit on the road. As if a little kitten was in her lap, Tilia held onto the bag and wondered what her Papa was up to. At last, at home, Tilia’s father rolled out a large dish towel on the dining table. He neatly emptied each box on the top section of the towel in an apparently important order, placing a label under each heap of shiny plastic bags. Rubbing his hands as if he wanted to start a fire, the man slung the rusty toolbox on the table and began to call his tools as if they were little soldiers reporting for duty. When everyone was accounted for, Papa finally pulled out a chair for Tilia and, with his beaming blue eyes, finally revealed the secret.

There was going to be surgery, a very special kind, for an old friend of Tilia’s, but long forgotten. The surgery was for the old calico stuffed cat, sitting in the toy box since Tilia started kindergarten. And they were going to give her a heart. That’s right, a little beating box of a heart so Tilia could finally have her own living cat, or, well, almost.

Tilia ejected out of the chair, skidding all the way to the toy chest, retrieving the old stuffed calico. Sure, she smelled forgotten and looked aged. Still, the thought of reviving her from the past with the help of a few heaps of hardware made Tilia taste the same satisfaction she once felt, wrestling back her toy from her cousin’s sticky hands. At the dining table, Tilia’s father whistled a playful melody that sounded more like a battle hymn for his soldiers, the screwdrivers, pliers, and soldering irons. They all seemed to know exactly when to jump in and what to do. Tilia’s curious eyes followed their moves as if she were the chief battle correspondent, capturing the troops’ moves. But hours went by, and tired, Tilia had to retreat to bed on her mama’s commands.

The following morning, Tilia found the little calico on the table still waiting for her heart. The toolbox was gone, and in its place, a laptop was feeding a little white cord to what appeared to be the calico’s future heart. The girl looked around for her father and slowly glided behind the screen. Lines of code crawled upwards from the screen, some in green, others in white and yellow. Tilia curled her fingers and began to read the lines one at a time.

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Importing module body_movement …

Compiling function downward_stretch() …