HEAVY LITTLE OBJECTS

#42 :: Iridescent fuzzball

I can't say for sure where this came from. A household with two young children in daycare sucks in playthings, gifts, books, hand-me-down clothing, Happy Meal toys, popsicle sticks and arts-and-crafts detritus with the gravitic pull of a dwarf star. This appeared somewhere among the flotsam and jetsam one day, glinting up from the back seat of the car amidst books, cast-off clothing, sippy cups, used wipes and apple cores. It is a non-biodegradable red plush ball less than half an inch thick, flocked with fine hairs of holographic diffraction film - the sort of thing one can probably buy by the scoopful from huge bins at Michael's. It is instantly disposable, yet will probably be around in one form or another long after this server is shut down and these words erased upon the demise of their author. It is a kitsch cockroach, with the manufactured power to outlast the collected cultural works of humankind.

Or maybe it's just a fuzzball.