Joey threw Walrus Man into a tree. The action figure got stuck. The branch was fifty feet up and shrouded with green leaves and obscured the figure. Joey’s dad didn’t have a ladder big enough to get it, so it remained there.

Overnight, a storm knocked Walrus Man down from the tree. A possum picked it up after taking an interest in the downed figure. The marsupial buried it in the dirt for finding later. Since it wasn’t food, the possum forgot about it. The action figure remained buried for many years.

Eventually, a company bought the patch of woods in which Walrus Man was buried. They bulldozed the area for a set of condominiums named “Ambrose Breeze,” which people would quickly refer to as “The Holy Fart.” During the bulldozing, Walrus Man was unearthed. It was resting next to a pile of dirt on a weekend morning when some kids rode by on bicycles. One of them picked up Walrus Man and kept it.

All the other action figures in the kid’s room were now more muscular, bigger. They had more moving parts and roided out veins. Being smaller, and eventually less interesting, he was once again buried—this time at the bottom of a toy chest.

While cleaning out the toy chest, the mother discovered Walrus Man and asked the kid where he got it. He said “by some dirt.” The mother, recognizing it as old, asked if she could sell it. The kid replied “whatever.”

The store was a disappointment, but the mother accepted the $20 for the figure anyway. However, after the markup to $35 for retail sale, no one bought it. Nonetheless, now among brethren of a similar age, Walrus Man no longer looked as thin and frail. He even thought he could take the cyclops that had been looking at him the wrong way for 13 months now.

One day, feeling nostalgic, Joey walked into the used gaming and collectibles store. The detour, while still on the route between the office and home, offered him some time to clear his head. Whatever Melissa’s “we have to talk” meant, he would find out soon enough. But before all that, he dallied amid the action figures and old versions of RPG rulebooks. He stumbled across Walrus Man amid the others and paused. The figure seemed so familiar.

“Wow, I used to have one just like this,” he said while reaching for the figure.

“Touch it, you buy it,” a man from behind counter said. Joey looked at the $35 price and decided to hurry to whatever conversation awaited at home.