100 Word Stories - Coco Bunny (Repost from Facebook, 14 November 2009)

We received a mysterious invitation to the Magic Friend Factory. We entered, feeling not entirely unlike Charlie Bucket. We were led through corridors, confused, but curious. In the Friend Picker, our tears were sampled, and a few minutes later, a plush sock-body twin of our late Coco came down a chute. They put it in the Stuffer, and we watched the body fill. They stitched her closed and handed her to us. When we held her, she transformed: no longer a stuffed animal, but an immortal surrogate for our lost friend. There’s a lot of magic in a little stuffing.

This was written in response to the Weekly Challenge #186 - "Stuffing" (week ending 11/14/2009) for the 100 Word Stories weekly podcast. It was the third story I wrote for this prompt, but was the most personal. It was a Fairy Tale rendition of our journey to Build-a-Bear Workshop to make a stuffed animal in tribute to our pet bunny rabbit who died this past spring.