Met His Maker

We all know Woody from the Toy Story movies. It’s now been 100 years since those movies first came out, yet they remain classics. Woody has become quite an old toy. In fact, he’s thinking about dying, if that means anything for a toy. Before, he does that he’d like to meet his maker. 

Of course, Woody knows like we all do that he has “Mattel” printed to the bottom of his plastic cowboy boot, but he still wonders if there’s something more to it. Maybe if he went to the Mattel factory, he might be able to tell more about where he came from and how it could be that plastic and cloth and a soundbox have so much emotion. 

He wonders whether there’s something that the factory puts in toys that reacts in a special way to a child’s love. It’s not that Woody is unhappy with his life or has become suicidal. It’s more that he would like to know if there’s more than this earth even for a toy. He’s on a quest to find his soul. Something that makes him more than plastic.

The journey to his Mattel factory begins with a lot of research. Woody will first have to figure out in which toy factory he was made, and this will involve going far back into his memory to a point that is extremely cloudy. 

The library is close by for a human but for a toy, it seems like it is miles away. Woody decides to try to hitch a ride in the trunk of his human’s car. To do this, he has to climb out of the attic. None of the other toys join him. They tell him just to wait and soon they will be sold in a yard sale and end up back in a child’s house or they will end up with the grandkids. If not that, they will have many years of fun stuck in storage playing cards. Woody’s human owners are old, but not as old as Andy would be if he were alive. There is a picture of Andy on the mantlepiece. 

He waits a week in the living room for the humans to finally announce that they will go to the library--a week spent often dodging the family cat.  The library is small but feels huge to Woody. He has to dodge cars to get in and feet once he is inside. Then he makes his way over to a computer, to use while no one is looking. Luckily, it’s a quiet Tuesday afternoon at the library. 

For Woody remembering being made is like a human remembering being born. He has a plan. He will find a magician toy that can help him remember. He googles toy shops and finds the directions to one nearby. 

Making his way by hiding in bushes and jumping on car bumpers, Woody finally gets to his destination. Luckily, Woody finds a magician toy at a toy story and begs him to help him remember the past. The magician is not sure if this is possible, but he has some notes on hypnotism. Of course, it’s a very childish type, but on a toy like Woody, it works well. 

Woody can suddenly see the toy factory where he came to be in China, he suddenly remembers being put in a box, and, most importantly, he remembers hearing or seeing a street sign, Futian. A google search conducted secretly in a library confirms its location in China. That’s all that Woody gets, however. He wishes the magician could help him remember the whole thing. The magician explains that is beyond his powers. 

How to get to Futian is a real problem. The trip involves a lot of planning. Of course, this means going back to the library. At this point, Woody hasn’t communicated with his companions in storage for weeks. He feels sad but he decides he must press on with his search. 

 It is quite hard for Woody to get to Futian. He ends up sailing on a recycling ship to China--the USA sends its recycling to China. He barely escapes death several times. There are strange things in recycling with Woody. One thing is a `plastic dinosaur who acts ferocious at first but backs down later. They end up becoming friends and leaving the boat together, Woody in search of his factory and the dinosaur in search of a new home in China. 

Once in China, he has to ask some waving cat toys about the Mattel factory. It seems that the very first store he entered was exclusively selling these cats. Many do not know the direction. Thankfully, he finds one that was made at the factory and can give precise directions.

The first step is getting into a subway and hiding under a bench. While hiding, he is noticed by a lapdog that gets on the train. Nobody sees him, but someone thinks a rat was under the chair and it begins an examination of all the seats. Luckily, Woody’s stop is up very soon. 

Then Woody steals secretly onto a taxi. To make his stop he has to jump out of a window. He almost loses his hat down a gutter. He is beginning to wonder if the whole journey was worth it. Maybe, he isn’t so desperate to know how he came to be. 

At long last, Woody finds himself walking into the factory, dodging under people’s feet as he climbs a lot of stairs. He runs through corridors until he sees a room that people with hard hats are coming in and out of--this is the place, he is sure.  What he finds inside is simply melting plastic and hundreds and hundreds of different toys being made. None of which are Woody toys. None of the toys can talk which makes him wonder why he can. There’s nothing in the factory that is magical or explains Woody’s toy soul.  

In one room, Woody finds toys being inspected on a table. Then he sees them being stuffed in boxes and put on a conveyor belt. Maybe, they gain speech when they sit in the store waiting for someone to buy them. He can’t remember any of this from his past. There’s nothing more to do here. 

Woody leaves the factory and wanders around Futian. He sees a buddha in a window and decides to ask him about recycling plants. He thinks it is time to go home and spend time with his friends in the attic. The buddha turns out to be inside a busy restaurant; no one is paying attention and he can spend a lot of time talking to the buddha.  It seems like a long shot, but in the course of the conversation, Woody explains his search for the origins of his being.

The buddha gives Woody the answer that soul and matter are one and the same for toys. It’s best not to try to hard to find the answers to difficult questions, the Buddha adds. He used to want to know more about his future, but he has learned to be content with his lot in life as a window watcher. 

Intrigued by the philosophy but confused and a little downtrodden, Woody begins a long and arduous journey back to his home country. Before he boards an empty boat sailing for the USA to pick up recycling, he watches as tons of recycling materials are transformed into different objects. Plastic bottles become plastic slides for children. 

Finally, Woody boards the boat. On the trip home, he grapples with the possibility that he is simply immortal, that soul and matter are one and inseparable for material objects. He starts thinking about many things and asking many questions.

This realization that this existence is everything is difficult for Woody. It seems that all things should have an end. Andy has died, all the people he once loved and played with have passed away. Yet death to Woody seems like it could just be oblivion and that terrifies him. 

Still even were he to be run over by a truck, he thinks that he would still go on existing. After all, the hideous toys in Sid’s room simply took on other shapes but remained alive in toy terms. He wouldn’t be able to say it but essentially he’s realizing that as matter he can’t be created or destroyed. Even were he melted down he would probably still exist in some way. 

Frustrated and confused, Woody recognizes that he may be doomed to an existence of eternal return in which he attaches himself to a mortal human only to watch this human wither and die eventually. Faced by this possibility, Woody decides in Nietzchian fashion that he will simply have to make the best of it. 

Woody’s friends are happy to have him back at last. He had been away for a year. Now, that he’s back in storage, Woody decides to take the buddha’s advice and not ask many questions. He tries his best to enjoy where he is. He likes the company of the toys and gets so good at cards he can finally beat Buzz at least occasionally. 

Sometimes, they tell stories from the past. The stories are usually about Andy. He was their favorite kid. They are lucky that they have each other. They could easily have been separated from one another, but thanks to Andy and other kids, they always stayed together. Perhaps, their favorite story is the story of how Buzz first came into Andy’s room. Unlike all the other toys who came into that room, Buzz thought he wasn’t a toy.

Buzz has known he is a toy for so many years, and now the story seems almost hard to believe. He enjoys asking Woody questions about their encounters and what was going through Woody’s mind during them. Woody, likes this story just as much as Buzz and has just as many questions to ask. However, Buzz has no explanation for his behavior. He remembers nothing of his own creation. Soon, they tire of this story and move to another. Thus, they spend years and years in the attic, reliving happy moments together and keeping their friendship strong.  The End