The Replaced Bear
Did you lose the bear when you were four, or just now, at the table?
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The Replaced Bear
You had a bear until you were nine. You still have it, in a box at your mum's. At Christmas she tells you the truth: you lost the bear in a car park when you were four, and she drove to three shops that night to find the same one. She swapped it while you slept. You never noticed. Thirty years of that bear being the thing that got you through hospital and your parents' divorce, and it's the second bear.
Did you lose the bear when you were four, or just now, at the table?
Then ask
- If she'd never told you, would anything have been wrong?
- Would it be better or worse if the first bear turned up tomorrow?
- Is the thing you loved the bear, or the nights?
The classics and some new ones. A scenario, the question it forces, and the follow-ups that make it bite.