Pt. 20

much like any other in the life of our young hero. He was sitting in his bedroom, which deserves some measure of description. For weeks, Bo would spend twelve or more hours a day, meticulously hot-gluing bright, rainbow-coloured sequins to every inch of his floor, walls and ceiling. It had taken well over three months of steadfast dedication for him to complete his unsettling and frankly, audacious, project. 

Bo had also a certain affinity for budgies, and kept well over three dozen in his room. Due to a grievous miscalculation of cage size, the vast majority of these birds were free to roam the young boy's room as they saw fit. As such, these birds had taken shelter in whatever nook they could find. Jacket pockets, half eaten jars of dill pickles; anything large enough for a bird to live, and do its duty in. There was never a concern for health and safety, because health and safety officials dared not enter in order to assess the situation. Out of sight, out of mind was certainly a phrase Bo kept close to his heart. This is without even mentioning the jars of belly-button lint and fingernails that Bo collected. If asked, Bo would assure you with great conviction that he never knew when he may need to call upon their power. What power they held was anybody's guess, by this point in our story it is well known that some of his, tendencies, are best left without query.

In an earth-shaking moment of convenient plot development, Bo remembered his father defying the unspoken agreement of "Don't ask, don't tell" when considering his son's habits and hobbies. Bo was deep in the process of cataloguing his clippings by virtue of size, chronology and, when applicable, taste, when his father wearily entered the disturbing living quarters. "Son," the man said with a sigh, "What are you doing with those nail clippings? They're not going to make you rich or save your life." Bo shifted his concentrated gaze to meet his father's with an infinitely slow motion. When their eyes finally met, the boy locked onto his father's and stared motionlessly and without sound for a full seven minutes. His father dared not break eye contact, for fear of some absurd and improbable consequence. The man simply had no way of knowing that very fallout was already happening. This was such an awkward moment that a small inhabited planet, several hundred lightyears away from the one Bo sat on, burst in to flames and destroyed all life on it. Intelligent life would later re-inhabit the planet and dedicate centuries of research to explaining the abrupt end of life it experienced millions of years before.

After precisely seven unblinking minutes, Bo screamed at the top of his lungs "CEEEEAAAAASSAAAAAAAAARRRRRR" until his face turned a shade of blue that a hardware store would be elated to find a paint code for. His father walked out of the room without saying a word, and the two never spoke of the incident again. 

As the neglected gears in Bo's brain struggled to connect the meaning of this dream sequence, he drifted slowly back into consciousness. Coupled with the strain of interpreting a dream, Bo's mind encountered a stark inability to comprehend his new surroundings and the people around him, nor the striking feeling of having wet himself. 

"I...I..." stammered the plump young doughboy, "I think I know what we need to do next. Did we get the arm? We need to make a pitstop."

Tom's eyes lit up to see his friend awake. "Where to, big little guy?"

"We have to go to my parents' house. There are two jars that we're going to need. One jar will allow us to assemble the rock star, and the other will protect us from evil that I cannot foresee." 

Tom Jones' eyes rolled into the back of his head in pure delight. "Then let's go, we haven't a moment to lose! We've got to go before they break down the door!"