Ratchet vs. The Swear Jar
"Okay, buddy, tell me again what we're watching?"
Clank's green eyes, always the most splendid shade of emerald, seemed to glow just a little brighter when they spied the girl in the pink dress and blonde hair. She and her suitor were in a boat on a tranquil lake, watching a wealth of lanterns rise to the Moon. "It is called Tangled," he explained patiently, "an example of human filmmaking, created by Disney in the year 2010, it stars - "
Ratchet's hand waved his words away and he had to fight the urge to laugh. He loved Clank, but if he let him go on, the poor little guy would be so busy listing every cast member, best boy and wardrobe assistant that he'd miss the movie.
For someone who had stared in his own TV series, had fans galore, his own trailer and an assorted line of merchandise to his name, Clank truly delighted in the humble efforts of those strange Earthlings. Crude creatures they may have been, but when it came to musical numbers they bowed the knee to no one. The film went on, and as the tiny robot inched closer and closer to the edge of the sofa, and Talwyn's hand itched towards the box of tissues on the arm, Ratchet remained unimpressed.
For what, he cried, was so enthralling about a stupid girl being locked away in a tower? And the magic hair? Puh-leeze. Those humans were so quick to see Witches and Wizards behind every unusual occurrence. They probably circled themselves with salt when they found a green potato chip.
Why didn't she just shoot the woman keeping her cooped up? And why did that girl, so quick to smile and break into song at the worst times, use a frying pan? A gun, Ratchet found, worked far better, especially when it could turn men into chickens.
It was a stupid, ridiculous movie, and the obvious enjoyment of his friends did nothing to dissuade Ratchet from cheering and whooping when the final credits rolled.
"You," Talwyn sniffed, "have no soul."
"Your reaction is unduly celebratory." Clank agreed.
"Hey!" He protested, folding his arms and pouting a little. "I have a soul, okay? I'm Mr. Souly McSoulerson from Soulstantinople."
"Oh, really?" His girlfriend frowned, wiping a bleary eye with the tip of her tail. "Well, what was your favourite part of the movie?"
Ratchet's fangs bit into his lower lip and his eyes squinted. "Well," he ventured, "I'd have to say it was that nice quiet moment between the end credits and this stupid fight."
"See?" She grunted. "Soulless. I bet if I said Let It Go, you wouldn't even know what I mean."
"Let it go?"
"Yeah." She nodded.
Though it didn't seem possible, Ratchet's eyes seemed to narrow even more, until they resembled shards of green glass. "But...I'm...not...holding...anything...?"
"Oh," she sighed, "good God."
"Terrible." Mourned Clank. "Ratchet, have you never seen Frozen?"
"Now hang on," he smirked, "that does ring a bell. Isn't it the movie with all the snow? Yeah, I remember it now. Frozen, yeah, AKA 'The Longest Bathroom Break in Recorded History'. Seriously, I sit down, I watch it, there's a Yeti."
"Troll." Clank corrected him.
"Whatever. Then there's a guy with a moustache, and for literally an hour, the whole thing's nothing but some redheaded broad asking some old lady to build a snowman. Wanna' build a snowman? No. Nooooow do you wanna' build a snowman? No. Do you wanna' build a snowman, pwetty pwease with spwinkles on top? No. Boom End credits."
For a moment, Clank and Talwyn said nothing. Their mouths hung open and only the most outraged, incomprehensible splutterings escaped their mouths. It seemed he had broken them.
Despite his logic, despite his cold, mechanical mind, it was not Clank who recovered first.
"Ratchet," muttered Talwyn, "I don't think you know what the word literally means."
"Do too."
"No," she snarled, "you don't. Anna wasn't literally outside Elsa's door any more than Jesus literally turned into a robot and fought Superman. Second of all, Elsa's not old, she's got white hair, that doesn't make her an old lady. Didn't you watch the movie? What? Did you just see the first five minutes, turn it off and decide you didn't like it?"
"Pretty much." He confessed breezily, delighting in their disgust.
"But Ratchet," stammered Clank, "how can you judge it if you haven't seen it all?"
"Okay, okay," he conceded, "let's just do a little test, huh? To see how off-base I really am. All right, does the movie have lots of songs?"
"That is correct." Nodded Clank.
"Lemme' guess, it's also got a quirky sidekick. Something that talks that shouldn't talk? Like a parrot or a metrosexual gargoyle?"
"His name is Olaf," Talwyn huffed, "and he happens to be a snowman."
"And here's the cincher," Ratchet concluded with a roguish grin, "does it or does it not revolve entirely around any of the following: family, friendship, love - either romantic or platonic, being 'true to yourself', judging people 'by what's on the inside' or why you shouldn't trust a monkey in a funny hat?"
"Yes." They admitted, sighing wretchedly.
"There ya' go." He bragged, clicking his fingers and feeling rather proud of himself. "y'see? These things never change, it's the same soppy story over and over."
What, to him, seemed like common sense, seemed as offensive to his friends as the Lord's Prayer being recited via kazoo. Talwyn's arms folded and her eyes rolled, and Clank's shimmering green orbs narrowed angrily.
"Amusing." The robot muttered.
"What's amusing?"
"Your protestation that these movies never alter in their central narrative." Explained Clank, ignoring Ratchet's loud snore at his pomposity. "You seem unaware that you yourself are similarly unchanging. Were we to explain why these works are entertaining, you would scoff at the idea, exhibiting the very myopia that you deride, and furthermore - "
"Wanna' maybe dumb it down a little, buddy?"
"He's calling you a hypocrite." Explained Talwyn with an annoyed dart of her tail. "The movies don't change? Well, neither do you. It could be the best movie ever made, but add in a little singing and a bit of romance, and you turn your nose up at it."
"Hey, I can change, okay?"
"Prove it." She demanded.
"How?"
"We'll watch the film again and this time you can try to give - "
"Tal, Tal, Tal," he chuckled, "that's really not going to happen. C'mon, give me something easier! Anything!"
"Anything," Talwyn sighed, "as long as it doesn't educate, enrich or improve you in any way?"
"Yep!"
"So, no Disney flicks, no losing weight, no learning a new language...language! A-ha! A-goddamn-HA! A swear jar!"
"I don't swear." Pouted Ratchet.
"Untrue." Countered Clank.
Talwyn's lips stretched into a merry smirk and her head gave a playful, mischievous bob. "A swear jar." She nodded. "It's settled. Every time you swear, you drop in a bolt, no matter why, no matter how angry you are, or whether or not you meant to, or whether you thought you were all alone. You swear, you pay, deal?"
She offered him her hand and he shook it with a broad, confident grin. "Sure, why not?" He shrugged. "You're gonna' be pretty disappointed, though. My will is iron, unbreakable, indestructible, second to none. Better get some posies ready, because they're the only thing going in that jar."
"MOTHERFUNKING SON OF A GODDAMN FUNKING BITCH! THAT STUPID MOTHERFUNKER CAN'T EVEN LEAVE ME ALONE FOR ONE SHIPPINGING SECOND? HE HAS TO BE HERE NOW? RIGHT FUNKING NOW? RIGHT AT THIS SOCKCUCKING FUNKING MINUTE? FUNK! FUNK! FUNK!"
10 bolts. 10 damned bolts in less than an hour.
When he dropped them in the empty glass jar, he did so through gritted teeth, and each one escaped his fingers slowly, grudgingly, as though coated in glue.
Some willpower, Ratchet, he thought, indestructible my a...ctually, no, I'm not going to swear, not even in my head. Ten bolts is quite enough, thanks.
After the bet had been made, and the jar set upon the coffee table that sat before their television, things had been normal enough. They had all chatted, laughed, and seemingly forgotten about the stupid fight brought about by a talking snowman and an evil old woman. And then, Talwyn had excused herself. When she reappeared, and called his name, it was with the quiet, whispered voice reserved solely for the bedroom. Her hardened soldier's body, with its smooth edges and soft skin, was hidden behind a shirt so flimsy that it wouldn't stand for long against the busy fangs of a hungry Lombax.
Clank was oblivious when they retired to bed at midday, and seemingly remained so when they loudly began doing things that would take approximately twelve black bars to sanitise. There they were, writhing together in the heat of passion, when he heard it.
Knock, knock, knock.
Polite, loud taps on the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
And from outside the robot spoke, informing Ratchet that Qwark had arrived and was waiting for them both, wanting an informal visit with his best friends. The good Captain was that rarest of friends, the kind you never wanted to speak to, see or remember you met in the first place. Still, even if it had been someone halfway decent popping in, he probably would've reacted the same way.
He plopped off the bed, put on his clothes, rubbed his face to work away the red patches, and emerged from the bedroom, to find Clank watching himself on TV, and no square-jawed, pea-brained superheroes in sight.
"Where's Qwark?" He hissed.
"Qwark?" Squinted Clank. "I assume he's at home."
"But you said he was here!"
"I said nothing of the sort."
"Tal! You heard him!"
"Nope," she replied, "I didn't hear anything."
Ratchet's eye twitched, his fists clenched and his tail stabbed. He'd just been hustled. "Oh-ho-ho," he tittered with more than a little bitterness, "I see! I see what this is! You too are in cahoots!"
"I assure you," smiled Talwyn, "you are the only person I am currently cahooting."
"You know what I mean! Well, it won't work, you hear me? Ol' Ratchet ain't as dumb as he looks, and he's nobodies stooge, and you won't get one over on me again. And as for you, Tal? Well, let's just say that from now on you're going to have to find yourself a nice, handsome Angola sweater, because this fur-farm's closed!"
"Oh, no." She muttered. "Woe is me. I am in a spiral of unending despair, how will I manage?"
It soon emerged that Talwyn Apogee and Clank could manage quite well. The two of them having no problem or compunction whatsoever about luring the big-eared, furry fly into their increasingly intricate web. Every so often, as he buzzed around and felt on the verge of normality, they would tug an invisible string and send him right out of orbit.
Their second trick was right out of the handbook of every delinquent teen with too much time on their hands. There came a knock on the door, and when Ratchet opened it, his nostrils immediately opened to the rich aroma of dough, tomato sauce, mushroom and sausages.
The pizza man was a robot of a rather raggedy design. His shirt was matted with stains that must have been years old, and beneath his floppy white cap hung lengths of crackling , woven wire. Two yellow, dimming eyes scanned a notepad as he calculated the bill for the stack of smoking pizza boxes at his feet.
"One chilli and onion," he mumbled, "ricotta and spinach, cheese and pineapple, spicy chicken wings and mango sauce, five large sodas, three portions of onion rings, walnut coleslaw, mozzarella and cranberry dipping sticks and a robot-sized bottle of Dr. Pepper. In total, that comes to..."
"We didn't order it." Snapped Ratchet. "And no one here drinks Dr. Pepper. Hello? We have taste buds."
"I was given this order," the pizza man grunted, "and given this address, and I didn't lug this crap up fifteen flights of stairs just to have some mangy fleabag tell me it was all a joke. Now, I'm leaving this here, you're going to pay for it, and you're going to eat it, every bite, even the bits with hair in them - and there's a lot. Now, how we gonna' do this thing?"
"How are we gonna' do this?" He seethed. "Well, first off, it starts with me telling you to shut the Hell up. Second, it involves you turning around and getting out of here before I get angry." Behind him, he heard Clank's little hand rise to his mouth, to stifle a giggle, Talwyn shushed him and Ratchet realised that he had been fooled again, but like salmon swimming upstream, he was unable to stop himself once he got going.
The pizza man's eyes, that had looked so faltering and weak, suddenly blazed with anger at the impertinence of the wide-eyed Lombax, and his hands worked about his sleeves, rolling them to his crusted, rickety elbows. "Wanna' step outside?" He challenged.
"Gladly!"
Ratchet gave his friends a withering glare, picked his wrench from the sofa and headed out to battle. When he was finished, he owed twenty three more bolts, but felt compensated by the battered head resting beneath his arm and the enormous pile of free food he shuffled inside the apartment.
As they sat together and ate, wolfing down slice after slice of greasy pastry and well-cooked meat, Ratchet could almost see the funny side of it all. It had been a very eventful day.
All for the sake of a bit of singing and dancing, he had enjoyed a fumble between the sheets, killed a robot and was clogging his arteries with box after box of pizza. It was all so ridiculous that he could almost overlook being so out of pocket.
But then he saw it.
Staining his hand was the very last slice of cheese and pineapple pizza. The yellow diary bubbled with the last desperate surge of heat, and the rich fruit glistened with so much butter and fat, and under normal circumstances, it would have flown in his mouth, travelled down his throat, and that would have been that. But on the base of the box, blackened with grease stains, was a red and white sticker. He leaned forward, focused his eyes, and saw words emerge through the muck.
"By Order of the Health Inspector," he read slowly, "consumption of this pizza requires immediate medical attention. Failure to report immediately to your nearest medical facility may result in hair loss, scurvy, the quavers, tooth-fungi, hyper-syphilerpes and Tom Hanks appearing on the third day of every month to kick you repeatedly in the crotch."
The apartment was silent. Talwyn and Clank's faces dropped, realising the joke had blown up in their faces, Ratchet's mouth went dry and his stomach lurched when it realised that a pump was looming in its immediate future, and that swear jar suddenly became very, very full.
Change, he realised, was surprisingly easy. In a few moments of fighting, the pizza man had gone from a robot to a corpse, all that food had become nothing more than brown, poisoned slop fermenting in a glass cylinder, and all those silly movies his friends liked didn't seem so foolish after all. The effort it took to resist change was actually greater than the pain of simply adapting in the first place.
"But why," he lamented, "did it take unsuccessful sex, a fight to the death and a stomach-pumping for me to learn that?"
When the risk of food poisoning had passed, and they staggered from the hospital - a few stones lighter - that jar full of bolts was smashed to pieces, the money collected and a trip decided upon. They would go to Earth, to a fantastic park where the movies his friends so loved came alive, and they could meet the characters. And though inside Ratchet may have scoffed, or thought it silly, when the smile crossed his lips, he didn't bother to fight it.