Author's Note... of PAIN: Since I've been so lazy I figured I'd just finally submit this, adding yet another unfinished story to my one-or-two-story-long list. I really am working, but more like Mozart than Edison. It's all in my head, which is not big by the way. I have humongous plans for this ditty with the Spanish title. Unless I get in a car crash and lose all my brain cells, I will not ever make Squee into a Johnny-clone. That's just annoying. Thank you for attempting to read this ever-so-useless AN.

swish

"Shmee!" He looked under the bed after falling off. "Where are you?" He tried the closet. "Are you in here?" He ran out of his room and almost fell down the stairs, he was running so fast. "Shmee!" When he reached the living room, his mommy groaned and held a hand to her forehead.

Daddy, who was reading the newspaper at the couch, turned around. "Stop the yelling! Can't you see your mother's sick?" he growled.

Squee looked at the ground in shame. "Sorry Daddy," he mumbled. Then he looked back up with wide eyes. "I can't find Shmee!" This time he was careful to speak quietly.

"What's a Shmee?" Daddy asked, losing interest and going back to the paper. Mommy stumbled out of the room.

"He's my bear and I can't find him," said Squee, letting his voice climb back up both in pitch and volume. Daddy looked up from the paper but didn't turn around.

"Bear... You mean that wretched pile of stuffing you carry everywhere? I put it in the trash. Tired of seeing it," Daddy said nastily. "Oh shit, look at the time. Stop crying at me; I gotta go to work." He threw the newspaper aside and grabbed a tie that had been lying on the floor nearby.

"Squee!" Squee was horrified. "The trash!" He scurried into the kitchen and immediately thrust his head into the garbage can. "Shmee, are you all right?" He half-expected to hear a sly but frank remark in response, but the can held no friends. He almost stuck his nose on a slimy paper plate, though. He kept searching in there until the smell became overwhelming. "Where else could he be?" he wondered aloud. The bathroom trash! He ran halfway to the bathroom before he remembered something. It was a trash day.

He rushed to the nearest clock to see if the garbage truck had come by yet. The clock was in his parents' room; it said 8:45 A.M. Then through the window he heard something that struck him dumb: "Goddamn garbage truck! Get out of the way!" The curbside cans...!

Squee almost considered jumping out the window-- if he died it wouldn't matter so much that Shmee could be lost forever. If he didn't die he could get to the truck before it drove away. However, frantic though he was at this point, he had enough sense not to jump from a two-story window he couldn't even open all the way.

It took less than five seconds for him to be halfway across the lawn. His heart was pumping even faster than his tiny little legs, and much faster than his stunned brainmeats. To his horror, the truck closed its back wall and roared up its engine. Shmee had to be inside.

Without slowing down, Squee tried to run alongside the truck so he could scream for the driver to stop. They always skipped the scary neighbor man's house next door (he never put out garbage), so he had to run longer. He was almost adjacent to the driver's door.

"No! Stop! My--" KA-PLOW!

---

Squee finally woke up in his bed with a start. In his semi-comatose state he had an oddly vivid dream where he was sitting in the dump, trying as hard as he could to smother himself with what was left of his shredded Shmee. He had just succeeded when his brain jolted back to daytime. He didn't remember a thing, though. In fact, he had no idea why there were bloody strips of fabric wrapped around his head and ribs.

When he hopped out of bed he immediately reeled in light-headedness. What happened? Did he have amnesia? What if he never recovered? Who knows what he might have forgotten? He hobbled out of the room and looked for his Daddy. Walking past the bathroom, he heard a toilet flushing and the bathroom door opened. It was a very hazy Daddy.

"Daddy?" Squee moaned.

"Aw..." he breathed, clenching his fist at his side and wrinkling the newspaper in his other fist. "So you're awake, huh?"

"What happened to me?"

Daddy sighed and tucked the newspaper in his armpit. "Hit you with my car. Pretty nasty accident; I'm surprised you made it okay." He was starting to come into clearer focus, but Squee's right side in the back suddenly introduced a new ache. He tried to put his hand over it, only to hurt his other side.

"What was I doing out in the road? I always stay on the sidewalk," Squee wondered aloud.

Daddy, who was beginning to walk towards the living room, shrugged and gave him an irritated look. Squee didn't know it, but his daddy had to miss work that day to take him to the hospital. The doctors had recommended all kinds of things, but he refused to do anything but the bare minimum to have his son out of the house and at school as soon as possible without spending all the rent money. On went the homemade bandages made from a sheet that was about to be thrown out anyway. He finally answered, "Running after a garbage truck, God knows why."

Squee stared at a most ominous blank piece of wall at eye level. He felt like he had just been hit by another car. SHMEE. Shmee was gone. His ever-huggable bear was amid rancid underwear and banana peels gone green again. The floor around his feet melted away along with almost the whole world, leaving only Squee himself, the piece of wall in front of his eyes, and Shmee...so very out of reach. He fell backwards into blackness.

swish

Author's Note of Doom: I really thought I'd have something important to say. Oh yes! Review, tell me how to make this better, or at least give me an idea to use for making Squee's life miserable without his bear to protect him.

This story brought to you by the letter F.