June 1993

Walking in the middle of the road, Brian and Jasper, cold and hungry, having been stuffed in the back of moving truck for hours and just now getting themselves into the warm summer night air, each began to think of a plan of action. Brian, the pragmatic and realistic one, immediately thought of turning around and heading back to McAllister; where at least their fate would be certain. Jasper, the emotional and imaginative one, could think of no other option than finding the nearest town, which was made even more difficult considering that they knew almost nothing as to where they were.

"Come on Brian" Jasper said, trying to be optimistic, "We have to try. If we don't what's the point?"

Brian shrugged and shook his head; he was having difficulty seeing the point in a lot of things, especially in regard to his own personal safety. It was better, in his mind, to head towards the absolute certainty of McAllister and the death that awaited them when they did. At the very least, it was a known thing.

"There is no point" Brian returned, "We're more screwed up now than we were before. It's our lot in life, our place. We find disaster every turn we make, every road we go down."

Jasper laughed and waved him off, for the idea was a ridiculous one. Their ordeals, their trials and tribulations, which began long before being stranded on a lonely road in Oklahoma, were proof enough that they were meant for more than they realized. Having been beaten, prodded and chased out of the farm and into the back of a dairy truck; to said dairy truck bringing them to the house of a deranged psychopathic toy collector only to be put on display as "art" for his collection, there was virtually nothing, at least as far as Jasper believed, that could not be overcome.

"Cheer up" Jasper exclaimed reassuringly, "Just because things are bad now doesn't mean they won't get better. You know what they say: Always look on the bright side of life."

Brian huffed and rolled his eyes, refusing to take full stock in Jasper's eternal optimism. The world was too much of a grey area for such thinking, it was better to always expect and assume nothing less than the worst. Maybe if things had turned out differently in Austin, if they had been given a chance instead of being beaten and thrown out than Brian's outlook would have been different. He liked to think that he would have been happy as a sheepdog, his apportioned fate, or maybe even a house dog, as was Jasper's position, had bad luck stayed its hand.

"What bright side?" Brian asked, curious to hear Jasper's answer, "What about any of this is considered a 'bright side'? How is being cast out of our home, almost being subject to taxidermy and riding around with moldy couches and broken dressers considered a good situation?"

Jasper shrugged and nonchalantly kicked a pebble in the road, saying nothing and simultaneously giving Brian the satisfaction of being right despite the fact that he was inexplicably wrong in almost every regard, if only because of his current, if understandable, attitude.

"That's what I thought" Brian continued, "Nothing about this is good Jasper. Absolutely nothing. Might as well face the music and go back to McAllister, he'll at least give us quick deaths."

Jasper swallowed air, the prospect of dying terrifying him; especially considering that he had spent very little time, both in the world and with Brian, to even consider leaving. Death was simply not an option, not because it was improbable, but because it would be insignificant in terms of the life he had led.

"Enough!" Jasper declared, tiring of Brian's gloom and doom speeches and End of the World Prophecies, "I'm not about to listen to you gripe and complain about things that are out of your control. So we've had some hard times, big deal. If McAllister wants to kill us so goddamn badly he could've gotten off his fat ass and blown our brains out to Kingdom Come with his shotgun. But he didn't. If the Toy-Maker wants to kill us for destroying his collection, who's to say that he can't just stuff us with enough embalming fluid to preserve our bodies for the next hundred years? Guess who hasn't done that yet? We're still here Brian. After all that we've been through we're still here. That has to mean something."

Brian sighed and hung his head, although he wasn't entirely sure about the validity of their escapes or the overall success of the villains, but there was one thing he could confirm: they were still there. It may not be enough in the end, but that didn't matter; all that mattered was the here and now.

"Okay" Brian said, relenting, "You win. So what do we do now?"

Jasper looked around casually, trying to find a suitable direction; they couldn't go back the way they came, for that would only lead to more trouble than they were willing to get into at the moment, the only real direction was forward, into the unknown. The only real concern was perhaps running into the moving truck, the driver being equally crazy, perhaps more so, as the Toy-Maker. Nevertheless, it was still a better risk than being shot on sight, and so, with the lightest of hearts and a song, Jasper continued forward, Brian begrudgingly following behind.