The City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember
A Parody
By: Philusuphus Pinkwinker
Assignment Bust
In the City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember, the food is always bland. It tastes like nothing. Even something that looks like it will take you through a sensation of flavors has a nonexistent taste inside your mouth. It was preciously this nonexistent taste that Ina Mayleek experienced as she bit into a round fruit behind her desk in the 12 year old room. If it even was a fruit. Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference. Ina looked around her classroom between bites. It was assignment day. In the front of the room there was a banner that read "Goodbye and Good Riddance". There was a table at the side of the room where students, parents, or teachers could take refreshments. Everyone was happy that their 12-year sentence of classroom torture was over. Assignment day was the fateful day when all children age 12 were assigned a job to do in the City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember. Sometimes there were a lot of bad jobs, like "messenger" or "athlete". Other times there was a possibility to get a job that made one highly respected in society such as "bathroom cleaner" or "pencil sharpener.
"You shouldn't be sneaking food in on a day like this," Ina's friend Izzie Hipster informed her.
Izzie Hipster wore a bright yellow T-shirt with a peace sign in the middle. On her forehead, she wore a large blue headband that covered her large orange afro. She wore earrings that had similar peace signs on them. Ina thought that Izzie should be worried about her appearance and not on Ina's eating habits and she wasn't afraid to tell Izzie so.
"You look like you've just gotten electrocuted by a volcano, and no one likes you. Peace is stupid. Go away," Ina said between bites. Izzie fell silent.
Their teacher, Mrs. Cauliflower, checked her watch and looked annoyed. Mayor Cola was late for the ceremony as always. Each year he made up an excuse about why he was late. Last year he had to rescue an old lady's kitten from out of a tree. The year before that he was saving some orphans from a burning building. Mayor Cola wasn't fooling anyone, though. Everyone knows about his addiction to soda, and every year he was late because he just had to have one more bottle.
About a minute later the plump Mayor Cola burst into the room with a half-empty glass of cola in his hand. His body guards followed, strong and muscular with their chests' puffed out and their sunglasses over their eyes.
"I'm sorry I'm late Mrs. Cauliflower. I had to go stop a kidnapper from taking a small child from her mother," Mayor Cola announced loudly so we could all bask in his greatness.
"How very heroic of you Mayor Cola," Mrs. Cauliflower said sarcastically.
"Yes. I would love to tell you about it, but I think we should start the ceremony," Mayor Cola muttered as he lugged his fat over to stand behind the podium that was set up for him. "Now students, as you probably already know this is a very exciting time for the City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember. New young people entering the work force will provide much needed help to many parts of the city. Imagine the places you will go! The people you will see! Many of you will get to see lots of things you normally wouldn't get to see in The City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember! A select few of you will get to explore the entire 500 feet of the city! " Mayor Cola tried to put his best happy and excited look on his face, but everyone saw that he was signaling to the guard on his left to get him another soda.
The first person that was called to have the rest of his life decided for him was Nate Albacore. The mayor called his name with a fixed smile and a curved brow. Nate looked like the mayor except Nate was a little shorter and a little skinnier. They looked almost as if they could have been father and son. He boldly stepped up to the mayor and picked a strip of paper from the small plastic bag the mayor held out to him. When he read what was on the strip of paper his smile quickly faded.
"Read it aloud, son," The mayor demanded ironically .
"Soda Provider," Nate muttered.
"Ah, yes. That is quite splendid." The mayor exclaimed "You will spend your days delivering soda to me from the soda storage rooms whenever the need arises. I am sure that you will love being the one of the mayor's personal slaves- I mean employees!
Nate waddled back to his seat and slumped down in it. The mayor picked the next person to come up.
"Izzie Hipster!"The mayor shouted.
Izzie stepped up to the bag and picked from it. She announced to the world that she would spend the rest of her life as pop singer and dancer. Izzie moon walked back to her seat.
"Darn," She muttered to Ina."I really wanted to be a secretary."
Several more people came up. Ina did not pay attention to them. She was too busy chowing down on the second fruit she had stored away in her coat pocket. This one was green. While still bland, it tasted slightly like pocket lint.
"Ina Mayleak!" The mayor boomed.
"What!" Ina shouted. "Can't you see I'm bust eating. Gosh, just leave me alone for five seconds, people! I mean, first your all like 'Oh, Ina, go do this!' and then your all like 'Oh, Ina, go do that!' and then you just keep demanding things and demanding things and you never give a poor girl a break to secretly eat a couple pieces of fruit every once in a while. Geez! I'm not your personal servant! I have dreams to! I don't want to live the rest of my life just waiting for you people to call me up to do something for you! Don't you see I have life goals? Just please give me one day of peace!"
The room became very silent.
Mrs. Cauliflower went up to Ina and whispered something in her ear.
"Oh!" exclaimed Ina."You just want me to go up there and pick a paper from that basket that will decide the rest of my life? Why didn't you just say so?"
Ina strolled over to the front of the room, laughing and mumbling things as she went. On her way up she tripped and fell over an outstretched leg. She quickly stumbled back up and ran the rest of the way up over laughter and jeers. Ina put her hand into the deep, dark, and domestic bag that was in front of her. She pulled out a thin piece of paper.
"Let's see what we have here. Ha ha ha…. I sure hope I get messenger! Okay here we go I'm going to do it! I'm going to look at the paper!" Ina flipped the paper over and read it aloud. "Pipeworks Labo- oh son of a businessman. Well, this is awkward. It's kind of like that time when your with all of your popular friends and you're talking about popular things and some new girl comes in and is all like 'Hey guys what are we talking about' and you don't really want to talk to this new kid because her teeth are all crooked and her hair is a tangled mess and she doesn't deserve to hang out with perfect people like you and your group of friends. In this situation my job kind of like the new kid and I'm kind of like both me and my group of friends because of course I don't have any friends except for that volcano afro girl and no one likes her right?" Ina muttered.
If you haven't noticed this before, Ina has a tendency to talk a lot.
Several more names were called. Ina wasn't paying attention to them either. She was too busy sulking about the rest of her life. It should be noted that she does not realize that her she has ruined her public image for as long as she walks the earth. Did you know that Assignment Day is broadcasted live to every television channel in the city? Now no one will ever respect Ina again. Ina, however, is too dumb to realize this. So the only reason she is sulking is because she is going to have a terrible career and will probably die before any of her classmates do due to some type of lung disease. Really stinks to be her right?
That's exactly what Drool Sparrow was thinking as he heard the mayor call more names. The more he looked at Ina, the more his confidence skyrocketed. He hoped that maybe bad luck had effected someone else for a change. Drool is definitely the epitome of bad luck. Before he was born, his parents were told by the doctors he was going to be a girl. Because of this, his parents bought him all these girly things. They bought him a pink crib, pink clothes, a pink bow, and painted his baby room pink. Needless to say, when Drool was born his parents got an unpleasant little shock. So unpleasant, in fact, that they tried to give the poor newborn back to the doctor. When the Sparrows finally exited the hospital, Mrs. Sparrow thrust the newborn into Mr. Sparrow's arms and ran toward their two person bike screaming "Good luck with that thing! Goodbye forever!"Mrs. Sparrow then tried to ride the bike. The only problems were these:
Mr. Sparrow usually rode in the front of the bicycle because Mrs. Sparrow doesn't know how to steer it without crashing it.
Mrs. Sparrow rode at a high speed into a chainsaw factory and crashed into the machine that made the sharp, spiky part.
The rest of the day included another visit to the hospital and the cleaning of the newborn's mouth which was covered in drool. At the end of the day Mr. Sparrow was a single father and named his saliva producing machine Drool.
For Drool's tenth birthday he was given a puppy. For a whole week all the puppy did was eat, sleep, poop, and destroy furniture. On the eighth day since the puppy arrived at the Sparrows' house, it died. The veterinarian concluded that the puppy was allergic to Drool and had slowly been dying the entire week.
Today Drool figured that the world had already dished out all of its bad luck on Ina so he would get to have a good day for once. Drool was wrong. He listened as the mayor called his name and stepped up to the basket. He pulled out the small sheet of paper and read it aloud.
"Messenger," Drool said in a cracked voice.
Drool's bottom lip began to quiver. He let out small whimpering sounds from his mouth. Mrs. Cauliflower ran to the front of the room and tried to calm Drool down, but it was too late. Drool had already exploded into a chorus of sobs and depressed screams.
"Get it away! Get it away!" The mayor screeched. "Get that thing away from me!"
"I DON'T WANNA BE A MESSANGER!" Drool cried. "I WANNA HELP THE CITY AND BE A HERO!"
"Sorry son, but if the city needed help, it wouldn't come from you," The mayor told Drool. This only led to more screams and sobs.
Finally the two security guards carried Drool out of the room and onto the steps outside the school house.
"Well, I guess that's the last of them," The mayor said. "Goodbye children. You start work tomorrow." The mayor waddled out of the school house as fast as his fat legs would carry him. It was time for another soda.
Izzie and Ina left the schoolhouse together and chatted.
"Wow," Izzie said. "I thought I had a bad job, but compared to you I've hit the jackpot. I'll try to be encouraging and optimistic, but it really stinks to be you and your life from now on is probably going to be horrible."
"Thanks," Ina replied sarcastically.
"You're welcome. It's a good thing you have friends like me to help you through these tough situations."
"I guess so," Ina replied drearily.
The two girls looked over to the schoolhouse porch where Drool was starting to walk toward them.
"Oh no, the weird crybaby kid is coming over here. Got to run. Bye!" Izzie mumbled. If there was one thing Ina knew about Izzie, it's that she will always be at Ina's side through and through.
"Hey Ina," Drool said in his high, squeaky voice.
"Hello Drool," Ina said through clenched teeth. She didn't blame Izzie for running. Drool was a total freak.
"Yesterday I had a dream about you," Drool informed her.
"You did?" Ina asked more sounding more exclamatory than interrogative.
"Yeah. You were there with the puppies and rainbows and flowers that are usually in my dreams. I gave you a flower and you complemented on my bulging muscles and rock hard abs."
"Your bulging muscles and rock hard abs?" Ina asked.
Drool blushed.
"Well, in my dreams I have bulging muscles and rock hard abs," Drool explained.
A thought came upon Ina. Drool had something Ina wants. Ina wants a job that does not have a risk of death. Drool has one. Drool has dreams about Ina. Maybe Ina could use these dreams to her advantage.
Ever since they started kindergarten Ina knew that Drool had feelings for her. On their first day of kindergarten, Drool had toddled over to Ina, who was playing with a train, and drooled all over her favorite blouse. Drool had then said "Drool like you!" and promptly pushed Ina to the floor. He had quite a way of expressing himself.
"I've been having dreams about you to Drool," Ina lied with a smug smile on her face. She moved closer to Drool. "In my dreams, you are a magical prince that saves me from evil dragons and pirates and robots."
"Robots?" Drool thought to himself. "Just roll with it bro," said another thought. "This is exactly what you want to happen."
"I'm sad Drool," Ina whispered as she put on her best fake sad face.
"Why would that be?" Drool inquired.
"Because I got a bad job. Can you do me a really, really, big favor and trade jobs with me?" Ina asked, still trying to act sad.
"Well, um…" Drool sputtered
"#^$*^#$*?"Ina whined.
"Well, okay. But only because you said please without using any letters," Drool said
"Thanks, Drool," sang Ina as she skipped away. Ina may not be the smartest light bulb in The City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember, but Drool had to be the dimmest.
Drool stood in front of the schoolhouse for two hours after his encounter with Ina. This was a long enough time for his brain to formulate 2 thoughts.
1."Ina is totally into me"
2. "I must be the brightest light bulb in The City of Light Bulbs with the Occasional Ember."
