So… this story is probably a bit… unusual. I've been enjoying Lampi01's stories about the B-Movie appliances. B Gone, Intruders, is pretty interesting and I recommend it. I wanted to take a quick break from Single Radios Near You but still wanted to write some more about Didi, so here we go.

Now, this story isn't canon, and wrecks havoc on the timelines, so just take it as it's own little adventure, please. This is just a nonsensical story where Didi meets Phil.

Also, I must give a disclaimer: I do not own Brave Little Toaster or Lampi01's interpretation of the characters. All I own are my own characters. If Lampi01 wishes, this story will be taken down. (So enjoy it in good health, while you still can.)

I also made an 8tracks playlist with a better view of the cover art, drawn by me. It is named B-Side Record and can be found by searching for Brave Little Toaster.

…

Didi Dreams on the B-Side

…

Didi's eyes struggled to open. It was so dark in Muse's trailer, it must have been square in the witching hour.

As she managed to open them a little wider, she realized… it was not his trailer at all. As her eyes adjusted, she did not see Muse spread out on the bed, or the walls that kept the cold out, but were never very good at keeping the warm in either.

Instead, the room appeared to be a large basement, with shelves of various broken appliances, a dim green lamp hanging above her head, an inflatable mattress, a tall mirror, and nothing more. She herself was in one of these shelves.

The room was so small… her nerves tingled as she realized this. She was going to need to break out soon, or she would go mad in there. The walls would be painted in scribbles and chips as she slowly succumbed to the claustrophobia.

"Where am I?" she whispered, hoping someone there would be benevolent. Something sounded wrong and different about her voice, but she could not place a finger on it.

In fact, everything felt wrong. Her limbs felt shorter, and in the back of her mind, songs played. Not songs she had ever heard before either. All at once they sang, while other voices rambled on about nothing in particular.

Weirdest of all was the feeling in the right side of her forehead. It was as if something had poked through her skull and grown out of the hole. Whatever it was, she could move it. She felt it twitching like any other limb.

She tried to reach up and see what it was, but her arm was too short. Looking down, she did not see her human body. All she saw were two silver stumps.

Didi could still move a small bit, even if all of her movements felt stiff and unnatural. She turned to see her legs had become a matching set of stubs in the back, and the rest of her body was nothing but a silver box, with dials on one side.

The thing on her forehead was not a horn, or hair, or anything so cool that it would make Muse glow red and tap his foot in jealousy, but an antenna. The thing curled and stretched of her own will.

Already, she could feel something rise within her, but it was not a heartbeat or adrenaline rising. Something she could not hold back was on the tip of her mouth, or at least… whatever it had become.

Soon enough, a loud ringing came from her, like the sound before the weekly test of the Emergency Alert System. Covering her face, where she believed her mouth had moved, she curled back. She did not even mean to do that!

"Holy mother of spoons!" She shrieked. "Either this is madness, or this is h-"

"Please, calm down," cooed a scratchy, tenor voice. Something about it reminded her of an actor she had seen once or twice, but his name was just another entry in the long list of things she could never remember, no matter how hard she tried. "You are glad the boys here are such heavy sleepers."

She approached the voice, coming from outside of the shelf she was on. It was not a human, but a ceiling lamp, the one she saw before. Its teal paint was chipped in some areas, but that was not as big of an issue as the fact it had a face.

"I'm going insane, aren't I," Didi muttered. "I haven't been this messed up since Inez dared me to eat the gas station's one dollar sushi."

"Sorry to scare you, my dear." His voice was laced with snickers. "I don't know where you came from, but welcome to our… humble abode."

She looked around the room, illuminated by the lamp's old bulb. "Really modest, huh."

He frowned. "We just moved in. Did you live here before us?"

"No! I've never been here in my life!" If she still had visible eyes, she was sure they were about to tear up. "I have no idea what happened either! I don't belong here, and I don't know what happened to me! My body… what have I become?"

"Perhaps I can help you escape," he nodded. Then, his perpetual smile grew a little wider. His bulb, even as it was almost burned out, began to glow a little brighter. "What did you look like before?"

"Human…" her voice trailed off. Another beep came from her. The lamp laughed as if it was nothing but a hiccup.

He nodded. "Well, then you certainly have had quite the makeover."

"What do I look like now?" She was almost too afraid to laugh.

"Well, for a radio, you're not much of a looker, but…" Didi frowned as best she could as he said this, her mind trying it's best to wrap around that word. "Hey, I'm kidding, alright? At least, about the 'ugly' bit."

If she had really become a radio, that would explain the voices and

"Fine." The silver antenna straightened. "But in all seriousness, could you bring that mirror over?"

"Who do you think I am? Samantha Stevens?" he continued to laugh. "It is a difficult task without hands, but I will try."

"Nevermind," she shook her head. "Since you can move up and down, could you help me to the floor?"

He grinned. "But of course."

Didi climbed on top of his shade, as he descended. He was slow at first, a comforting crawl, before dropping the last yard in a second.

"Hey! That isn't funny," she grumbled, picking herself up from off the cold concrete floor. In most cases, the chilly floor would have made her cringe and seek the nearest pair of socks, but it did not bother this form at all.

She crawled to the other side of the room, struggling to keep her balance on her new legs, where the mirror was located. Her pace was so slow compared to a regular human stride, but she shook her head and pushed the thought away.

Beneath the mirror was a blue plastic fan, laid down in a shoebox filled with felt. "Don't wake Fannie," he said. "She says it's shady there."

"Is there anywhere here that isn't shady?" She was not mad, simply confused with all the little details of this basement she had never seen before.

"My bulb normally shines brighter than this," he sighed. "It just hasn't been changed in a while."

"How long is 'a while?' A few years?"

He smirked. "Try thirty."

"Thirty? How is that thing still going?" Her eyes grew wide.

The lamp shrugged. "I have no idea. I suppose it is just some form of cosmic voodoo."

She shook her head. "More like B-Movie magic."

Didi stepped back until her new body was in the view of the mirror. She was a silver radio, two speakers taking up the place where her face should be. The antenna could be stretched to full length, she tried it a couple times, but it stood in a bent and angular default position.

"Well then…" she sighed. "This is certainly… wonderful."

"Maybe it is not so bad," said the lamp, stretching as far as he could to look her in the eye.

She paused. "I never asked your name, sir."

"Phil," he grinned. "And yours?"

"Durinda, but everyone really calls me Didi." She cringed at the sound of her own real name.

He nodded. "My, that is a beautiful name. Why do you hide it?"

She blushed. "Everyone at school would tease me, going around saying stuff like 'DUR-inda' whenever I messed up. Mom told me to ignore them." Even through the plastic, she felt her 'cheeks' beginning to glow. "Easy for her to say! She was the one who just had to get creative."

"Well, they are not here right now, no?" Phil smiled, swinging her over to the inflatable mattress. "Here, you wait, while I wake the others up. I bet they will want to see what the cat dragged in."

She gulped in fear. Not out of others coming for her. If they were all as friendly as Phil, she had nothing to worry about. Other than a lot of ill-timed jokes, of course. She was afraid of what she would discover. Were all the others here human too? Was she going to be stuck here for the rest of her life?

That sounds horrible! I doubt I could stand a few years like this, let alone my whole life! Didi sat there, helpless, while Phil nudged a broken coffee pot.

What if Phil was the one who brought her here? What if he forced her to stay and tortured her with… a bad taste in movies? She frowned at the thought. He did not seem like the torturing kind.

Didi's mind was racing with plans. Her eyes darted, looking around for some weakness in the wall. All of the cracks looked too small to break easy, especially at her smaller size.

She still had no clue as to how this happened. She rubbed at her plastic head, taking a moment to appreciate how much different if felt. No skin soften the touch or moved out of the way. It was solid and still.

If this was a dream, it was a lousy one.

"Are you all trapped in here?" she asked him.

Phil swung back down from the coffee pot, not having woken up, but beginning to mumble nonsense about toasters and shadow puppets. The lamp frowned for a moment but decided to ignore it. "Not really. A human girl lives with us, and I'm certain she would let us go if we wanted. It is just safer in here."

"How?" A shiver ran through her. "I hate being so cramped in here."

"When Ellie comes in the morning, she can take you back out. I do not know if you will be stuck this way, but you'll have some breathing space."

She let out a quick sigh of relief. "Thank you so much, Phil!"

He turned away. "I'm glad I could be of help, miss, but it seems you must be leaving now."

Didi jumped up. "Is it morning already?" The excitement sent electricity through her again, causing another loud blare of the alarm. She scrambled to stop it, but it would not cease…

…

Didi's eyes opened to the trailer where she had been staying the past week.

"Phil?" She knew it was stupid to ask for someone who did not even exist, but she could not help but feel that dream was more than it seemed.

She pushed herself up from the couch so fast her head felt dizzy, but it was a welcome, human sensation. She laughed as she bent her human limbs, and giggled with a human mouth.

The cold battered her body, so she soon wrapped up in her blanket once again.

"Didi, what is going on?" muttered Muse, turning to face her on his bed, clinging to his own blankets.

Didi face-palmed, still laughing. "I just had the most absurd dream. It felt so real!"

He blinked. "Prospit or Derse?"

"What?"

"Nevermind," he yawned.

The two sat there in silence, Muse shivering. "Hey, Didi, it is really getting cold, and we hardly have any food left. Maybe we should go up and ask for shelter, or at least some food, from that mansion in the forest. That place is huge! The people living there have got to be loaded."

"I don't know," she sighed. "Do you really want to strut up there like a couple of beggars?"

"We would be a couple of beggars," he groaned, pushing his long blonde bangs away from his face. "But… I think it is the only chance we have got. It's too cold to play outside, and the streets haven't been plowed in a couple days."

"Geez, this has got to be the worst blizzard ever." Didi turned to the window, watching as the snow continued to pound against the metal walls. "Fine, but don't blame me if something goes wrong."

As the two put on their snow pants and thick coats from the Salvation Army, Didi's mind wandered back to, of all things, the Romeo and Juliet lesson from school. She remembered Romeo's bad omen of a dream and Mercutio's comments…

...she sure hoped that B-movie excuse for a dream did not prove to be a bad omen as well.