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DISCLAIMER
The Chipmunks rightfully belongs to both Ross Bagdasarian Sr. and Ross Bagdasarian Jr. as well as Janice Karman.
The character Pooka is a fictional dog in the 1997 American animated film Anastasia, produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman at Fox Animation Studios.
This truck is in essence, his house. Inside, rows upon rows of rotating shelves filled with salvaged trash, or to him: treasures. Interesting items he found and collected from the trash compacting over the years, probably since he first picked up a shovel. Since then he has retrieved and compiled seemingly everything random he could find: old broken children's toys, parking cones, pony ride stands, hand tools, antique clocks, old books, Christmas lights, utility-home appliances, hardware, cloths, a drum, signs, anything.
Simon takes off his new boots and gloves, humming cheerfully to the tunes of the music from earlier as he finally settles down for the day. He removes his goggles, exposing his spectacled grayish blue eyes adjusting to the harsh light flooding inside the truck. He hangs his boots, gloves, and goggles near the entrance as he walks down the center aisle to the other end of the truck, dusting off and unzipping his filthy overall jump suit and takes off his Bleu de France blue long sleeve sweatshirt, along with a ratty pair of gray workpants underneath. He drags his feet to his humble section-of-the-truck of a home, a fabric sheet with its ends tied to metal rods on opposite sides with another sheet draped over it with a tattered pillow on one end, resembling a hammock, his bed. A stack of car batteries lay next to where he sleeps, wired to a switch to all the hanging Christmas lights in the truck, serving as the only light source.
Simon sets down his bag and suit, collapsing on his hammock, Pooka lies on the floor exhausted from the walk as much as Simon was. His whole body aching, but doesn't mind though, for he has grown use to the stresses and pain of heavy-lifting physical labor, and his body showed it.
Despite his thin frame, Simon is physically fit having barely survived starvation on canned food and collected ground/rainwater, sanitary or not. His fur fifthly from almost a lifetime worth of stoop labor in the dirt, and not being bathed in a very, very long time. He felt somewhat uncomfortable that his unclean fur coated with a thin layer of sweat from the scorching 40˚+ Celsius heat. His body pale from wearing the work suit protecting him from the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays, the areas of fur exposed to the sun had extreme tans, mostly on his forearms and face except where the goggles shielded his eyes.
Of all the things making his body look eroded and revolting were the numerous, almost unaccountable marks of past injuries covering him from head to toe. All the scars were the marks left by the dangerous, often unforgiving work and environment. There were scars after scars of healed or partially healed scrapes. Blisters, cuts, calluses, burns, and gashes spread all over his arms, legs, torso, and some on his face, most of them old and some recent, and more to add to his already grizzled body every new day of working, every inch of him weather-beaten, making his skin coarse as fine sandpaper in most places. With no proper medical supplies that he did not possess, Simon could only live with the almost endless pain of new wounds and reopened, infected ones on a daily basis.
The most striking features of him were in his torso and his right arm. A small, crude looking device, imbedded inside the front his chest, the shape and size of an ancient cell phone with scar tissue surrounding it. It had a glowing yellow energy meter with an electrical socket built into it. It's an externally charged artificial pacemaker.
The second feature was his mechanical prosthetic composed of his right forearm, microprocessors capable of controlling the movements of the limb is attached to the severed nerve ending at his elbow. The lightweight prosthetic looked crude with different pieces of metallic casing bolted or welded together, if broken down and rebuilt several times by one hand. Its internal workings encaged on one side, exposing wires and servos. The sturdy titanium fingers and joints worn rough with scratches and nicks from all the work he does. A long scar ran from where his mechanical arm meets flesh at the elbow, up the back of his arm where it splits into two different long scars. One scar travelled over his chest to his pacemaker, containing the biodegradable line supplying power to the arm. The other scar ran up his neck and into the back of his head into his cerebellum, the part of the brain that controls motor functions. This scar contains the nano-fiber wiring that processes bioelectric signals in his brain, allowing him to control his arm through a neural link at the speed of his thoughts. The arm lets him to lift considerable heavy objects like trash cubes and has no sense of touch in that arm so he can't feel pain. At the cost of drawing small amounts of power from his pacemaker and it constantly itched at the wiring scar where it connected to him.
He looks exhausted from taking a look at himself, the years of endless labor on him drained his strength, but he was just glad that he makes it through the day and still in one piece, mostly. Simon acquired the majority of his larger scars, especially his prosthetic arm, from accidents when he was doing his directive since he was just a child. He was very clumsy at the time and still is. Though for him, the memories of those times as a child-worker are too painful to remember, there was lots of pain inflicted on his body from his contraption of an arm, and there even were no anesthetics or painkillers available back then. The consequences on him and his brethrens were worse, trying to get used to his replacement arm and unintentionally harming others and himself. Though he was now used to them to the point they were finally part of him, that what really mattered.
After a few minutes of laying down resting, Simon gets up and decides to find his form of relaxation in this hellhole. He removes what appears to be a video cassette from a toaster, its title still readable on the old tape: Hello Dolly.
Placing it in an old VCR, he turns it on, and an ancient TV screen flickers to life as the cheerful tune of actors dance and sing 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes.' The image and sound quality is poor, but Simon doesn't mind. Humming to the music, he pulls out what he found today from his bag and sorts them out. He remembers the trash lid he unreasonably took home, but felt an urge to dance to his favorite tune with it like a hat how the actors do. He pulls out an unsolved three-dimensional mechanical puzzle cube with nine blue, chartreuse yellow, green, pink, purple and red stickers covering the six faces.
"Oh." Simon sets it aside, thinking about how to solve it later. He then pulls out an eating utensil with a hollowed out bowl of a spoon with tints of a fork at the tip. Simon never saw one before. He stares at the collection of spoons and forks, confused.
At his wits end, he sets it in between.
Finally, he picks out a handheld, rectangular metallic object out of the bag, without looking, he flips a switch, and the rows of shelves rotate to reveal a box full of them. He places it in with the others, and carefully aligns them.
Perfect! He nods in approval to himself over the precision of his work of placing one of hundreds of lighters in a single mass.
Finishing his collection, Simon draws his attention to new music coming from the video playing on the screen.
It's not like 'Put On Your Sunday Clothes' where it was so cheerful and energetic. No, this one has a soft, slow, and sweet sound. A male actor sang along with a beautiful woman on the TV screen, in a passionate tone, gently holding her hand and all the while, kissing her.
Instantly mesmerized by this image, Simon slowly brings up his cassette player and presses RECORD without looking away from the TV screen.
"And that is all…that love's about…
And that is all…that love's about…"
Fazed by the image before him, Simon thought of the picture itself as the concept of something he doesn't understand, but just knew. Something he learned to be a happy feeling, called "love."
"That it only…took a moment…
To be loved…
A whole…life …loooooong"
Simon stood there, fazed by the song. It seemed so warm, so safe, so full of kindness and care. To hold a woman's hand, feeling all of her warmth run through and feeling it to be the whole world. It felt like the greatest thing in the universe, having another being giving him or herself to you and you give him or her all your emotions and feelings for one another, if he could experience it himself.
Becoming lost in thought, Simon realized he held his own hands, the coolness of his metallic hand grasping his flesh hand snapping his senses out of trance, filling the void of isolation instead of the warm fantasy of warm company of a beautiful woman.
Pushing those thoughts in the back of his mind, Simon grabs his bag and goes outside.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
The hot sun disappeared below the horizon giving way a remarkably purple evening twilight along the western horizon. Pooka sniffed around outside the truck as Simon cleans out his bag. The winds slightly picking up felt good on his scarred, bare chest after a long day, it was among the only forms of physical comfort he knew, even over sleeping.
A small hole in the brown clouds above opens up. Simon takes notice, pausing and looked up, entranced by a sight he seldom beheld. The polluted clouds parted to reveal the darkness of outer space, a void of incomprehensible vastness and the realm of existence for billions upon billions of stars shining all at once, lighting up the sky like diamonds.
He has never seen a starry night sky, at least not one with starlight bright enough to shine through the haze and the trash somehow in orbit, a beautiful sight like seeing the whole universe for all it was for the first time.
Remembering the word beautiful, Simon presses PLAY on his recorder. The soft and loving tune of 'It Only Takes A Moment'played out.
With the song in the background and the starry sky above him, Simon allows his mind to wonder, remembering about the ideas of beauty, companionship, and love. It must be a wonderful thing as the rarity of a clear night sky. Something so inviting and majestic like the infinite reaches of space, the distant stars and worlds that harbor the secrets of life and the unknown was what must be like people holding hands.
"Maybe..."Simon thinks aloud.
"Beautiful is up there." Just imagining how beautiful love was. Wonderful. Heavenly. Unreachable...
As comforting and inviting as the song and sky say about how great a thing love can be, yet just like the stars, something he can never feel, grasp or hold. It wasn't something in the air he catches like a paper leaf in the wind. There is nothing he could ever grasp on this world to feel so loved, Simon was just one chipmunk, possibly the only humanoid being left, stuck on a lonely planet and no one that he knows, probably in all of humanity, even exist.
Simon felt the sky entrancing and haunting to him, having seen a rare, beautiful thing that reminded him he could never treasure it personally, as if taken from him. He somberly looks up into the sky with the eyes of an abandoned child...
Maybe…love… is up there.
Simon feels something all too familiar, something he felt since the day he never had any form of contact, if Pooka qualifies for any exception, not just in population count but also in relation or significant bond to any human being. He felt this way since losing his fellow workers, including the other humans who fled Earth. Not since as far as his memories could reach. Certain images of a furry face chipmunk woman with thin framed glasses and excess brown hair on top of her head who brought him to this world of all worlds called a mother only a distant memory. After that image in his head, he knew he was probably an orphan raised in this ugly world by the brutal hands of nature with only his fellow workers to care for him until they all died when he was still young. He was only taught to read, speak, survive, science minus atmosphere and collect trash, nothing else until he joins his fallen brethren the day he drops dead as well, spent and worked to death like everyone else.
He worked and worked as told, unfazed by his dead and dying coworkers even when some tried to kill him for survival necessities. All he could do is run and hide, and do what he could to clean up, to do his routine, his directive, his down to earth job until he dies, the purpose he been unwillingly given. He cursed everything that happened to the world he now solely resides, for causing the roots of the problems for him stuck on Earth to watch everyone he knew died then trapped on a planet by himself, causing the feeling to transpire in the first place. Questioning whether he was fortunate to have lived through what no one else could, he doubted the purpose of his very existence. For him to have such feelings, he knew of this feeling since his first memories but never realized how bad this feeling was, over the long untold years of his life on this world until now…he was all alone...
Simon snaps back into reality. He could barely hear his music from a raging howl sound and felt his skin tingle from a fast-blowing cold wind into his bare chest. He notices the winds are fast now and the hole in the sky gone. He looks around to assess his surroundings.
On the right side of the horizon, something big amassed in the distance, growing upwards, forward, and fast in an enormous wall of dust heading straight for the city outskirts, toward his home, darkening the sky in its wake; a sandstorm.
These things were deadly, seeing firsthand their seer power and barely survived several sandstorms. Simon hastily cleans the rest of his bag and closes the hatch but froze when he forgot Pooka as the mutt barks outside. He lowers the ramp again.
"POOKA!" She watches the dog get back in and manages to close the ramp in time just as the first columns of dust started blowing into the truck.
Once safe, Simon slumps to the floor, getting over almost being caught outside in a sandstorm.
Pooka whines to Simon in a pleading voice. Remembering he hasn't fed the dog or himself yet, Simon gets up and finds a stack of Buy N' Large sponge cakes, canisters of collected rainwater, and canned beans. He unwrap a golden sponge cake filled with creamy filling for Pooka and he greedily bites it away from Simon. The chipmunk then unwraps one for himself as he opens a small compartment in his prosthetic arm, containing small hand tools, and pulls out a knife. He opens the canned beans with relative ease and eats one of the only sources of food he has had as far back as he can remember. Aside from collecting polluted rainwater, what else was there? It's better to be malnourished than dead from starvation.
He notices Pooka already dozed off. Tired and exhausted himself, Simon decides to turn in for the night.
Simon removed his metallic blue glasses and, in one well-practiced movement, slid the joint off his detachable prosthetic arm from its arm-attachment, and placed it on a shelf nearby. Sleeping with a prosthetic is very uncomfortable on the lump where his forearm used to be.
He switches the Christmas lights off, slipping into the hammock in the pitch black interior, unable to sleep so easily with the creepy howl of the hurricane-force winds always gave him a spine-tingling chill. Adding to that, his thoughts ran freely about the just-discovered pain of loneliness in his isolation from humanity, with no one and nothing to comfort his suffering.
He always endured suffering alone, but now it began to get to him, the core of his being slowly and surely eroding, going to break down eventually, physically and mentally as it did to his comrades.
As the night darkens and the sandstorm worsens, it gets colder, sub-freezing. Even in the confinement of the truck, away from the one hundred fifty kilo per hour blast of dirt and rocks, he curls up against the cold in his hammock, like a baby. His only source of warmth and comfort is the loving tune of 'It Only Takes A Moment.'
He turns it on though the music reminded him of something he can never have, being able to requite his loneliness, the soothing music the only thing that felt like a mother cuddling a child, or a loved one comforting him to sleep.
Grabbing the nearest shelf, Simon rocks his hammock like a cradle, closing his eyes and drowning his hearing into the song, giving him some peace over the hellish gale-winds howling outside.
Eventually, exhaustion prevails over his dreadful thoughts as Simon finally falls asleep.
Simon is based on his 80s/90s incarnation who only has two prosthetic acquired from injury and/or birth defects. He has a pacemaker which will come up to serve a purpose much later in the story. The prosthetic right forearm is similar to the mechanical arm of Anakin Skywalker from STAR WARS II & III and it incorporated some smaller scale devices used in the movie (like a cutting laser or tool compartment for instance) and serves Wally to help lift heavy objects despite his small stature, keeping him close the humble and ancient mechanical robot he is in the film.
If you noticed, the stickers on the Rubik cube each represents the trademark color of each Chipmunk and Chipette with the exception of Eleanor. Since she and Theodore share the same color, I gave her "chartreuse yellow" which is a yellow color mixed with a small amount of green. Chartreuse is a color halfway between yellow and green named because of its resemblance to the green color of one of the French liqueurs called green chartreuse introduced in 1764. The first recorded use of chartreuse to mean the color that is now called chartreuse yellow in English was in 1892.