The Park was our home, Rigby and I had lived in the hot, musty attic of the main house for years. Our first days at the park were filled with simple grunt work, but as the months went by, the simple nail-chipping work began to evolve into intensive, backbreaking labor. The reason for this drastic change in Rigby and I's work is the dreadful and oppressive park manager, Benson. Benson made us do several agonizing "jobs" as he calls them, but most people would simply call it cruelty.
There are many examples of Benson's cruelty but the one that sticks out the most was on a cold day in the middle of October, the leaves were scattered all over the park grounds. Rigby and I were having a good time in the attic, designing our super cool costumes for Halloween that year when Rigby said, "Hey Mordecai, look at all the leaves on the ground, I sure hope Benson doesn't make us rake them." Then, all the sudden, the lights flickered and then dimmed, a cold breeze flowed through the air vent and made the feathers on my neck stand erect. We could hear the stairs creaking as the footsteps got louder and louder until the doorknob turned. In stepped a man with anger in his eyes, eyes that opened a window into a dark, cold soul. With scold in his voice Benson shouted, "THERE ARE LEAVES ON THE GROUND AND YOU TWO IDIOTS ARE SITTING UP HERE SLACKING OFF!" "We were just designing our sick Halloween costumes man chill out." Rigby pleaded. "I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU'RE DOING NOW, GET UP AND GO RAKE THOSE LEAVES!" then he snatched our costumes from our hands and said, "I'M PUTTING THESE IN THE URINAL!" "I said woah dude we'll rake the leaves just calm down and give us our costumes back." "I'LL THINK ABOUT IT AFTER YOU RAKE THE LEAVES!" It was at this point when we realized that we wanted out, we desperately needed freedom.
As we half-heartedly raked the leaves the covered the park grounds, we plotted our departure. With our pathetic park wages, we couldn't afford a car, and Rigby, with his third-grade education, suggested that we steal a golf cart and drive to Hawaii, and I had to explain to him that Hawaii was a series of Islands, separated from the continental united states, making it utterly impossible to drive there on a golf cart. But Rigby's plan did have one good idea, the golf cart. It took us a very excruciating 30 minutes to rake the leaves. We went inside to find our costumes in shreds, laying in the urinals, we were furious.
That night Rigby and I lay in our beds wide awake until the clock struck 3AM. Our eyes met, our heads nodded simultaneously, and we were off. We opened the window and grabbed the trash bag parachutes we had made earlier that day stepped onto the roof and took the leap of freedom. The parachutes didn't work, we slammed on the ground hard, and I got a booboo on my knee. We stood up, brushed it off and made our way towards the garage. We got in the cart and stuck the keys into the ignition and started her up. We heard a voice, a familiar man in a crown made of thorns was sitting in the back of the cart. He spoke very gently, he told us "You two know not what you do, you must not leave this park for it is your home, you must stay here and endure this suffering for a little while longer and eventually, I will build a nation out of you." Rigby looked over at me from the passenger seat and said, "Dude I think my allergy pills are acting up." I looked back and the man was gone.
I floored the gas pedal, and we were off to our long-awaited freedom. We arrived in the city celebrating and crying tears of joy as we hugged, we cruised around, visiting our favorite restaurants and downing can after can of soda. After our long night of celebration, we grew tired, the sun began to rise, and we realized we have nowhere to go. We sat in a parking lot as the cold October breeze brushed by and we had no idea what to do. About an hour later two figures came down from the air and approached us. They told us to return to the park. "No way dude." Rigby and I explained in unison, "We are so done with that place." The two strangers pleaded with us, "Please my brothers, go back to the park or we will be forced to do something we do not wish to do." "No way." "So be it." The strangers began to glow and then shot up to the sky. The cold breeze suddenly got warm, and a slight musk began to flow in the air. About ten minutes passed and the newfound warmness got warmer and suddenly became hot and the slight musk became a putrid stench. "Ughhh what's that smell dude?" "I don't know dude." Suddenly we heard a scream coming from the right, we looked over, people were stampeding out of their apartments as fire and sulfur reigned down from the sky destroying everything in its path. "THOSE GUYS WERE SERIOUS!" Rigby shouted. "I KNOW DUDE, WE GOTTA GET BACK TO THE PARK!" I started up the cart and took off. My heart pounded as I raced the cart through the city dodging the crowd and the occasional firebomb. As we drove through the chaos, we heard a nostalgic tune and turned our attention towards an ice cream truck that distracted us just long enough for a spout of sulfur to hit me in the face covering my eyes, the cart toppled over, Rigby was unconscious. I laid on the pavement hopeless and injured, I cried from the hopelessness and the sulfur boiling my eyes. But soon the pain went away, I opened my eyes, Rigby was standing up with his eyes open in awe. I got up to and before use stood the creepy guy with the thorns on his head from earlier, he said "Take my hands boys." And he reached out, and we took them. We awoke in our beds and everything was seemingly back to normal, we did not speak for the next few days but we both knew we had to stay for now.
And so here we are, back at the park, doing boring jobs for minimum payment. We hate it here and would give anything to be free, but now we know there are certain consequences to freedom, but we knew something much better lied on the road ahead, and all we could do know was wait.