CHAPTER VIII
The Tonsil Attack.
Waking up can be the WORST sometimes, especially when you're laying out in the SUN stuck to a SIDEWALK, and cooking in the morning heat with no SHADE! And when you hadn't drank any water for the last two days, you tend to wake up a bit bothered to say the least.
Coughing SAND from his dry lips, Sonic ROLLED over onto his back, blinking in the morning light. It was morning BTW. He let out a big sigh, a sigh of defeat. A sigh OF giving UP. And he would have stayed there for many more minutes, if a CLOUD hadn't just passed under the sun, sweeping a cool wind over him and reminding him of what he was missing if he did give up. "Oh GOD..." he uttered, he supposed he had no choice. Clearly no-one was coming for HIM, and he literally might die if he stayed there for much longer.
SO he stood up. Well, as best as one could stand up with their hand glued to the ground by some nasty-azz tobacco, with stiff CREAKING joints, and skin as dried AND cracked as the ground beneath you. Poising himself, Sonic braced his FEET and yanked his hand as FAR as he could towards the sky. But it didn't even budge, not even BY a milimeter. "Gaaah!" he screamed, after trying two more times, he fell back onto his knees. He couldn't BELIEVE how TABACO could do THIS to him! He felt like if he pulled any harder he might dislocate his hand from his arm. So he JUST sat there, and pitifully brushed the DIRT from his eyes. He looked up, and saw his ex-husbands HOUSE before him, and it reminded him of their life together. Not so long ago...
It was springtime, and the flowers had all their brightest colors.
The park was empty, save two young figures swinging on a bench that wasn't meant to swing. Sonic the hedgehog looked to his boyfriend, the widest smile that ever graced his face. "Hey whats up?" Shadow had asked him, and Sonic looked away. He chuckled, "Nothing." he said, stifling his smile behind his words. Shadow leaned forward and lifted his chin with a delicate finger, "Come on Sonic, I know you too well. Clearly this isn't nothing." he brought the hedgehog's face towards his, and he felt his breath against his skin. Sonic still smiled. He glanced down to the grass, and then met the eyes of his lover. "Shadow.." he began, and the moment seemed to last forever, Shadow tilted his head, eager to hear what he had to say. Sonic looked up"Would you marry me?" he asked, and there was no need for words, as Shadow brought his mouth to his, and the young lovers embraced in a hot yet romantic gay kiss.
Sonic's eyes FE11 from the building and back onto the floor beneath him. He saw THE picture of his OWN FACE, carefully sketched, a sly grin on his FACE, the colors all of them PERFECT, and a huge wad of CHEAP tobacco spat right across IT! Sonic shook his head. How the times had changed things. And such cheap, cheap tobacco Shadow was chewing these days. Things were so different back then... But that was no EXCUSE not to try and make things RIGHT. So he set his feet, planting them into the earth. Clenching his teeth, he WRAPPED his left hand around the stuck wrist, and planked his back. Sonic threw up his head, looking one more time at the SAD SAD structure his husband owned, and pulled with the might of a thousand deadlifts. And then, something loosened, a great wave of sand LEPT from the earth and the stone came free.
Oh yeah, baby!
Cream watched her mother intently, BROWN eyes huge as they followed the wooden SPOON spin round and round in the big metal bowl. "Mother," she ventured cautiously. "WHAT do you think Mister Shadow was doing in that dank ally last night?" She shuffled her feet and wiggled her fluffy tail, hoping her nervousness just passed off as her trying to be CUTE. Her mother smiled at her daughter's innocence and patted her head, dumping a large AMOUNT of 'something' into the bowl.
"I don't really know, dear," she replied sweetly. "He's always been rather... secretive, so it's hard to say." She hummed to herself and grabbed a strange looking bottle, ADDING more 'stuff' to the batter. Just then, the doorbell rang. "Cream dear," Vanilla cooed, "be a sweetheart and get the door?"
The young, innocent RABBIT nodded vigorously and ran out of the kitchen, speeding as fast AS she could to the door. She flung it open and was surprised by what she saw... A withering LOOKING duck, and a frustrated raccoon/badger WITH a horribly swollen foot.
"Bean? Sticks?" Cream asked in confusion. "What's going on? Is EVERYTHING all right?" The raccoon/badger shook her HEAD gravely.
"'Fraid not, Creamsickle," she moaned sadly, sounding somewhat like an EASTERN facing cow. "This poor fellow here has tonsils." The rabbit gasped and fell back on her fluffy rear, a hand covering her mouth.
"It's not... contagious is IT?" She scrambled to her feet and flew to the other end of the room, hiding behind the couch. "Mommy said she had her tonsils removed when she was young, 'cause they were bad! I don't want to get any!" She cowered down and covered her head with her arms, beginning to cry. "Pleas tell ME it's not contagious!"
Hearing all the commotion, Vanilla came in from the kitchen. "Cream, what on earth is going on?" A fierce look DECORATED her face, but softened to sickly sweet when she saw their guests. "Bean, Sticks, what a lovely surprise. To what do we owe this pleasure?"
"ohhhhh," Beans moaned, and fell down on his 'knees', crying to the sky to have mercy on his poor 'soul'. "Ohhhh lord, help me before I die a horrible death, caused BY the worst disease known to Mobian."
Sticks sighed and pulled him into the house. "Sorry to intrude like this, Miss Rabbit, but as you can see, my 'brother' is quite ill." She shuffled around, limping somewhat on her swollen foot.
"Oh, it's no trouble," Vanilla replied, and helped the raccoon/badger drag her 'brother' onto the couch. "What seems to be his problem?"
"Tonsils," Sticks replied, and Vanilla went still.
"Tonsils, you say?" Her voice was deathly quite. And then, a knife appeared in her hand and she lunged at the duck. "Sticks, hold him down! We need to remove them before they spread to anyone else!"
"Woah woah woah!" Sticks screamed. She grabbed the rabbit and pulled her off her 'brother.' "Hold up there, Miss Rabbit! I'm all for the barbaric approach an' all, as I find it to be quite natural to our instincts, an' bein' a wilderness dweller myself, I highly approve. However, Beanie Baby is a fragile soul, and I believe we should use caution when dealing with him." She nodded profoundly and gave Vanilla her best winning smile. "So whattaya SAY we eat some of your delicious MUFFINS and then decide what to do with Beanie over here? After all, neither of us have had breakfast yet, and I'm not against barging in on other people right afor they eat, so..."
Mirror mirror on the wall, where's the one who blamed them all?
A cinematic fantastic light made its way through the open shutters with the slightest hint of intrusion and flare, It didn't seem to notice that the inhabitants of the small room were semi-naked, drunk and wasted, or perhaps it didn't care. It stood watching, waiting, touching and tasting everything that it could reach, and anything that it would dare. It didn't bother that it wasn't invited, still wasn't sighted, and perhaps hadn't been there the night before. But it came from the window, bright, quiet and slow, piercing the tiny cracks below the door.
So it laid there, sniffling everything it could through thin spaces between plastic shutters, barely shading the sad sight within, barely caring of the winds softwood flutters, and letting the bottles broken and tousled let out there contents of stale wine and GIN.
A monkey fell forward onto his bottom, for he had been SLEEPING, and squinted towards the window annoyed. Maybe it was the voices of the beach goers outside that bothered him, or the DANK MOIST mildew that grew on the walls, the wallpaper peeling from the mid-morning heat, or maybe the FACT that with every foul FLACK, the sunlight from the window and doorway and table-shine, made it a POINT to be playful lightheaded and RHYME!
...A strange sound seem to come from somewhere as well... T-th-the light must have brought it. It must have thought that if it could find it's own unwelcome way into the mobile home, then it could bring friends. That MADE sense... yeah.
And so it had, it must have! and the little monkey on the floor DIDN'T like it. He rolled forward farther until he lay on the very top of his head, he felt strangely exposed, oddly... empty.
It was the curious STATE of the mobile home that he had found himself waking up in THAT interested him the most. It looked like it may have been presentable ONCE, like it was one day, some time ago, VERY posh. But after nights of hard parties, it's condition had slowly deteriorated, and the summer heat that now simmered his BROW SWEAT, had gotten the best of the building, bringing mold and unwanted fungus to grow on the walls. The light redirected itself to POINT directly in the monkey's face, making him feel more and more like an unwanted waffle on the shores of a summer beach. "Oh Supreme Being why..." he muttered. And then he chuckled, figuring that was pretty darn close TO what he actually was. He glanced westwards briefly, through the glare of the BURNING sun, and spread his eyes like the wings of an anxious eagle, and what he saw brought the loudest GASPS he had ever produced rolling from his throat. Too bad no one was around to hear it.
A GRIN crept up the monkeys now DERPY face, and the cogs of his mind began whirling perversely westward. Unfortunately, however, before HE had the chance to announce HIS discovery, a white polar bear ran PAST him and crashed into the fridge, leaving a considerable dent, before redirecting his course and falling out the door in a horrible FIT of shouts. He was yelling SOMETHING about being late for WORK.
Bark hurried through the palm TREES and onto the cobblestone STREETS of Barington City, he hurried past the slow-moving cars and onto west-main-east street heading for the central business complex as fast as HIS feet would CARRY him. "No no no!" he shouted, as he casually ducked PAST two police cars parked outside of Mcduckies breakfast bar. He was INDEED going to be LATE.