Chapter 4: The Tomato and the Norris;
Part One: The Tomato
Late into the night, I slept peacefully, without a sound, dozing the day away so that I wouldn't have to face it again. Today was finally Halloween and, boy, did I have an interesting time. After the incident with the toy store, though it never lead to a lawsuit, we still had to actually let the Undertaker go ahead with his plans so that we wouldn't get any complaints. The haunted house, as enjoyable and frightening as it was, was sucking everybody else's profits and customers away. Needless to say, the last two weeks of the month didn't hold many kind gestures towards the Undertaker.
Along with this hardship, there was also the situation of the trick-or-treaters. Children, for some reason, will always find it to be a fine idea to dress up and come here to trick-or-treat for a while. Sadly, we always end up turning them down ever since the last time we tried to hand out candy to a group of kids. By the time we would have the bowls of candy all set up, it would be inevitable that L would have stolen it all, somehow, in the blink of an eye. As sad as it is to see their disappointed little faces when we say we have no sweets, at least this got us another step closer to keeping L from becoming a severe diabetic.
Along with that, we had the Irish Grim Reaper come to the mall today, which started up some offensive commentary from some of the customers. I was overjoyed by the fact that today was the day that we would get rid of that troublesome pest some would call a "dog", but my joy was quickly out the door. I was so overly happy when the man arrived that, when he came to talk to me, I accidentally blurted out, "So where's your mystical gardening tool?" He took great offence to this and immediately went on an entire Irish-accented rant about "It's not a gardening tool, lassie! It's a death scythe and I could darn well use it to spew your guts onto the floor while I sing a shanty!" He took the dog when he was finished a half an hour later, and when he left, I was just about to kick is Celtic ass down the road to the nearest gas station.
Now, as uneventful as I sum the day up to be, there was one thing that seemed to really top all of our minor troubles that we all tend to complain about. As opposed to the actual date of April 1st, for Sunni the hobo, Halloween was like her April Fools day. On this day, she wouldn't just strike like she normally would. No, she would wait carefully, even if it meant all day, for us to let our guards down before she struck. This year, as opposed to last year when she threw rubber spiders and green slime on the customers, she found the freakiest, most realistic mask off the face of the planet and ran around, chasing children and any other living thing that would utter a terrified shriek. It seriously took 7 of us to even try to get close to her. We had been really close to catching her today, but as usual, before we could catch her, she teleported away. Today, she decided to scare the shit out of some of the employees on her way out, too.
My day was tiring and strenuous, and when the stores were to close, I was too damn exhausted to even utter a single foul-mouthed sentence. I went to bed as soon as I could, that night, and was out cold before you could say "pie". As peaceful and well needed as my slumber was, I ended up waking up in the wee hours of the morning, the thin clouds outside hovering over the remaining full moon. I rubbed my eyes and adjusted to the darkness. When I looked to my nightstand, the red glare of my clock spelled out 3:06 and AM. With the fatigue still holding its grip of drowsy insanity on my mind, I struggled to comprehend the combination of the numbers and the letters. I quickly gave up and slammed my head back into by pillow with a cry, "What is this black magic?"
I knew it was still late at night and only hoped that I could just go right back to sleep, but there soon came a single thought that kept me from doing so. I flew back up to sit upright in my bed. I rubbed my forehead and suddenly remembered with a jolt, "Aw damn. I gotta go get more soda for the vending machines." Earlier today, before taking her leave, Sunni had made sure to clean out all of my vending machines, leaving me to go fill them up at the end of the day… yesterday. I had been too tired to care and had fallen asleep before I could finish my work.
I groaned as I forced myself to get out of bed. I figured this would be easy for the most part, but then I realized, this is the night shift. And what better way to get up in the middle of the night than to go out into the freezing cold to go confront the most annoying group of people I have ever employed in my life. Yup, always a good time.
"Ah, and how are we this evening, my dear mademoiselle?" asked the blond prissy-boy in front of me as he offered up a pink rose.
"Save it for your gay boyfriend, France," I grumbled at him. Pathetically, his rose wilted as a frown creased his face. "I'm just here to talk to the night shift soda guard. Just let me in."
He sighed and his rose wilted lower. "Oh, if you insist…"
"Thank you." I proceeded to the entrance but was stopped when he clapped his hand onto my forehead.
"But wait!" he gasped. "There is a catch!"
"Oh brother. What could it possibly be?" I snapped.
"If you wish to speak with the guard…" he paused to sprout a creepily serious smile. "You must find him first!"
I stood with a blank stare, my eyes beginning to twitch. I figured before I got here that I would have to go through some trouble to get my inventory, but it hadn't exactly crossed my mind that I would have to hunt down the soda until now.
Jostling my way past France, I pulled open the front door to the massive storage warehouse and began to stomp in, my fuzzy eskimo slippers puffing as I stepped. Magically appearing into my hands, I pulled out a British musket and plopped one of those tan rainforest hunting hats onto my head. I pulled out a fake monocle and placed it onto my eye. With this, I was fully prepared to go hunt down my target; Italy. I narrowed my eyes on to the distant shelves ahead and charged out into the maze, screaming in an exhilarated manor, "Tallyhoooooooooooo!"
For a time that seemed to drag on for hours on end, I wandered through maze after maze of this warehouse that I should have known the layout for. Around me, I was surrounded by towering shelves, some stocked, others simply holding empty crates. Everywhere I turned, not a nation was in sight; only the inventory to keep me company. Soon, my mind forgot the meaning of walking and simply led me to dragging my feet on the cold concrete floor. My tranquilizing rifle slumped to the floor and dragged behind me with every exhausted step I took, leaving behind only the scraping noise of the metal barrel.
My eyelids drooped and my arms slumped like I was a sloth on meth. I soon reached a state of mind where the endless rows of shelves were beginning to drive me to insanity. I walked down the empty passages, feeling I wouldn't be able to bare these quiet paths any longer… until there sounded a noise.
I perked my head up and listened around. I began to hear whispers, taps and scuttling noises from above my head. In a swift motion, I raised my rifle to the air and strained to find any sort of life form that I could aim at.
"Got you now, you Italian bastard," I sneered in a hushed tone. I quietly looked above my head into the rafters, swaying my rifle to where my sights hit.
"Damn! We've been caught! Run for it!" quietly cried a voice from the metal rafters. There were some more scuttles that sounded to be two pairs of shoes that quickly faded into the distance.
"What in God's name was that? Damn countries," I grumbled, sadly lowering my rifle back down. It was now quiet and solemn in these halls once again.
My head suddenly snapped back up again as the scuttles from before were replaced by a new sound; someone was stepping towards my direction. On the ground level, I heard slow, calm steps drawing near to where I stood. I quickly crouched down, my back pressed against the nearest shelf, and held up my rifle at my side, ready to shoot whoever had the guts to show themselves. The steps came closer and closer until a clean, white shoe immerged from behind the shelf. The shoe was accompanied by a man in a white and gold suit, standing with perfect stature and an emotionless face. All of these aspects added up to the one man in this warehouse known as Japan.
"Oh, good! It's just you," I gasped, sliding myself down to the floor as Japan drew his brown eyed gaze towards me.
"Um… would you mind lowering your gun? It's making me feel very uncomfortable," he asked in his thick accent that made it near impossible to decipher his Rs from his Ls.
"Right, sorry Japan," I sighed.
"There is no need for apology," he insisted with a crack of a smile. After a short pause, he asked, "I see you're quite lost too."
"What? How are you lost? You WORK in this place!" I scolded.
"This is true. I may work here, but I still require a map to get around," he admitted, lowering his head in a sign of embarrassment.
"Well, then where's your map?" I asked.
"Britain stole it."
I struggled to stifle a giggle, but it loudly came out as an offensive snort.
"It's not funny. I'm lost in this place without that map and I have no clue where Britain ran off. Do you have any idea where he is?"
I paused to consider this, but came back empty handed. I shrugged with a reply, "Sorry, but I haven't seen him at all since I've been lost in this place…"
"Oh… I see," he said with great disappointment.
"BUT!" I said as I held up my cocked rifle. "We can always go find him."
In one short second, he lifted up his head, his straight face turning to a twisted grin. "Sounds like it could be fun."
"Very. Oh, I hope you don't mind, but I need to hunt down Italy to get some more soda from the inventory."
"I see. Well then he should make things a lot easier for us to find Britain, too."
"How so?"
"Britain has been scheming with Southern Italy to take down Northern Italy behind our backs for quite some time now. And, since my map is gone, that must mean that they plan to strike tonight."
"Yeah, but how does that make it easier for the both of us?" I questioned.
"Because Italy's hiding place is obvious. As long as we know which direction they went, I'll be able to find a short cut."
"Um, okay then. Uh…" I paused to think before pointing to the north. "I heard a couple of people running around in the rafters a little while ago; that must have been them. They ran off that way."
"Good, then we shall go this way," he decided. Without a moment's waist, he clapped down onto my wrist and yanked me down a path heading east.
"Wait! I said they went NORTH!" I protested.
"Yes, but I'm taking a short cut."
I stopped my protesting, pulled free of his grip and brought up my speed to catch up to his pace. I never did say it aloud, in fear of Japan thinking I was a psycho, but in my mind, I was gleefully crying, "Off to Neverland!"
For the entire time that we ran, Japan lead me east. Just straight down one path and then cutting through the next. It felt like a never ending maze of un-escapable twists and turns leading nowhere. After a while of looking at the outrageous numbers of shelves surrounding us, I began to wonder whether all of these boxes actually held my inventory or if just a fraction of them were mine and the rest held things belonging to the countries.
"Damn countries. Stealing my storage space," I grumbled silently.
At about a quarter to 4:00, we had reached our destination. It was the middle of the entire storage area where there was a circular shaped clearing of the shelves. I recalled being here a few times before for mass meetings and such, but I never realized that this was where Italy kept the soda. Shelf after shelf after extremely shelf lined up to form the large circular area. In the middle of the clearing, a single lamp from above shone a beam of light to the empty center.
"That," Japan said, pointing towards where the beam of light was reflected. "That is where Russia usually stands on the day shift. Italy SHOULD be standing right there for the night shift…"
"But he's not here."
"Which does seem quite unusual."
"Well, France did say we had to FIND him first, so…"
"Maybe he's in one of those boxes on that shelf," he said, looking up at one of the shelves.
"Why do you suppose it's that specific shelf?"
"Because he left the lift by the shelf."
I looked back to the shelf to confirm this. Sure enough, there was the yellow lift sitting innocently in front of the shelf. The lift was still raised up and was at the level of a wooden box that was labeled in red letters, "Tomatoes!"
I slapped my forehead. "Of course he's in the tomato box! How could I have not seen that?" I mentally grumbled.
"Because your mind is feeble," Japan replied as he calmly walked towards the control panel to the lift.
"Holy fuck! Since when can Japan read minds?" I thought with a shiver. Japan never responded to that thought so I figured I was just being predictable. (Or was I?)
Never mind that, what we had to deal with now as the matter of setting the box on the ground floor without breaking it. Knowing exactly how to operate the lift, Japan brought it down to our level, helped me up, and brought it back up to the box, his face remaining emotionless the entire time.
When we reached the level of the box, the both of us carefully grabbed opposite sides of the box and slowly lowered it into the lift.
"These wooden boxes sure are heavier than the cardboard ones," Japan complained.
"True, but this box does seem lighter than it should be if Italy was inside."
"That is also true."
When we had gotten to the ground floor, we placed the heavy box right next to the beam of light to get a closer look at it. I had ended up letting Japan sit over by the lift, seeing that he was in dire need of a breather.
I circled the box and the beam of light, my finger tapping my chin as I pondered whether the two were connected. After a while, I had become extremely aggravated with my motion of circling like a vulture only to come back with no results. Though we had gotten this far, Japan still hadn't found his map and I still hadn't found Italy, whom I had woken up in the middle of the night to find. Ticked off out of my mind, I paused with my circling, turned to face the box and snarled loud enough to startle Japan, "Damn you, Italy! Give me my damn soda!" I felt my anger surge through my body and, as if I was just gathering the energy for the ultimate limit-break, I twirled in the air and executed a perfect roundhouse kick. My foot made a violent crash into the wooden box, sending it rapidly sliding into the light of the ceiling lamp. It sped up with great force until it abruptly stopped right at the center of the light.
Echoing through the entire warehouse, Japan and I began a wide-eyed gape as we heard a sudden click, like the gears of a large clock tower snapping into place at midnight. There was a short silence, and soon, the click was followed by a loud whirring noise as the lid of the box began to rattle. My utter shock increased with the shaking box until, finally, the lid blasted off the box like a rocket ship to the moon. The two of us watched as the lid soared off into the distance, flying out of sight in a matter of seconds.
I continued to gape while, Japan, on the other hand, was just about ready to pass out where he sat. I wondered why Japan wore the horrified face that he did until, out of the blue, the ground began to rumble. I heard something that sounded like it was under the box slam open. My spine tingled, my utter being soon regretting what we had done. I felt that the world may have been coming to an end before the rumbling abruptly stopped.
I turned my head to see if Japan was okay, and he was for the time being… sorta. He had managed to hoist himself onto his feet but his skin was still pretty off-color. He slowly and shakily walked over to where I stood and gave me a look that signaled that I should try to see what was in the box. I nodded and cautiously reached towards the box. Though, there really was no need for me to even look inside, for the contents began to fumble around like it was struggling to get out.
I stumbled backwards and bumped into Japan who let out a startled gasp. The room became silent once again for a mere moment as we both stared at the box and hoped that it was all over… it wasn't.
Suddenly, Japan and I were sent flying onto our asses as the figure of a joyful man lunged out of the box. But this wasn't just a man. No, this person would be better described as a child trapped in the body of a man who can't drive and is usually drunk. Yes, the man who shot out of the box was none other than Italy.
"Bravo! You found me!" Italy cried with a beaming smile.
"Wha- how- you weren't in the box before! How did you-" I started to stutter.
"There's a chamber under the lamp light. The bottom of the box opens, too. I still can't believe it took you so long to find me."
Yanking me out of his way, Japan stepped forward to look Italy face-to-face and, with a straight, yet aggravated face, he bitch slapped Italy square across the cheek. Italy screamed like a small 8 year old and, rubbing his face, asked in a saddened tone, "What did you do that for?"
"You nearly gave me a heart attack!" Japan sternly replied.
"Well, it's not my fault that you can't count!" Italy defensively replied.
"Wait… what does that have to do with anything?" I questioned.
"Nothing. I said the same thing to America today and I wanted to see if you would react like he did," he replied, regaining his regular smile.
"What did he do?" Japan asked.
"He fell on the floor and kept on saying that he could count and that I was lying. It was pretty funny."
"Yeah, yeah, and that would turn out to be a fabulous story for the break room. Now that we've found you, may I PLEASE get my soda?" I pleaded.
"Sure! No problem!" Italy said as he climbed out of the empty tomato box. "Let's go to the vault. Russia and I are the only ones with the keys to it, so it sure it lucky that you found me."
"Agreed," Japan said.
Suddenly, as we walked, from behind us there was a loud crash followed by quiet cheering from above our heads. I looked up to find Italy's brother, Romano, and England up in the rafters. From what I gathered, they figured they had just killed Italy with whatever weapon they had just dropped.
"Heya, guys!" Italy cheerfully called up into the rafters, not knowing that the two thought that he was a pile of blood and guts.
"Damn it! You stupid, garlic breathing loser!" Romano angrily cried.
"Why weren't you in the box, you damned wanker?" Britain snarled down.
"Was I supposed to be in the box?" Italy asked.
"Wankah!"
"You!" I called up to them. "Get your sorry asses down here!"
"Oh, alright," England sighed before falling to the ground floor, Romano following right behind.
"What the hell was that about?" I asked the two, a confused look on my face.
"Listen, I'm quite aware of what you're thinking right now, but we weren't trying to kill him. We just wanted to make him shut up for a while," England tried to explain.
"Oh, yeah, I'm buyin' that… when pigs fly over the Canadian border!"
"Whatever you say, hothead bitch," Romano grumbled without a hint of remorse for insulting his boss. "It's not like we'll ever be able to get away with it now that you've all found us out."
"You better believe it," I warned.
"Oh, and Britain, I need my map back," Japan asked, holding out an expectant hand.
"And who says I was the one who took it?" he stubbornly asked.
"I saw you steel it from my room."
"Bloody hell," he grumbled as he dug out the folded paper from one of his breast pockets. "Here!"
"Arigato."
"Pfft!" Romano scoffed.
"Say, Romano. What did you drop on my tomato box?" Italy asked.
"… Another tomato box."
"Did you put anything in the box?"
"Yeah…"
"Well, what was in it?"
"… Tomato shaped paper weights."
"…. No way! I want some!" Italy cried, his hands joyfully shooting up into the air. Without a moment to waist, he ran towards the pile of rubble from the boxes and sifted through. Like a small child, he took a seat on the floor and picked through the pile to see which of the silver paper weights he wanted (even though every last one of them was the same.)
"Hey, this one doesn't look like a paper weight," Italy said, pausing his search it pull out what he had spotted.
"What doesn't?" I asked as I walked over to him to see what he had found.
"This one," he said, holding up the object to where I was leaning over his shoulder.
It wasn't like this item was too different from the other paper weights. It was still the shape of a tomato like the rest of them. Actually, this one would probably be exactly like the others. That is, if it hadn't been made out of solid gold! Yeah, you heard me right; it was a solid gold tomato.
I couldn't help but gape at the glistening wonder of this stunning object… that didn't belong to me or my property. Realizing this sent a downpour of acid rain on my own parade. I sadly turned to the others and asked in a louder tone, pointing a finger at the small collection of nations, "You! Does this," I held out the tomato I had taken from Italy's hand. "belong to any of you?"
"I don't believe so."
"Nope!"
"It's not mine."
I sighed. "Well then I guess it's mine… until I find the owner."
"Wait!" Romano protested. "Why give it back to the owner when you can sell it for some serious money?"
"Because I'm a good person, damn it!"
"Pfft! Whatever, I'll just steal some diamonds from Canada."
"Oh, like any of us give a damn about your debt," I grumbled under my breath.
I shoved the tomato into my pocket and pulled up my arm to check the watch that had somehow appeared onto my wrist. It read 5:36. "Dang it! I wanted to actually sleep tonight!" I sulked.
"So sleep," England suggested with his arms crossed over his chest.
"Believe me, I'd love to, but I have too much to get done… such as getting my soda," I pointed out before shooting a furious glare at Italy.
"… Oh! Right! Follow me. I'll get you your drinks in a sec," he said, standing up and ushering me forward.
With the heavy tomato-like thing in my pocket, I followed Italy down the hall as he skipped merrily in the lead.
After a long night, I finally got my soda and was relieved to be able to leave the warehouse after my long search. With the trolley of soda boxes in hand, I wheeled it over to every single vending machine and began with one of the boring tasks of my job. For a long while, I now had to complete the task of clicking every last soda into their rightful places, making sure nothing was put out of place.
Distracted by my work, I hardly noticed it when one of my employees had come up and decided to loom over me without a sound. Just as I had clicked the last soda into the third machine, the man spoke up. "What kind of soda is that?"
"Whatever kind Italy gave me," I simply replied. "And who am I speaking to?"
"Why, it's me, of course," he joked.
I grinned. "'Me' who?"
"Hm… I'm gonna make you guess."
"Oh, a challenge! Um, I dunno… are you Britney Spears?"
"What?" he gasped.
"I'm joking! I know it's you, Lelouch," I said with a playful grin. I paused my work to turn around and politely face him.
"Okay, good," he sighed, rubbing the back of his head with an embarrassed look. "For a moment, I thought you were serious."
"Haha! Fail!" I laughed. "So what are you doing up this early?"
"Oh, Rolo got into the store last night and he woke me up, so I decided to clean up the paper and kick him out while I had the time."
"Well that sounds like a great waste of time."
"Honestly, it really was," he replied. "So what are you doing up this early?"
"Well, to make it short and sweet, I woke up at 3 and couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided to refill the soda machines."
"Uhuh."
"I went to the warehouse and France said I had to find Italy if I wanted the soda. I ended up going on a two hour hunt for him! When I finally did find him, Romano and England launched a failed attack on Italy. I had to scold them, then I had to clean up, then I had to get the soda, and now I'm here."
"Oho, doesn't that sound fun," he said sarcastically.
"I know, right?"
"Well, I just came here to give you this. I found it in Rolo's pile of papers and I figured you would get some use out of it," he said as he handed me a flyer.
Strangely ironic, the flyer was exactly what I would have needed that day. It read,
'Missing golden tomato. It's a tomato, and it's gold. Please respond if tomato is found.'
No return address, no phone number, just the message. I raised an eye brow at the flyer. "Oh, that's LAF-ly," I mocked.
"Heh, yeah, I found it strange too. But I figured, since you've already seen the strangest of the strange in the past, you'd be able to get something out of it."
"….Uh, yeah, what I get out of this is that the guy who made this is pretty damn stupid."
"What? Why do you say that?"
"Cuz he didn't write down a number to reply to," I pointed out, taking a double take of the flyer again.
"I guess that it pretty stupid."
"Yah think?"
"Hey, I gotta get back to the store before Suzaku wakes up."
"Aw, you gonna go make your boyfriend breakfast? Dat's so shweet!~" I cooed.
"Wh- What? No!"
"I'm kidding! Gain a sense of humor, for god's sake!"
"Oh… sorry," he said as he head drooped.
"Now, this is what I meant! Humor! Now get outta here, alright?" I playfully said.
"Alright. See you later, boss," he said before trotting off, waving back to me as he left.
I slammed and locked the door to the vending machine and sighed. "At least now I know someone is looking for the tomato, but who the hell is it who owns such a thing?" I wondered. Suddenly, it hit me. I looked back at the flyer and re-read the part that said, 'Please respond if tomato is found.' I slapped my forehead. "Of course! It's so simple!"
Instantly, I pulled myself off the spot where I had been kneeling, walked into the middle of the parking lot, and took in the silence. It was so peaceful, so calm, so quiet. It truly was a wonderful, yet quite vulnerable silence that could be broken at any time by anything or anyone. I took that opportunity of breaking the silence. I looked back at the flyer and looked back at the instructions for a third time. I soon had made my decision; phone number or not, I was going to do what was instructed in the way that I figured would be the most effective.
I prepped myself for some sort of earth quake or some comet to crash down on my head, craned my head back and screamed loud enough for even the heavens to hear, "I have responded!" The noise created by my scream echoed all around as the sound waves bounced off the walls and reverberated around the mall.
Due to the tradgety of cause and effect, from all around me, I could hear the sounds of voices that could have never been my own. Windows from the top floors of the stores cracked open and the heads of my pissed employees poked out to bitch at me for screaming at such an early time.
"What the hell, Dag'? We were trying to sleep!" Hikaru called down.
"Yeah, what the heck were you screaming for?" Kaoru joined in.
"Cm'on, Dagas! What, you don't want us to sleep now?" Cloud called down.
"Really? REALLY?" Miharu angrily called down. "Yoite was having a hard enough time sleeping as-is and now you wake everyone up with this. What were you thinking?"
From behind Miharu, I could see Yoite approaching the window with blood shot eyes and a pissed look on his face. He glared at me with pure hatred, lifting his pointer finger up and aiming it at my face.
"Oh, Yoite, please don't do that! I'm sorry, okay!" I desperately pleaded.
"'Sorry' doesn't cure insomnia," he said. From where he stood, I saw a wave of energy fly towards me as his hand flinched back. From his finger to my forehead, the wave of soul energy flew at me and struck my forehead point blank like an invisible bullet, causing me to fly back 3 feet and fall on my ass. With a thin trail of blood trickling down my face, I bunched my hand into a fist, shook it at Yoite's window and called up to him as if I was an immature 6 year old, "Jerk!" he simply waved his hand back to me in a "whatever" motion.
To add to this wonderful moment, from behind, I felt a finger tap down on my shoulder. I immediately turned around and screamed, "What?" at Russia who stood behind me, his usual innocently creepy face on.
"Oh, sorry. I came at bad time, da?"
"Just say what you wanted to say!"
"Italy wanted me to tell you that we're out of pasta."
"Grrrrr… DAMN YOU ALL!"
As strange as the morning started out, nothing unusual really happened for the rest of the day. I ended up being as tired and as cranky as the rest of the employees that day. The fact that I never got a response from the tomato guy didn't help my mood out all that much either.
The day paged out to be quite normal and depressing and, for everybody here, it seemed like all the coffee in the universe couldn't wake anyone up. As an annoying little Indian chick once said, this truly was an inauspicious day.
Unfortunately, for me and me alone, my depressed days and mood stuck around for the next 3 days. 3 days I waited for a response from the tomato guy and, by the third day, I had already given up. Though Lelouch insisted that I kept waiting, I refused to listen.
On the 4th day, I woke up at about 7:08. Being that I had given up on my hunt, I wasn't as depressed as the 3 days before. I was still having a hard time getting past it though, but at least I was starting to feel better about it.
While wearing a pair of pj's that looked like they would be most appropriate for a 50 year old woman in the middle of a midlife crisis, I walked silently out of my home. My feet dragged close behind me and my lungs billowed out yawn after yawn after yawn. Trudging out to the edge of the concrete overhang, I pulled my hand over my eyes to look out into the distance and watch the sun rise. I let a sweet smile escape my lips as I took in the beauty of suck a glorious happening. True, it was an everyday thing that only could be cried over by a fag, but if you really take it in, it makes you appreciate the life you've been given.
Sadly, my happy moment was abruptly ended at the sight of a shadow blocking my view. I squinted in an attempt to see what exactly was on the roof that had blocked the sun. soon, the object swooped off the roof and headed to my direction. With the back of his tail coat effortlessly fluttering close behind and his perfect posture keeping him upright on the landing, I knew in an instant that it was Sebastian.
As a change of pace, Sebastian approached me with a normal expression instead of his usual creeper smile. In his hand, he delicately grasped what seemed to be a message that had been written on gold paper. Referring to me as though I had suddenly become his "young lord", he said in his butler monotone, "Young master. I believe you have received a letter."
"What, that's for me?" I asked in a confused tone.
"I do believe so. There seems to be no return address or specific sender, unfortunately. However, it does bear your name on the envelope."
"Wait, lemme see that!" I ordered as I snatched the letter out of Sebastian's hand.
Looking down at the letter, I found that my name had been perfectly printed on the front of the letter in what seemed to be a silver Crayola crayon. I found this to be quite strange, not to mention improper, but I opened the envelope anyway. On the inside where the true message lay, I found the message had been perfectly engraved into the golden paper with pure silver and the edges had been embroidered with glistening golden strips that formed perfect swirls at the corners.
While struggling to prevent blindness from the sheen coming off of the glorious wonder of a note, I carefully read the bold silver letters that stated,
'I see you have found my prized object. Bravo to you, my good sir! Now that you have found it, I would like to ask a favor of you. I have been stranded in a sandy, Egypt-like place for weeks and I can't seem to find my way out. All I ask of you is to find me and bring the tomato to my current location. Nothing more shall be needed of you. Soon after you read this letter, a map of my location should be sent to you. Good luck, and watch out for the scorpions.
Signed, God
PS, I'm not god!'
After lowering the extremely heavy letter, I started to rub my head, my mind still trying to comprehend what I had just read.
"Oh, there are SO many flaws in this guy's logic," I said out loud as I rubbed the bridge of my nose.
"Like what, might I ask?" Sebastian asked.
"He says he's trapped in some sort of sandy plane and yet he had the time to make a letter that could be worth five-grand!" I said, handing the letter over to him.
"Flawed indeed," he scoffed with an amused smile.
"And not only that, but he says he'll be sending over a map of his location… and yet he has no clue where he is."
He chuckled with a silly grin. "Oh my. This man sure does seem to be missing a screw."
"I agree," I said with an irritated sigh. Suddenly, a strange gust of wind blew towards our direction and slammed a slab of aged paper right onto my confused face. After prying the paper off, I observed it and found it to be the predicted map. I took a good look and found that it just seemed to show miles upon miles of sand dunes. On the other side, I read a message that said,
'Use this map wisely, young padawan. It shall prove to be useful… if you know how to use it!
~ Sand dune hobo'
Without thinking about anything else that was said on this strange map, I remarked as I rubbed the back of my head, "Damn, this guy's gotta pick a name!"
Later that morning, as the hordes of early-bird customers began to pile up at the entrance to the parking lot, I found no trouble in ignoring the shouts and impatient wines of the shoppers as I rounded up my employees into a straight line. Automatically, the employees organized themselves in the order of their stores, waiting for me to send out an important announcement or something else of that nature. Of course, a simple announcement wasn't precisely the case.
While standing before my sleepy workers, I began to pace from end to end of the perfect line, observing every last person as I passed by. Walking by, I could almost feel the people behind me breathe a sigh of relief, feeling they had dodged a major bullet if I hadn't stopped to look them straight in the eye. I paced back and forth down the line a couple times until I was positive that I had everybody's attention. When I was done, I walked back to my place, standing right at the front in the middle of the line so that I could be seen by all.
I cleared my throat and raised my voice to a good volume, announcing to the drowsy men standing before me, "I have received a letter today from the man who lays claim to the tomato. He says he wants me to come find him. Though, I can't exactly go alone, being the fact that he is in the middle of a desert. So, I need to bring with me some reliable people who can handle a hunt that could possibly go on for weeks to find a man that may not exist… so who wants to volunteer? Anyone?"
Instantly, I saw at least 7 hands skyrocket into the air. Seconds behind, I noticed 4 more hands slowly raise up, as if they were slightly unsure of their decision. I looked around a bit to view my choices and silently picked out who would be a help in this mission.
Out of all of my men who wanted to go, I ended up plucking out a group which, though reliable, was a pretty foolish gang. With me, I decided to bring America, Italy, England, Cloud, and Zack. Why choose these people over all of my other, smarter choices? Simple! England was an expert at reading maps, America has an internal compass, Zack and Cloud are both a good defense and offence (remember, the guy said to watch out for the scorpions, and I just wanna be prepared for however big these poisonous bugs are) and Italy is a master a creating and finding secret hiding places. As an added bonus, America and Italy somehow always have an unlimited stash of food on them, so there's no chance of starvation! Everything works out… well, not in the eyes of some.
"Hey! I have a problem with this!" Germany beckoned to me.
"What's that?" I asked.
"I am more capable of taking this on than they are! I am a Fuehrer, for Gott's sake! Why on earth would you choose them over me?"
"Because I'm putting YOU," *jabs him in the chest* "in charge of the mall! There, you happy now, Mr. Fuehrer?"
"Uh, I didn't know that-"
"Yeah, now WHO was complaining just now? Cuz I could have sworn that it was a tight-ass, ungrateful, German PRICK!"
From the end of the line, I heard Honey's words that broke the tense silence. "Ooooooooo! Germany got yeeeeeelled aaaaaat!" An array of childish snickers from half of the employees soon followed.
"M-my apologies," Germany stuttered with a burning face.
"Apology accepted," I said to him. He straightened up his posture again and I left him to carry on.
"Wait!" he called out again, causing my feet to angrily skid on the blacktop.
"What now?" I snarled at him.
"I can't possibly manage this huge place on my own. It's too much for one person to handle."
Now, what I wanted to do was yell at him "welcome to my world" and slap him across the head with a dull stick, but I was unable to do so due to the fact that I didn't have a stick. Oh, what a pity! Instead, I sighed and said to him, "Of course it is! And that is why you will be co-managing with Kyoya and Japan."
"Is that so?" Kyoya rhetorically asked as he pushed up his glasses with a pen.
Much like a cadet accepting a mission in the middle of war-fare, Japan straightened his back up and said to me, arms at his sides, "Hai, I accept your challenge."
"Very good, soldier!" I called out to him.
"Oh! Oh, oh, OH!" Zack called out to me, his arm stretched high in the air.
"Yes, Zack?" I sighed.
"When do we get to leave, huh?" he asked with a little spring up in the air.
"As soon as you are all packed. So if you're that eager to leave, then get packin'!"
"Woo hoo! Let's go!" Zack cheered before speeding off to his room. Close behind, Cloud picked up his pace to follow his dear friend.
"Imma gonna go pack lots of pasta!" Italy cried.
"Alright! This is gonna be off dah hook! Right, Britain?" America exclaimed as he slapped his hand onto England's shoulder.
"Oh, good Lord, strike me down now."
"Ten-hut! I'm taking roll call! Zack?" I called out.
"Here."
"Cloud!"
"Here."
"Italy!"
"Si, I'm here, boss!"
"England!"
"Sadly…"
"And America!"
"H-here?" said a timid voice.
"Okay, then that means we- wait just a minute!" I called out to stop myself from making a huge mistake. I stomped up to the guy claiming to be America, got right up in his face and witnessed the fear and guilt emanating off his facial expression.
"Mhmm…" I murmured to make him nervous. For a while, I circled and surveyed his posture and other features. His glasses and hair kinda looked like America's. So did his hiking clothes and height. Though, there was one thing that seemed a little off; his sprig.
America had this specific sprig of hair on his head that stuck out a certain way right on his part. This person's sprig looked a lot like America's, though I soon found that it was completely held up by what looked to be glue. From his hair, I turned my attention to his bag, which seemed too odd to be America's. It looked pretty normal to the naked eye, but the one thing that made it stand out; it was breathing.
I suddenly realized who this man really was. I pulled my finger up to his head and flicked the sprig which unraveled it's self into a long curl that waved down the left side of his head. I stepped behind him and unzipped the sack. I looked down inside and softly called, "Oh, Mr. Kumajiro!"
From the backpack came an adorable, fuzzy, cream colored bear that deeply resembled the bear on the Snuggle fabric softener bottle. It looked up at me, hindering an adorably aimless look in its beady black eyes. With one look at the back of "America's" head, the fuzzy bear asked in a sweet, innocent voice, "Who're you?"
Instantly, the blonde responded in an irritated, mousy tone, "I'm Canada! Why don't you know that yet?" Without hesitation, Canada slapped his hands over his mouth, realizing his mistake.
"Busted!" America shouted from behind him.
"Why'd you do it, man?" I asked in a hippie voice.
"I wanted to test you to see if you really could tell me an America apart…"
"Well I almost couldn't tell the difference. The sprig was pretty convincing," I commended him.
"I didn't realize I was that good at disguises," he admitted.
"Then again, I don't think I could have really told the difference if you didn't have Mr. Kumajiro with you, soooo…"
"Oh darn!"
"Hey, hey! That just means that you should always have him with you, bro! Then people won't mistake you for me."
"I guess that would help a little."
"That's the spirit!" America encouraged him as he gripped Canada around his arm. "Now why don't you take this cup of ice cream and go watch some anime, okay?" he said, handing him a pint of vanilla ice cream.
"Well that sounds fun. Thanks, America!" Canada said as he skipped off into the distance with his cup of ice cream and Kumajiro asleep in his bag.
"I can't believe this…" I said as I stared angrily at America.
"Can't believe what?" England asked.
"America went all Oprah on us and totally stole my thunder!"
"Well it's not like he can help it. After all, he is the 'hero'."
"Yeah, in his dreams."
"Heh, well put."
"Mhmm. Okay fellahs, let's get moving."
"Where exactly are we 'moving' to? I mean, where are we going to find a desert in Chicago?" Cloud asked.
"And who says our guy is in Chicago? Maybe he's in Egypt, for all we know," I added on.
"And who says he's there?" Zack said.
"Exactly! So that means that we need to think outside of the box!" I exclaimed.
"Actually, it would be more appropriate to think INSIDE a box," England said.
"Cut the British metaphoric crud and get to the point," America rudely urged.
"What I was trying to get at is simple. I believe there is a movie shoot just outside of Chicago."
"So? What's that got to do with anything?" Zack asked.
"I was getting to it!" England barked. "For this movie shoot, I've heard that they created what seems to be somewhat of a mini-Hollywood. I've been informed that one of the storage rooms is supposedly an endless desert. I hardly doubt it's the truth, but it's worth bringing up."
"Yeah, I think I heard some rumors about that around town last week. It's getting to be kind of a big deal," Cloud added.
"That is so weird! Why would they have something like that on a movie site?" I questioned.
The two of them shrugged.
"Well, at least now we know where to start looking," I sighed.
"Yeah, but if it's a movie shoot, won't there be, like, heavy security?" America asked while quizzically scratching his cheek.
After thinking for a little bit, I shrugged and casually said, "Eh, we can make it up as we go."
