Victory's Raconteur: Wonderful to hear from you Vic! :)

trex841: Hmm, I thought we were left off during the *date* scenario . . .

rfollman: Yes, I am glad you are enjoying this!

DISCLAIMER!

The Chipmunks are an American music group of singing anthropomorphic chipmunks owned and operated by Ross Bagdasarian Jr. and Janice Karman under Bagdasarian Productions, formerly Bagdasarian Film Corporations.

Pooka is a fictional dog in the 1997 animated film Anastasia, produced and directed by Don Bluth and Gary Goldman at Fox Animation Studios.

A warning sound goes off, disturbing the silence of the dark truck interior. Simon's simulated pacemaker flashed a red light reading: WARNING! CHARGE LOW!

Simon stirs, groggy from semi-nightmare-free sleep. His eyelids weighing a thousand pounds as he tries to awake. Groaning as he tries to move, Simon falls out of the hammock in the dark, crashing onto the metal floor with a thud. It's so dark he can't find where he landed. He now has a headache from falling face first, and not fully conscious enough to note his detached prosthetic arm, failing to pull himself up.

"This is gonna be a bad day…" Simon groggily commented as he holds his splitting headache.

Feeling his way along the wall with both hands, Simon finds the lever to the door. A sudden and unpleasant sensation stirs him more awake as the sun's rays pour in, blinding him, followed by the sting of cold wind on his bare torso, and the loud roar of the hydraulic-actuated ramp lowering. At least he's up now to charge his pacemaker.

He doesn't fully remember why he had one to begin with but long ago, he along with others he knew had impulse-generating tissue fail to sense a heartbeat within the normal beat-to-beat period that stimulated the ventricle of the heart with a short low voltage pulses. Those who were born with a block in the heart's electrical conduction system or because the sinuatrical node is not fast enough had an artificial pacemaker implanted, designed to treat bradycardia. As far back as Simon could remember, he had the heaving but everlasting artificial cardiovascular device that maintained an adequate heart rate, keeping him alive. All he had to do was keep it charged and he'll stay alive.

Now outside, Simon flips open a control panel to the truck, holding a long cable attached to his artificial pacemaker as he plugs it into the truck. In a split second, a generator activates from the plugged device, transferring energy from solar panels mounted on the roof of the truck. In an instant, the electrical charge temporarily zaps him, now fully conscious and charged. He shakes the last bits of sleep off as he walks back inside to prepare for the day.

What day? he wonders. It's the same thing for who knows how long. Yet it's the only thing he can do, giving him what he thinks is his purpose, but could use a change, with more living beings to talk to, or a new routine. Remembering the film from last night, he shrugs off his thoughts of that possibility, for his life of collecting trash was all he ever knew or will know.

Zoned out so much, Simon accidentally steps on Pooka's tail, the dog letting out a yelp.

"AAaah!" They both jump. Pooka seems to be fine though. The creature has been through worse for Simon found him as a starving puppy wondering through the trash mountains, all cut up from sharp objects everywhere, but saved him from a landslide. Pooka on his nametag, he took him home, not that it made him feel less lonely like he just learned but like everything else he found, was very curious, Pooka himself too, but Simon kept an eye out for his well-being.

He points to Pooka and to behind him.

"Stay," he says with a stern look. Pooka does so and Simon seems to be satisfied. Now suited up with supply bag and shovels in hand, he walks off to work.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Scoop, shovel, compact. Scoop, shovel, compact. Scoop...

So annoying the way he knows how to carry out his task of garbage compacting. At a new spot in town, Simon shovels pile after pile into one of the many hydraulic compacters throughout the city. Usually making many as ten cubes every minute and preparing to make another tower along with all the monumental trash skyscrapers.

Occasionally Simon comes across something to add to his bag. One particular item, he examines with complete bafflement, is an article of tan fabric he doesn't recall. A strip of thin stretchable fabric connected to two large spheroid cups. Attached on the top of both cups were narrow strip of adjustable fabric making a loop to the back of the garment.

"Hmm," he slowly examines it for a second, bringing them close and over his eyes.

"Well . . . these certainly are not goggles . . ." He takes the garment off his face and tosses it into his bag.

Simon finds interesting artifacts later that day. One of them made distant beeping sounds from afar by pressing a button on an ancient tactile identification rubberized plastic key fob. Another one with a flat wooden paddle with a small rubber ball attached in the center via elastic string repetitively hits him in the face and a hand held cylindrical pressure vessel that discharged foam knocks Simon off his feet. Simon quickly chucks the foam displacement device far away.

The day drags on as cube after cube, and item after item is stacked away, Simon never stopping for anything, until he finds a big refrigerator in his path of shoveling.

Simon tries opening it, but it wouldn't budge an inch. Simon opens up his tool compartment in his mechanical arm and pulls a tiny, silver cylinder out. He pushes a button, and a red beamed pulse sonic laser emits, cutting through the fridge door like a knife through warm butter. The fridge door's fall off, revealing something Simon has seen before, in old tomes he borrowed from his studies.

A living photosynthetic organism! Simon looks at it in amazement, focusing his eyes on the simple weed.

"Oooooh!" Simon takes in the newly discovered living organism in interest. It looked so frail, so insignificant, but so alive, a tiny bright thing against the ugly brown world around it. Nothing compared to the inanimate objects he found. The object is obviously something special to look after, like Pooka.

He carefully scoops up the plant into his hands, and places it into the newly discovered old shoe fit for a small child in her bag. He wipes off a speck of dirt from it. This tiny thing now bewilders him it looked . . .

Beautiful, he thought.

… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …

Later that afternoon, Simon decides to stop for the day. Having found a few more objects to add to his collection, he makes his way home, his mind still on the plant he found. Thinking back to the word he used to describe it, beautiful, it truly was something different, but why, he could not figure out.

Contemplating his thoughts as he reaches for the door…something catches Simon's eye…

Next chapter we are introduced to EVE! Or . . . at least the Chipette who will depict her . . . Who is it gonna be?
A) Charlene
B) Brittany
C) Jeanette
D) Eleanor

Pick your poison . . .