HONOR or FRIENDSHIP?

 The Legend of Taylor the Toothpick

A single teardrop falls from my eyes as I remember the day Father died. It was one just like today, with the sun glistening in its ever-so prominent venue, as the sweat pouring down our faces could not be determined to be from heat, or frisson. We had spent years on our mechanism, a laser as big as the boulders behind our land, with a single blast potent enough to wipe out the entire civilization of humans. Now, as the sleek metal rim of our completed machine reflects back my skinny wooden frame, I think as though Father would be proud to have raised a toothpick the likes of myself. As the machine boots up, it bursts into cacophony so loud it could resemble the onslaught of a thousand birds at war. It was so loud, in fact, that I couldn’t hear the whir of a couple wheels approaching…

CRASH! My miniscule hut is toppled like the house of the less shrewd pigs, and two beastly claws of flesh and bone pinch themselves around my waist, dragging my dangling figure into a large boxy caravan. It’s like a major plot scene of a movie- I’m out like a light who’s switch is turned on at just the worst moment.

As I arouse and rub my thin wooden point into consciousness, I’m greeted with a pair of eyes flat as lines and the looming silhouette of a thick wooden frame with a metal ferrule attached. I stir, and the thin, carved fissures of my ears pick up some radar.

“Rocky! It appears I have a friend. Another confused one mate, he’s way too skinny to be a stick bug! Ayy, ayy, you think he’ll like it here? Come on, let’s greet him,” the voice modulates from high to low and all spectrums in between, and the next thing I know, a pencil is heaving me off my bottom.

“Hey! Ease in on it you blubbering buffoon! These state of the art magnesium trousers cost me more time and resources than all of your impudent constituents combined! Blasphemy, this is! I demand you release me this instant,” I caw with impudence, but my appeals are left abandoned.

“Hhhhmmmpphhhh! A feisty one, innit? He’ll make me a good meal. Shall he start to act up, yes?” The source of this vocalization directs my eyes to a giant rock, his charcoal black outer-shell protruding outwards and his legs superior to my entire mass tenfold.

“O-oh, si-sire. P-please to meet y-you!” I quiver as the rock’s massive shadow fully encompasses me, and a melody of cackles erupts from abroad, as scissors, tissue boxes, and metal jugs all spawn from seemingly nowhere.

“Easy on him fellas, he’s new here. So, what’s your name?” the pencil, likely leader of this anomalous association, inquires.

“Taylor. Taylor the toothpick,” I spit back, the bubble between me and the rest of civilization slowly diminishing with the supplies’ lurking steps.

“Pleasure to meet you, Taylor. I’m Jother. Now, you’re probably wondering how you got here in the first place. Old Zelch the Zookeeper over yonder has but a trickle of good vision left in him. He thinks he’s over here running a spectacular business show with a variety of animals, but the truth is, he’s just picking up a bunch of arbitrary materials from random locations and capturing them in his zoo. We’ve been over here trying to escape for decades, but it's no use. His fortifications are far beyond the scope of our knowledge. So, we’ve made it our home. It’s not much, but it's ours,” the pencil concludes his monologue.

“This, I shall not tolerate. We will escape here at once. What methods have you simpletons even bothered putting into place in an effort to vacate these premises?” I bark out.

It’s as if each of these words create a mosaic smile, implanted into Jother’s face after leaving my mouth.

“Well you see, we have tried putting the gear wheel in the right engine, but the internal hardware was too fragile for the conductor to be charged. Therefore, we could not escape the glass fortress. Do you have any thoughts?”

Jother’s smirk reflects back to a forlorn piece of wood, chipped and distraught in the middle of a desert, devoid of any social life, and seemingly too arrogant to see that the roots of his own demise lay within his heart. I see myself.

As I wander around the cage, I begin to take in the humongously minute quarters that I am to be confined within. Strands of lush green vines droop down from every corner as though adjoined to each piece of matter in this area, with leaves of fluorescence and drapes of ocean blue littering the skyline. A poster sits in the corner so torn its words are hardly tangible, and in lettering as faded out as my father’s memory before passing, the words ‘Machu Picchu Zoology Center’ are imprinted.

Machinery is bestrewed across the domains of this land, with operations and schematics so utterly befounding that my vast knowledge of the field can hardly get me to even comprehend it. The resources are scarce, as appropriate with this scenario, but a quick scan of the perimeter shoots a scintillating plan into my skull.

“What if instead of doing everything you had just mentioned, we simply use the discombobulator to-”

Suddenly, the same fleshy claw that had sealed my fate earlier crashes down with a cacophonous slam, and a shriek erupts from Jother's lead mouth. I spin like a swivel chair to notice the piles of scattered machinery all being crushed one by one, as the human towering before me cackles in glee.

“Mesa hates ants,” the human slobbers as he unleashes ruination on decades of labor. Upon finishing, Jother collapses to the ground.

“It’s over. We knew there was a slender chance of our escape, but those machines, they were my life work. And now they’re gone.” Jother, Rocky, and a plentitude of dishwasher utensils share melancholy in their expressions, and it is all I can do but to stand here and gaze in awe at their friendship. Through times of misery and woe such as now, this chaotic coterie seems to be there for each other in comfort, and it's as though they are magnetically luring me to join in their shared consolation.

I know what I have to do. I locate scattered bits of glass from the ruins, and cover myself in them. I then proceed to take the bits of machinery that prevail and do the same, scurrying to the towering walls of the chambers and gluing myself to them. I harness every bit of energy left within me, and shriek a deafening noise of pure ferocity as the world stops to witness me.

Suddenly, the human is back, and within a fraction of a second, he is pounding the glass on all sides of me.

“Ants stuck in the wall,” the human grunts, and as his beatings grow fiercer and fiercer in velocity and power, a brittle crack forms in the barriers.

“Taylor, NO!” Jother’s voice is the last thing I hear as the glass wall shatters into a million little shards, one of which pierces me through the back. Darkness engulfs me once more, yet this one seems just a little more permanent than the last. As I collapse to the ground, it is as though a mighty war explodes above me, and I evaporate, just like father had that fateful day, up into the heavens.

Or so I think.

I wake up to a sinking feeling. Then, from my peripheral, I catch a glimpse of sand, and stiffen up to avoid the quicksand. All around me, there is nothing but dessert. I’m home. Yet something is missing, an integral part of my life, a concept I’ve only known for less than 24 hours, but feel as though it makes up more than half my life. Friendship.

A grain of sand drops from the heavens, and I smile as it brushes by me.