The windup toy

There was an eerie sight when the windup toy decided to do whatever it wanted.

It went for a jog. It wound its own windup knob and headed on out. It was comprised of an robot head with lacquer and blue eyes. It really wasn't afraid of much. When Regina came home one day she saw it lying on the stairs. She was worried her kiddo Graten would trip on it. "Damnit, Graten I told you never to leave this on the stairs for mommy. Because if you do I can trip and then mommy has to go to the IR."

"Graten Smith, where are you?"

Meanwhile Graten wasn't doing much but admiring his own collection of action figures. I mean the fucking kid was only 8 or 9. He didn't really know too much about the world. And most of what he knew was from his parents and his comic books. SpackleMen Adventures, Twinseans Purveyors, and Sandlot Sickos. Yeah, those were good reads for Graten. Graten was so encapsulated in Sandlot Sickos that he didn't even react to what his mom said. Once in a while he'd mumble to her. "Yeah urm...mom...urm...whoa!" He really has that weapon, he'd scream in excitement. 

Graten went downstairs and decided to make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Much to his dismay the grape jelly was gone. He scraped the remnants of the jelly on his finger then on the sandwich. He wasn't horribly satisfied but he pulled the large red jar out and proceeded to open it. He had skinny fingers to try to loosen the jar. He had a hell of a time prying it open. He often wondered how he was blessed with horribly skinny fingers. He blamed his mother for this shortcoming. Finally, he opened it and smeared a glob on the wheat bread. That's the only bread Graten would eat.

He smashed two pieces of bread together and the peanut butter got all over. His mother a clean freak could hear messes. "Graten did you do this?" "You little turd I just washed the counter." "GAAHHHHHHH, where's your father at?" Graten's dad was a really great father. So great in fact that his dad got him the windup toy from India. He had gone to some awesome forresty place in India. A sacred temple that the Indians implored not to go into. But his dad was a renowned archaeologist and he didn't give a damn. More adventure for him meant that he was able to explore more. He was indeed an exploratory man. For him discovery was the utmost amazing thing on the planet. Yessiree, give him a digging shovel from his pack and a little duster and he was fine. A duster like cleaning a house but it was a brown and had thick bristles. Either way he was happy. He finally cut through a ton of long aqua vines and there was something tangled near a wall. It was red and blue but the paint was completely rusted away. The pigments faded against the warm glow of the sun. He thought this is odd it has a bronze windup switch on the back. What the hell was it doing out here? In the jungle canopy of India?

"Gary, where the hell are you?" said his mom with fervor. Gary tromped up the stairs from the basement. "Yes, I was just watching State beat the tar outta City Plains." Gary Smith said vehemently.

"Your dumb son just made a mess." she said. "Boys will be messy boys babe," said Gary. "But he's a damn imbecile." said, Regina

Gary tired of the squabble retired down stairs. "GIRRRRRRRR." Regina hissed. 

As she got a towel she cleaned the white marble countertop. Meanwhile, her wayward son Graten made his way back to his room. He was still quite enthralled by Sandlot Sickos. Man Diggy will love this comic he thought. Diggy Mclusky was Graten's one and only friend. What would Diggy think of the windup toy? Sandlot Sickos --------Issue #5 Blogman Trotsky had just discovered the best possible solution was to beat that kid down. So he and the Sandlot Sickos really decided to put on a show. They got brass knuckles, a large wooden bat and a couple of panes of glass. The glass was to make their own glass shivs. Yes, boys this was war.

This was war...between the Sandlot Sickos and the Gallivanting Grocers. The sickos got the crap kicked out of them last time.

Graten looked at the next panel. Dang, he thought that guy just merc'd. Wow, that dude's head almost fell off. Man, this is better than Larby the Zombie he thought. And Diggy owns Larby the Zombie but I have something way better. I really do wonder about that toy my dad got me .

Where the hell is it. For a second he paused and looked for the windup toy. He could not find it and frantically looked for it everywhere. A couple hours passed and he was disinterested in looking for the windup toy. Until...his mom told him to come eat dinner.

"Dinner will be cold in t-minus two minutes if you don't get your damn rump down here." It was summer. As with all tales it was hot.

They lived in Georgia. His mother had no accent as she was a transplant from California. She wore a yellow sundress and had a white bow and yellow vans. His father had a green shirt with some weird Indian words on it. He was wearing white Khaki shorts and a green State hat. "Well, let's eat." his father said boomingly.

They said grace and ate. "Kiddo, what have you done today? You know it is blistering outside. It is 8 p.m. and what have you done? Do you have summer school this school year?" his dad said. "Dad, no, I am going to be in 5th grade. I am not even really worried. I read a lot dad and I mean a lot. That is when mom isn't yelling at me for stuff." said Graten 

"Graten where's the windup toy?" said Gary

"Dad, I dunno I saw it today. But I am not sure where it went. I would not go up to my room. It is like Katrina #2 hit or something. Well, that and I don't really like being clean. I like my room how I like it. The windup toy is somewhere I presume." he said with innocence in his voice.

"Dad, pass me the mash potatoes please." Graten said. His dad passed him the potatoes and had an odd look on his face. "Gary, please pass me the okra and spinach, hun." said Regina. Gary passed his wife the nasty okra. "Mom, I don't want okra...it smells like butt or grandma." said Graten. "Son, don't say dumb stuff like that. It's bad enough you're clumsy with peanut butter. "said Regina. "It smells like rusty butt." said Graten. The family had a nice dinner with okra, spinach, mash potatoes and meat loaf. The smells emanating from the dining room were pretty mouth watering. The family was fairly satiated. Graten pulled out the sweet tea from the fridge and poured a tall iced glass. "Guys, I am done. Can I be excused from the table? Those comics aren't going to read themselves."Graten said with importance. "Hunny, I need to go finish the game. They are at the half and State gets the ball at half time. They have this quarterback baby , Quinton Darrel he's insane. He threw a 75 -yard pass to this large receiver. And the guy put so much zip on it I thought the atmosphere would break. What speed and precision! " said Gary.

"Yeah, yeah. You boys go run along and read comics and watch football. I am going to kick back a glass of white and red wines. Yeesh this day was tiring enough. " Regina scoffed.

Graten ran to his room with most hesitation. Moving with incredulous speed up the steps. To be met with a hurricane of a goddamn mess. If a tornado hit his room he'd be far better off. This looked like a hurricane magnified times 100. Papers and his sketch book were strewn out of their bindings. His waist bin was dumped on its backside. Purple binders and notebooks littered the damn floor. Miscellaneous items like rulers and posters painted the landscape of his room. His fish tank and Guster the fish were the only items that weren't turned over. His bed sheets were untucked and they were all Snoopy sheets. They were mangled to all hell as well. Yet, as he looked up through the whole mess, there was the windup toy. Graten examined the toy further and saw some Indian letters on the back of it and on its forehead. What did these mean ? He had no idea. But he wondered how he missed the windup toy when he had been looking for it all day. The time was now about 10p.m.

Graten was now trying to hurriedly clean up his room. The disaster he brought upon his house. He was working up a good sweat. He was wearing his lucky yellow Woodchuck shirt and red snoopy jammers. He had started putting almost everything back in order. For some reason he had the odd notion that entropy could exist for him, in his room. He started yawning and fell asleep in the mess.

He woke to about 2 a.m. and the windup toy was gone.

The windup toy decided to go on his own journey. It only had a little longer until it was out of elasticity. So it decided to first head down to the basement where his father was. It examined his father sleeping on a green velvety couch. It didn't really know what it was doing and picked up the remote for the HD Samsung 4K TV. It pressed a button .

--------Well Shirley for 25.55 you can in fact get this beautiful can. It is reddish and it is darling. Great for any kid or the elderly.

-----Stephen A. Smith I think you're wrong. I do think Aaron Rodgers is just the greatest quarterback of all time, Stephen A.

----Stephanie just stole my purse. And I was all like nah you didn't. And why would she date Jeff. He's a loser but then there's Brad.

---The weather will be a cool 89 degrees with a chance of 34% blistering humidity.

---Now if we put these eggs in this bowl and whisk like this it is lovely. We just make an incredible omelet with love and precision.

Overwhelmed from the images the windup toy decided to venture upstairs. It left the TV on. The windup toy made near the fridge.

It decided to try to open it. But it really struggled and it couldn't. Gary was awakened by an advertisement for Tampax Pearl. "What the hell is this shit?" he said from his slumber. " I really need to eat some cookies and go to sleep with Regina, it is----late" he said with a yawn.

As he started creeping up the stairs he noticed something strange. The windup toy looked back at him. It scared the daylights out of him. How the hell could that thing move he thought. He closed the door and a sliver of light  shined through . The windup toy finally somehow pried the fridge open. It was a large stainless Whirlpool. What was he after. He finally found it in front of it Marmagold 2% Milk.

He tried to lift the jug and it spilled all over him. He didn't understand the concept of a mess and left. Gary gathered courage and finally made a break for it towards the kitchen. As Gary went to investigate the mess he noticed something peculiar. He turned off the lights. There was a neon purple track from the windup toy.

How odd he thought.

The next morning the windup toy was back neatly placed on top of Graten's shelf. The light shone through and Graten moved in the pile of trash. Graten somehow managed to make it to his bed and fell into a deep sleep. "Windup...windup...where are you." he murmured in his sleep.