New Functions

Come the rising of the sun in the blue sky, a bird was sitting in a nest wedged between two tree branches near an open window. Not a minute passed before a baby hatched underneath its mother, who promptly stood on her two feet and looked down harboring joy and excitement. The father bird soon flew to the nest and perched so he too could glimpse the emergence of new life. On the interior side of the window, a vase brimming with flowers sat on a table next to a white bed. The Master lay on that bed; bandages had been wrapped around his head, and his glasses were off, accompanying the vase. Asleep for a while, a voice managed to stir him.

"Rob? Rob? Can you wake up?"

Rob came to, and after rolling his dazed cranium in circles, his brows relaxed and he opened his eyes to see Chris sitting in a chair by him, leaning over.

"Ugh." He rubbed his face with one hand. "...What – where, where am I? Where did I go?" (Not likely to heaven.)

Chris visibly saddened and almost hesitated to answer. "...To the hospital."

"Really?"

"Afraid so."

"Wow." Rob stared down at his enveloped self. "...And where're my appliances at?"

Chris could tell where this conversation was going; she didn't like it. "Your appliances?"

"YEAH!" Rob shot up from his bed, ignoring any headaches he had presently. "Oh man Chris, my appliances, you should've seen them, they were... talking to me, trying to save me and help sabotage this wrecking machine! Also they were – "

Quick as a flash he leaned back and retraced his thoughts; this was a sane human being he was talking to here. "Ahh..." he finally sighed, "but I don't suppose you'd believe me, now would you?"

Chris twisted her mouth and shrugged her shoulders. "Probably not."

Gaping into empty space, Rob endeavored to assess and rationalize this gnawing memory deep in the inner workings of his mind. "...I guess it must've been some whacked-out dream I had."

"Right," Chris said without another word on that matter. "But anyway," she moved on, "I've got good news! Your things are being spiffed up at Johnson's Repair House! Wanna go an' get 'em?"

"Do I ever!" Rob breathed eagerly. He'd started to scoot off his bed when he realized that his left foot had been bound in a suspended cast. He hissed in short-lived agony.

"No wait!" Chris exclaimed too late, arising and outstretching her arms. She, coupled with the pain, made Rob stop what he was trying to do.

Chris placed her hands on her hips. "Lemme fetch you some crutches."

Rob found that to be a splendid idea, no doubt, so he slumped back down on the bed. He stared at the ceiling and let out a sigh. "Okay."

That same morning, inside the Johnson family's wholesome repair shop, Mrs. Johnson was finishing a fine polish of a certain sunbeam toaster on the main desk. Jay stood off to the side, one hand in his pocket, the other twirling a detached cord, which began to mesmerize him. He and Mrs. Johnson were both snapped out of their tasks when they heard the jingling of the bell above the door. Jay took a step forward.

"Rob, buddy!" he greeted, his optimism coming on a little strong. "How're ya feeling? A little better?"

Rob entered the shop on a pair of crutches, head bandage removed, with Chris right behind him. The redheaded young man was concentrating very hard on walking in this fashion; his once-again-bespectacled eyes were focused on the floor.

"Yeah, a little," he returned.

"Well this'll make you feel TONS better!" Jay made a sprint to Rob and showed him around, arms and hands flourishing. "Ta-dah!"

He displayed unto Rob a low shelf on a wall, where a polished radio, popcorn popper, air conditioner, coffee pot, blanket, stand-floor lamp (now donning a shade), fan, and desk lamp were lined up all in a row. Mrs. Johnson propped the toaster on the far end. Jennifer the cat meowed from the prestige of her carpeted cat tree.

"Wow," awed Chris as she came in. "They sure can shine, I'll give 'em that."

Rob traced a good long look at the appliances – even those he never recognized or owned. "Yeah this is all really nice, don't get me wrong," he started, "it's just – well, where's the vacuum? It was the one that needed the treatment."

Mr. Johnson appeared from Rob's other side on cue, and motioned for him upon catching his attention. The man exhaled. "Follow me."

So Rob did follow.

With a heavily dented and contorted pole, Kirby was carried out from the door behind the main desk, and then he was set down on the tiled floor, its surface smothered with bits of dirt. Mr. Johnson switched him on and gently swept him across the floor to do the job he had once lost. A few seconds ticked by before he was switched off and pulled back, revealing a floor that had been partially cleaned; but bits of dirt still remained.

"See here?" Mr. Johnson explained, holding the vacuum and tilting it from its underside. "We replaced the old power cord with a new one to get the motor running right, but it'll only go twenty percent the capacity it used to. That's all we could manage to squeeze outta it."

Rob put a finger to his mouth, disappointed and contemplating. "Only twenty percent," he repeated to himself.

"...Well?" questioned Jay next to him. "Should we get rid of it then?"

"It won't be enough to clean your dorm room anymore," mildly joked an approaching Chris.

"...Yeah, well," Rob kept thinking. "Let's go ahead and take those other appliances to the car. We need to figure out what to do with them."

He crutched away with his two friends, who plucked what they could carry: the stand-floor lamp, fan, popcorn popper, and coffee pot. Mr. Johnson lifted Kirby and set him near the shelf, where Rob's appliances and the air conditioner lingered for the time being.

Once Mr. Johnson had disappeared through the back door, Toaster and the rest reanimated.

"I'm sorry Kirby," Toaster regretted, facing the vacuum cleaner along with Lampy, Blanky, and Radio. "They did their best."

No answer was heard at first.

"...Kirby?"

"...Actually," Kirby told Toaster, a thoughtful glaze in his eyes, "the more I think about it, it's not all that bad."

The toaster couldn't comprehend this. "...W-whaddyou mean?" Nor could the radio and blanket.

"Maybe this'll gimme the chance to take a break for once." Kirby paused to finalize what he said, and he moved his damaged pole. Next he shut his eyes in a fluster and stared downward. "...In any event I'll be fine."

"Are you sure?" Toaster doubted, aware of Kirby's arch-work ethics. "I don't know..."

"No... no..." intervened Lampy in opposition to Toaster, "I really do think he's gonna be okay!"

"Really?"

"Yep, really!" The lamp nodded.

Toaster glanced away into space, brow cocked. "Huh."

Kirby suddenly got a tad irritated, as he got with know-it-alls in general. "And who are YOU to tell me how I'm feelin'?!"

Reacting, Lampy flailed his cord and shook his head, unable to contain himself regarding his "hypothesis." "NO, no, you'll see in a hundred nanoseconds precisely what it is I'm thinking!"

The old vacuum gave up trying to process Lampy's utterances. "...All I can say is it better not be another insane idea."

The appliances went to inanimate mode when Rob, Jay, and Chris walked into the shop again. Rob was in the middle of making his decisions, of little consequence to his friends but of dire importance to the machines.

"I guess Jay and I'll put that lamp, coffee pot and popper in the dorm's lounge cave," he said. "They'll be good for parties."

"All right," Chris acceded. Then she asked the question. "And what about buying a new vacuum cleaner?"

"...Ya know what, I think I'm gonna keep the old one."

Hearing this but not believing it, Jay flipped out at his roommate. "You... what?! Why?"

Kirby found himself blooming his eyes; Lampy turned to him, smiled, and winked discreetly. The dim bulb happened to know the Master pretty well.

"Don't ask, just trust me," Rob instructed. "I'll make sure to find a proper place for it... like the lounge cave's trophy cabinet for instance!"

Jay gawked and got one thing straight in a flat tone: "You want to put a vacuum cleaner in our trophy cabinet."

"Good grief." Chris palmed her face, almost out of embarrassment.

Yet Rob didn't care – he was as giddy and happy as one could be. "Thanks so much Mr. and Mrs. Johnson!" he called to the repair shop owners upon waving.

"...OH," Mrs. Johnson responded in surprise from the desk, "you're very welcome!"

"Hah, if you mean it!" Mr. Johnson laughed from the back, in perplexion.

"Hey now, and come to think of it..." Mrs. Johnson suddenly pondered aloud, finger to her lip, "since we could use more preservative folks like yourself, you mind tellin' your friends NOT to throw away perfectly repairable appliances? We'd appreciate the help, very much!" Jennifer hopped on the desk and smiled.

Somehow Rob became even more giddy. "Oh absolutely!" He swept his hand through the air. "I'm ALL over it." And he gave Jay and Chris a cocky glance.

"...Rob," Jay remarked suspiciously, eyes squinted. "What're you looking at?"

Now with a trunk chock-full of appliances, including a window unit who was sticking out halfway, Chris drove her car through the industrial city and zoomed toward Rob's, hers and Jay's college, which featured a big inviting "Welcome" sign and a beautiful green campus. But the three college kids weren't going there; instead they whooshed on by, heading toward the city limits – to a quieter rural area. Near a freeway on the grassy countryside, Chris parked the car neatly at a lone gas station. A blue pickup truck was sitting there, running its engine on the edge of the gravel road.

"This the rendezvous point?" Chris confirmed with Jay.

"Yep," Jay answered as he unbuckled his seat belt between her and Rob. "My chaperone's right over there waiting for me!"

The eager dude squirmed around a ruffled Rob and leapt out the car without using the door, yanking his suitcase along.

Rob placed his arm on the car door's rim to go over a couple things. "Now," he began, "are you completely sure you have everything for your trip? Supplies, books, important papers?"

Jay rolled his eyes to the sky and tensed his fingers into claw formations. "Everything Rob, I've got everything! Sheesh!"

"Just checking."

"Yeah, I gotcha." Jay understood that his roommate meant the best for him. Then he moved on. "NEW MEXICO HERE I COME!" He galloped to the pickup truck a short distance away, waving his arms like a madman. An arm from the truck's driver's seat window waved back.

"HI! WHAT'S UP?!" Jay hollered.

Meanwhile Chris was helping Rob step out of the car and get grounded on his feet with the crutches. Once out, however, Rob had more worriful inquisitions he wanted to share.

"I hope nothing fell out back there," he said as he switched gears to the car's trunk and started hobbling to it.

"Nothing fell out," sighed Chris irately as she followed. Together the two approached the open trunk and gave it a close inspection. All the appliances were present one by one.

"See?" Chris stretched forth a hand to show him.

Rob peered closer below and adjusted his glasses. "...Wait a second."

He found that the bulky air conditioner was tipping over the edge of the trunk, about ready to fall out.

"Now what am I gonna do with this cooling unit?" he leapt to thinking. "Our facility's already got central air conditioning."

Chris merely shook her head side to side with closed eyes; she shrugged briefly too. "It's whatever you wanna decide."

"If the main system broke down, we could always find the right-dimensioned window maybe..."

From nowhere Jay's voice cascaded far and wide. "HEY!"

The very source of that voice journeyed hither, rejoining Rob and Chris's company at the trunk. "That cooling unit?" Jay panted to Rob as he pointed at it. "They could seriously use one of those at the astronomy lab."

"They could?" queried Rob.

"Yeah, they're still getting things started down there, what with all those budget cuts. I'm tellin' ya, they are desperate for some cooling equipment right now."

"Oh! Well if it helps, feel free to take it along!"

"Ah," Jay gandered another appliance in the trunk, "and they could use the fan here too!" He nabbed it and studied it.

"Fantastic!" Rob unknowingly wisecracked. "Then you're all set huh?"

"Almost! Just gotta buy me a few snacks – you put the stuff in the bed of the truck, okay?"

With that Jay sped off again, dropping the fan. Luckily Chris was there to catch it before it hit the ground.

"Gee – okay!" she exclaimed. Giving the desktop fan in her hands a stare, she lowered her gaze at her boyfriend watching. "Won't you be glad when he's gone."

"Eh, it'll be like a small burden off my back," Rob admitted lightheartedly. Chris twisted her mouth and smiled to that.

Approximately one minute later, Chris was carrying the heavy air conditioner in her arms and plunking it down next to the fan in the bed of the pickup, which had its tailgate door reared. After checking that everything was a-okay, Rob turned and tried to hop his way over to the gas station by himself. He apparently couldn't handle the crutches so easily on his own.

Chris saw him struggling and gasped. "Rob! Wait up!"

She ran after him to the station's entrance. "Don't stumble over there!"

Seeing as how the coast was for the moment clear – devoid of humans, including the chaperone – the remainder appliances hopped down from the red roadster's trunk and made one last trek across the gravel road. They reached their destination: the back of the pickup truck, where Fan and Air Conditioner resided, wishing to say their goodbyes.

Before they were prepared to do so, however, Toaster and the other four turned and gave witness to the acts of Coffman, Pops and Wattson. Pops and Wattson were digging a hole in the gravel, and Coffman, bless his coffee, had held onto one of the tapes of Tape Recorder. He placed it into the hole, and Pops and Wattson covered it back up, leaving a mound. Coffman patted the mound with his fork-arm.

The three of them drifted their eyes up to the main five. Coffman attempted to expound on this curious practice. "It's a... master's burying ritual... as it were."

A smile lightly appeared on Toaster's face, and he sent them a respected nod. It became so quiet that the midday breeze could be heard brushing against fields of grass.

Having observed this odd ritual from the truck, Air Conditioner glanced over to the right at Fan; she was sniffing and wiping her eyes, watered with tears.

The A/C knew death, not once, but twice. He thought silently, and then he urged himself to say a few words; but it was difficult.

"Now, come on, don't be acting like that," he criticized her. "We're headin' off to a desert. They're really needing us, and you're gonna be put to some good use."

Fan sniffed in response, also forming an angered expression as she seethed: "I know."

Taking a shameful breath, Air Conditioner regressed to a wordless state and turned his eyes elsewhere. That's when Toaster ambled up to the truck, along with the whole appliance team.

"...I think he's meaning to tell you," the toaster clarified to the fan, "that you're not gonna be going out on this alone. At least not when you've got him around!" He pointed his lever at a certain someone.

Fan perked, and started lifting her head. "True."

The toasting appliance glanced at the cold window unit warmly. "That sound about right?"

Air Conditioner made a seemingly indifferent affirmation. "Yeah, whatever you say Toaster." Though Fan by that point could sense his sincerity; so, she playfully headbutted him, earning his highest of eyebrow raises.

"Gotta hand it to ya both," opined Radio, "with you having each other's tail ends no hardbitten outlaw'll dare draw his Colt Peacemaker at the likes of the Chill Crew on any given day."

"Hmph!" Kirby huffed approvingly for once.

"Make sure to say hi to your new masters for us!" dearly requested Blanky.

Still eyeing that blanket, Fan leaned over and inquired in a low tone to Air Conditioner: "How are we supposed to say hi to them?"

"He's full o' fluff," came Air Conditioner's reply.

"Oh..." She still didn't know what he meant.

The ten appliances would have certainly chatted longer had they not caught sight of one of the masters. It was Jay. They went to lifeless mode immediately as he skipped to the pickup and threw his gigantic luggage in the truck bed behind the fan and air conditioner. Remarkably, he didn't see the other appliances on the gravel as he munched his nachos and popped through the door to the passenger's seat. Once inside he slammed said door, whose window was rolled down.

"I'm outta here," he declared between chews. "C'mon what're you waiting for," he told his chaperone in the driver's seat, "let's burn rubber!"

And with that the truck was shifted into gear; and, after kicking up plenty of dust, it loudly zoomed away. The appliances came to life on the double; how could they not.

Fan and Air Conditioner appeared one last time from the back as they distanced. Fan whip-waved her cord like a maniac. "See ya! Wouldn't wanna BE ya!" she shouted. Air Conditioner smirked good-naturedly from the side of his grilled mouth.

Pops, Wattson, Coffman, Toaster, Lampy, and Blanky all smiled and waved them on, as that mismatched duo ricketed over a hill into the country, disappearing with the dust trail.

The remaining eight then had to stop what they were doing, glance to the right at the sound of creaking crutches, and rush back to the trunk of the red car as quickly as possible. They had no intention of being left behind.

Rob and Chris were coming out to see Jay off, but all they encountered were dust clouds and the sound of the revving of the pickup truck far far away.

Rob should've known this would happen, somehow, but he nevertheless stared in disbelief.

"...He didn't even say goodbye."

Chris threw her arms to disregard this incident. "Pssh, forget about Jay the loony! Let's go."

And so, the doors of Chris's car shut, and the engine started. The car's radio, too, was turned on, playing music, and Chris swung the car in the opposite direction of the pickup's and drove from the gas station back to the city.

In the open trunk, the appliances were finding themselves shuffling around against each other and trying to settle, granted the limited space made available by three other bodies and now, Rob's pair of crutches. Though everybody eventually found a comfortable spot, this situation provoked a cracked exclamation from Lampy.

"Merciful Davy it's crowded!"

"Sho-cker," snooted Wattson. Pops took a weird look at him and then knocked him upside his new shade.

"Yes there'll be plenty of time for squabbling and biting retorts later," Coffman set. He leaned over to Blanky whence he added ticklingly: "...Ironic coming from a scoundrel such as moi."

Picking up on that Radio had an announcement to make, naturally. "NOW we oughta be fixin' ourselves on giving a warm, toasty," he elbowed Toaster with his antenna, "welcome to our three draftees over here who each suffered a psychological discrepancy and lived to tell about it!"

"Hip-hip HOORAY!" Blanky cheered coinciding a swoosh of his wool-arms.

Coffman sniffed proudly yet modestly. "Thank you very much." Pops and Wattson didn't seem quite as pleased.

"Well thank you for sticking with us to the end of the whole trip," Toaster told Coffman, housing a sunshining expression.

"Trip my dial," objected the radio, "it's never a trip. A grandiose escapade maybe, full of hazardous obstacles, riveted with near-death experiences too much to write home about, too much for Hearstian yellow journalism to reconcile, obstreperous appliances continually defying the laws of the elite..."

"It's just a trip, Mr. Loudmouth," Pops sharply finished for him.

Lampy stared still and agape. "My sentiments exactly," he muttered. Kirby exhaled by blubbering through his big mouth, tired of hearing such nonsense. (Or was it nonsense?)

Radio curbed his zeal and backed down as needed. "All right..." he began to resolve, "I'm putting forward a solemn vow never to again let myself get carried away."

Toaster calmly, lovingly teased him in return. "Some vows were meant to be broken Radio."

But Radio only got paranoid from this. "NO I'm serious!" he blurted in defense. Everyone else started to chuckle.

"Don't be taking everything I gab with a grain o' salt!" he pleaded. He fidgeted and made exaggerated leaps and gestures. "I'm speakin' from the soul here; it's very delicate; it could splinter in the blink of an eye!"

His speaking soon became none but a small and hopeful chime as Pops reached up and closed the trunk, and as the car disappeared down a street hill into the city. The view then escalated to tremendous heights, straight above the countless business hubs and skyscrapers in the horizon. From wherever living beings, intended to live or no, bled to the suffering of their slots in this machine one calls time and another space, they could always find a will waiting in legends, regardless of their world frailty. Much more was there to be accounted for beyond. The clouded sky shone over civilization, beaming rays of heavenly light.

~The End~