December 28: Neil's Mission Part II

Continued from December 27, 2010

Chapter 2 of 3

That night, Neil scratched and clawed his way through the rusty bolts that had been residents of the miscellaneous bin since before his own arrival. He climbed past the requests to stay from his sisters and continued through the cheers of support from his brothers. This was the night of his great escape and nothing was going stop him.

The cries from his sisters tugged at his heart and part of him wanted to stay, but he knew the truth behind their future together. Sooner or later, every member of his scattered family would be gone. Gone into different homes across the old town. If he didn't act now, he would soon find himself alone and behind a picture frame regretting his failure to avenge his family.

From the top of the pile of nuts, screws, washers, bolts, and family, Neil peered over the edge of the cardboard and into the dark expanse that was the store's floor. He had taken the fall before, but he had done so unexpectedly. The fall had been a surprise and he was within the company of his brothers and sisters. Now he had to voluntarily jump; alone. The box was filled to capacity and it was just a matter of rolling over the edge. It was just a matter of psyching himself out for the inevitable. As his brothers cheered and his sisters wailed, Neil took a deep breath, pushed his head over the edge and let its weight do the rest.

With a metallic ping, his round, flat head smacked against the cold Formica counter and his pointed rear flipped him upside down as he continued his silent journey to the ground. His second landing was more violent as his point made contact with the floor at an angle forcing it to slide out from beneath him but slamming his head into the (figuratively) soft floorboard. As violent as the fall was, however, it was still quiet enough not to rouse the tools in the early evening. When he came to a halt and the room had ceased its spin, Neil let out an exhausted breath. He had done it. His mission was underway.


The brooms had not started their sweeping so he had some time to recover from the fall. In the stillness of the night, Neil rolled over and around his planted point. It only took four rotations before he had made a 90-degree turn. Now that he thought about it, he never had the freedom to move like this before. As far back as he could remember, he was always wedged between a sibling or a foreign nut. In the few moments of his traumatic inventory accident, he had been too stunned to experiment with the idea of rolling and moving. To his surprise, it was much easier than he would have guessed.

After doing a 360-degree turn, he effortlessly raised his point from the ground and stood on his head before lowering it back to the ground. Because his head outweighed the rest of his body by so much and there was an overall lack of friction between his point and the floor, he was unable to stand upright, but he had no problem raising, lowering, and swinging his point over his head. His mission, he realized, was going to be a lot easier than he had planned and he couldn't wait to get started.

Within the duration of his experimental movements he had maneuvered himself a good twelve to fifteen inches from his original landing spot. By focusing more on the task at hand, Neil aimed his point at the exit of the store and made a 180-degree roll. With the point now facing the opposite direction of his target, he raised it and swung it around before repeating the process. An hour was all it took. He didn't need the brooms. He didn't need to explain why he wanted to be swept toward the door or why he didn't want to be a part of a home renovation.

With a feeling of pure adrenaline, Neil rolled himself into the darkest shadow just to the right of the door's frame and waited for the remainder of the night. He watched the brooms do their thing. He listened to the hacksaws and box cutters. He heard the songs of the dancing ceiling fans in the back and he smiled to himself when he remembered the gossiping toilet seats that were housed two aisles away from their soft breeze.