My wheels turn endlessly. It's been a couple years and I've pushed him so hard that Jeffrey's fire truck has grown cold under my scratching feet. It's possible that I've killed it, on its 25th birthday, of all days.
"I'm sorry," the whisper comes scraggly, like my beard. My fingers once again find themselves tangled in my ear strands. It always calms me.
I pull out the cheese grater and begin to slice my sorrow cheese: Timberdoodle, once again crying over a fire truck. This always seems to happen to me. I knew I had to get away, forget my sorrows, for it's not healthy for a young bean to be eating this much cheese. It's once again my mother's birth, but the wombat hasn't resurrected yet. In all these years, I haven't heard a single scream from my mom since the day of the Cērbēræ. Occasionally I miss the sound, but I know that staying in a recreation of my lovely cardboard house was not my destiny.
I inquisitively nibble my toes as I ponder the location of my female parent. Can't she answer a simple wombat call? Honestly, it's no matter though, for isolation is a welcome relief after the years of incessant wails from my infant mother. Besides, it gives me more time to inspect my luscious cheeses. My addiction is too strong at times.
It is time for my daily pixelation. This procedure involves staring into the computer for an hour to complete my meditation. Eventually my entire body convulses into seizures, but only after being separated into exactly 51,397 cubes and 1 triangular prism. The feeling is like nothing else. However, there is no computer in sight, so I must build one.
I take some of my leftover cheeses and fifteen small bricks that I found graciously laying on the side of the road, and I start to assemble my device. I don't have any tools, so I use my singular tooth for everything. When I finish, I name my pet computer Rozzie Four, and touch the... keyboard. I begin to sob, but calm down enough to begin the laborious procedure called "pixelation." I listen to some smooth death metal afterwards to relieve myself of the 51,397 cubes and 1 triangular prism's worth of tension and seizures. I am strong now.
----
My pixelation meditation helped me see the path forward from here. I turn away from the cold, dead body of Jeffrey's truck and wheel my feet over the river and through the woods. To grandmother's house we go? No. I have no grandmother. Not since the antelopes arrived on that first fateful day, long ago. So long ago. Soon, I realize what I need to do. Everyone knows that the way to hide a body is to lay it on the ground and build a mountain on top of it. I talk to myself, but no one is listening. So it begins.
----
Days pass as I work to build the mountain I will soon be dead under, for the second time. I need a place to hide my body so my mother won't find it. My new computer is my only companion as I gently stack leaves to form a tower. The mountain has grown taller and taller, and I've only fallen down it twice in the past ten minutes. My ears have grown tangled from lack of attention and my beard has grown to new heights. I wonder how many dogs it would take to fill a lightbulb? As I place the final straw on the mountain, a shudder runs through my three shoulders. My home is complete. Slithering under the mountaintop, I realize that I left Jeffrey's truck's body at the base of the hill. The sorrow of this and the scent of lemonade fresh from the ceiling puts me to sleep, reminding me of my old days as a seedling. As I drift off I think I hear a siren in the distance, but it is probably just a wombat with an attention problem.
The antelopes were back, but I didn't notice.
