Tinysaurus

There was a dinosaur in the fridge.
Amy stared at it, somewhat surprised.
It stared back for a moment, completely unsurprised, then went back to eating her lunch.
“Jaaaack!”
“Whatever it is, it's not my fault,” he shouted from two rooms away.
The dinosaur finished off the sandwich, and swiveled in the confined space, looking for other tupperwared prey. She was amazed at how small it was; it couldn't have been more than a foot high. And it was clearly a meat eater, looking at it's teeth and claws. This was definitely no ordinary dinosaur... as ordinary as any dinosaur could be.
“Jack!”
“I'm coming already!”
A huge crashing, clanging noise sounded from the other room. The dinosaur perked up it's head at that, alert and looking for danger. Apparently the winged figure five or six times it's size didn't count, since it soon enough went back to trying to bite through the lid of the leftover chicken.
Crash sauntered casually in. “Jack's a bit tied up. What's the problem?”
“There's a dinosaur in the fridge.” She stepped away, allowing him to see inside. “I'd like to know how it got there, and what it's doing with my lunch.”
Crash stopped short for a moment, wide eyed, until his brain finally registered that snakes do not have legs, and therefore this was not a snake. “R-right. Let me have a look at the little guy...” He put his hand into the fridge, very slowly reaching for the bipedal lizard.
The thing whirled, snarling, and jumped for his hand. He pulled back just in time to avoid losing a chunk of his thumb. The tiny thing tumbled out of the fridge and landed on the tile floor, looking slightly confused, until it decided that Crash's sandaled feet were the ideal prey.
Ten seconds later, Amy sighed as Crash stood precariously on top of the table. “What, the mighty black belt can't take something that tiny?”
“It's a dinosaur. I was never trained to deal with dinosaurs.” Not to mention it looked very much like a snake from that angle.
“You were never trained to deal with Fixit either.” She offered the thing a piece of chicken, which it took quite happily. “You know, it's actually kind of cute.”
“I'm here! I'm...” Jack skidded into the room, a wire wrapped around one leg still, and stopped dead in his tracks. “Dinosaur.”
“Yeah.” She scratched it's head, and it made a noise almost like purring.
“Tiny dinosaur.”
“Tiny vicious dinosaur. It almost took a chunk of my hand!” Crash spoke from atop the table.
“You just scared it is all.”
“Where did it come from?” Jack reached out a hand to examine the thing, and winced at the sound of it's teeth trying to bite through his metal gloves. He drew back.
“That's what I was hoping you could tell me, actually.” She shifted, the movement of her wings catching the attention of the dinosaur. It started moving slowly across the floor, ignoring the promise of chicken, stalking her feathers. She laughed at it. “It's cute, don't you think?”
“Yeah, cute in a deadly predator sort of way,” muttered Crash as he started to climb down.
Jack watched it from a distance as Amy lifted her wings out of it's reach, making it jump and claw at the air. “Where'd you find it?”
“In the fridge.” She wasn't really paying attention to him so much as she was the dinosaur, which tumbled to the ground in a manner entirely too adorable for it's species.
“How'd it get there?”
“I'm blaming Fixit,” said Crash.
“If you weren't hiding on the table, I'd blame you,” muttered Jack. “Fixit!”
The little robot burst out of the microwave in a cloud of powdered sugar and saluted, startling all present, dinosaur included. It darted under the table again.
“Fixit, there's a dinosaur in the fridge.”
Fixit went to the fridge, opened it, and stuck his head inside. He shrugged.
“It's not in the fridge anymore.” Jack sighed. “How'd it get there?”
The sugar-covered robot turned away from the fridge, looked at Jack for a moment with an air of puzzlement, and then pointed to Crash.
“Crazy robot, it wasn't me!” Crash looked indignant.
Fixit made a motion which, had he been human, would've been the equivalent of sticking out his tongue at Crash. The man almost returned the favor.
“Well, then,” Jack said, glaring at them, “who was it?”
Crash and Fixit pointed at each other again. “It was him!”
Amy knelt, coaxing thing out from under the table with a bit of chicken. “Come on, little guy.” The little thing came out and let her pet it as it gnawed on the chicken. She laughed. “There you go.”
Jack made a mental note to give Amy a raise, and tack 'dinosaur whisperer' onto her job title.
“So we don't know where he came from then,” she sighed. “Guess we'll have to keep him.”
“No!” said Jack and Crash simultaneously, Crash being the more empathetic of the two.
“I mean,” Jack coughed, “I'm sure we can find out. After all, the security system should be able to tell us something.”
“We need to give him a name.” Amy was ignoring both her coworker and her employer. “How about... Turnip?”
“Turnip the dinosaur.” Crash was unimpressed. “And don't give it a name, you'll start getting attached to it!”
“Turnip the tinysaurus.”
Jack looked distressed. “I... Um... You can't...”
Fixit knelt, looking at the dinosaur. He offered his hand, and the dinosaur sniffed it, got powdered sugar up it's nose and started sneezing. Amy laughed. “See? They'll get along fine.”
“But it's... it's a...” Crash gestured vaguely. “It's a dinosaur! A bloodthirsty killer!”
“Oh, don't worry, he likes me!”
“For breakfast!”
“Quit being silly, Crash.” Jack pressed a few buttons on his visor, accessing the security system remotely. “Security system's got nothing on it. Apparently a dinosaur just spontaneously ended up in the fridge... somehow...”
“That's not even possible,” muttered Crash, as he very gently stepped down to the floor, trying not to attract the attention of the toe-eating monster.
“I'll keep it,” she declared. “My apartment building allows pets.”
“What? But...” Crash took a few quick steps back as the dinosaur looked his way. “Ok fine just keep it away from me.”
Jack shrugged. “Go ahead, I think it'll be fine.”
She smiled at it as it went after her wings again. “Turnip. Good name for a dinosaur.” She waved a bit of chicken at it, and it followed her dutifully out of the room.
Jack, Crash, and Fixit stared after her. A moment later, Crash looked at Jack, his voice low.
“How long did you spend rehearsing that?”
“Two hours,” he said without even looking at him.
“...You suck.”
“Says you, Mr. Afraid-of-snakes.” Jack took off his visor and handed it to Fixit, who put it on his head.“Now if you'll excuse me, Amy is out a lunch, and I'm going to buy her a new one.”
As he strolled casually out of the room, Crash could only think of one good side to this.
More blackmail.

A few random shorts

I haven't written anything really worth posting recently, but I have quite a few small things that I like enough to share. Don't expect them to be complete or make sense; they're not, and they won't.



A slice of the sky, of heaven and angels, cut down and bound here, bound to the earth to walk, to walk forever and ever amen, always staring up, never quite remembering who, or what, she is. Never, ever knowing, always longing, never looking down, never looking back, always trying, striving, reaching higher and higher, seeking to pull herself up from here, from this empty dust of too many distractions and nothing is real, nothing is reliable, and yet far too steady and unchanging, she walks the earth. Her prison. She doesn't remember, doesn't, couldn't imagine what she is, who she was. Who she will be. The wind calls her name. She doesn't know it's hers.



Black. White. Black. White. 64 squares. He stared at them darkly. Chess, chess, how he hated chess. The boy that sat across from him apparently liked it. Oh, and how he hated this boy. Smug little... The boy stared at the board a moment longer. “You're sure.”
“Yes, good grief! I'm sure!”
“You're sure you're sure. You want to move your queen to take my pawn. You're sure.”
“I'm sure! Just take your turn already!”
The boy shrugged. “Fine then.” He gently picked up a the black rook with the delicacy of an artist. “My turn.”
The man sputtered in shock. “How the...”
“Checkmate.” The young face broke into a gentle smile as he tipped over the white queen with the rook. The small noise of it tapping to rest on the board sounded like the crash of an empire.
The sirens of the police sounded like a dirge.



Jack stumbled out of the smoking robot, coughing. He looked up with tired eyes through the shattered mask, and saw her.
“Amy...” he whispered.
She was running to him before she even knew she was standing up. He opened his arms just in time to catch her as she embraced him. “Jack...” she mumbled.
His heart skipped several beats as they stood there. He was holding her. He was holding her. He was holding her! He closed his eyes, savoring the moment, and was hardly embarrassed at all when he started crying. She was crying too, and he shushed her gently, reveling in this new role as the comforter, the pillar of strength.
Thirty feet away, Crash hauled himself up, and proceeded to pull the little robot up from the hole behind him. They stared at the pair for a while, and then Crash shook his head and sat down, smiling broadly.
“So. Who's his best man, you or me?”
Fixit sat down next to him, looked at him for a moment, and then pointed to himself.



“Cursed be the charcoal, cursed be the wood, cursed be the gasoline, cursed be the one that would. The world will burn, the world will burn, the world will burn and I will laugh and the world will turn and turn and turn and we'll be left behind.” Spindle offered his hand. “Shall we dance?”