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It was a nothing day, and as such, the boys were settled at the dining room table doing just that. Well, Duck and Red were, at least — Yellow was stationed in the bathroom taking a long relaxing bubble bath.
“I have an idea,” Red piped up, prompting the other to look up from his newspaper. “We should give that device a try.”
Duck raised his eyebrows. “You really want to try that thing the freak gave us? You aren’t afraid it’ll blow us up?”
“I mean, he seemed nice enough,” Red rationalized, in reference to the Time Child. “I don’t think he would trick us into detonating a bomb. We’ve got nothing to lose, really.”
Duck gave a long, thoughtful ‘hmmmmm’ before shrugging. “I suppose so. Well, bring it out then!”
The larger man made his way over to the kitchen drawer that they had stashed it in. He gingerly plucked out the strange device; a long cylindrical object with one mysterious button and an attachment full of golden oil.
“What’d he say again?” Red muttered, turning the object over in his hands as he returned to the table, futilely searching for any instructions printed along the side. He thumbed at the tip of the attachment, where there was a small hole. “Put your mouth here.. and press the button while you inhale?”
“Hmm. Sounds about right,” Duck agreed. “Hand it over!”
He made a swipe at it, but the taller man moved quickly to hold it out of his reach.
“Hey, it was my idea,” Red pouted, “plus you thought it was going to explode. I get to try it first.”
Duck crossed his arms, turning his break up indignantly. “Hmmph! Fine!”
“How long do I press it for?” the red one mumbled, half to himself. He knew Duck wouldn’t have a good answer. Maybe he was supposed to press it until something happened, he figured. Here goes.
He pushed the device past his tangled yarn and clenched it between his teeth. As he pressed the button, a ring of light illuminated around it. He drew in a long steady breath for three seconds, four seconds, five… At eight seconds the light began flashing, and he released the button. He held his breath for one second, two seconds, three..
He spluttered out a cough that slithered up his burning throat, smoke wafting out of his yarn with each wheeze. His lungs painfully contracted as the hacking continued. It felt like his precious organs were about to eject out of his body from the force of the convulsions. Maybe they would.
“Give me that!” Duck demanded, reaching across the table to take possession of the device. It was easily plucked from Red’s now weakened grip. “You did it all wrong!”
As Red continued coughing, Duck proceeded to do the exact same thing he did.
He joined the chorus of coughs, pounding a fist on his chest desperately as strangled wheezes made their way out of his throat.
Red eventually managed to get his breathing under control, but noticed a dizziness surrounding his head. He figured the lack of oxygen was having a temporary effect on his brain. But, even as he gulped down lungfuls of air, the feeling intensified.
“Woah,” he murmured to himself, own voice echoing around his skull, yet sounding so far away at the same time. He took note that Duck also seemed so distant, squawking floating around in the back of his mind. As he went to steady himself on the table, he found the wood elongatated and evaded his hands.
“Oh jeez. Ugh.” His world was spinning, their little kitchen sickeningly topsy-turvy. He felt much too large for his chair. His palms finally found purchase on the edge of their table, holding on for dear life. Duck had fallen silent. Red turned his attention over to him. “How do you feel?”
Duck blankly stared back at him, dumbfounded. His eyes were pink and teary from the attack, and Red could only guess his own peepers were as well.
“He’s poisoned us,” the bird finally croaked out. “I think I’m dead. For real this time.”
“What?” There were at least two ducks swaying in Red’s vision, and he couldn’t tell which one was talking. “No, that can’t be right..”
He stood up, and nearly fell right back down. He carefully made his way over to Duck, who was glued to his seat in a near catatonic state. Red gingerly took him by the hand, pulling him off his chair and to his feet. Duck simply stood there, unwavering gazed fixed on nothing in particular.
“See, you’re fine. Let’s go watch some TV or something.”
Wordlessly, Duck snatched up the device again and took a much briefer hit from it. Red simply watched.
“Actually, I’m feeling quite alive now!” Another hit. Red was astounded. “Now that I think about it, I’m feeling kind of hungry as well. Why don’t we make something?”
Before Red could stop him, Duck marched over to the cabinets and began rifling through them for some cookware. How could he be so.. alert? Red’s mind felt like it was lagging ten times behind his body… or was it the other way around? He couldn’t be sure. Maybe the Time Child really had poisoned them and Duck had built a rapid immunity to it.
“Are— Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Red stammered, words nearly getting lost on the journey from his brain to his mouth. Duck shot him a quizzical glance, not seeing any potential problems with his plan. “Y’know, playing with fire and all while we’re.. inebriated…”
The bird’s confused look morphed into an amused one, and he squawked out a laugh. “Nonsense! I feel fine!”
He was having trouble discerning shapes.
Red observed as the other stared down a square baking pan.
“This..” He was articulating carefully. “This is a sauce pan, right?”
Red considered it. “No.. Sauce handles— Sauce pans have handles, I reckon. And they’re round.”
Duck nodded thoughtfully. “Right.”
They stood there in silence for a moment, intense stares burning holes into each other. It was soon interrupted by a familiar silly voice.
“Hey guys! What are you doing?” Yellow appeared in the doorway, toweling off his fluffy blue head. Red traced his gaze to his own hand, which seemed to pique the other man’s interest. “Ooh! Can I have a turn on the magic wand?”
Red looked down, where the device had materialized in his palm. When had that happened..? He swore Duck was holding it a moment ago. But alas, as he glanced over to his friend, the green one’s hands were full of pans.
“I would like to grill a cheese,” Duck announced to no one in particular. Red nearly jumped as Yellow exclaimed, voice suddenly booming right beside him.
“I would like a cheese grilled too!”
Red wheeled around, and there was the little man at his side. He would really appreciate it if things stopped teleporting.
“Oh yeah, the uhh, magic wand,” he remembered, holding it out for Yellow to take. “Be careful.”
Yellow giddily received it, fingers wrapping securely around the base. He waved it in circles in the air and shouted, “Abracadabra!”
“That’s not how you do it!” Duck abandoned his post at the counter, stomping over to show the other one how it’s done.
“Huh?” Yellow looked the stick up and down, incredulous that it hadn’t worked. “But.. I thought the time man said it was magic?”
Red hadn’t questioned it when Yellow referred to it as such, chalking it up to him being himself. But if the Time Child had mentioned it, he didn’t quite catch it. “Did he?”
“He nicknamed it Magic Wanda!” Yellow insisted. He handed it off to Duck, who happily demonstrated. Red searched through the currently elusive banks of his fuzzy memories and could just barely recall the teacher saying something like that. Something like that… but not quite.
“I don’t think he said that,” he murmured. The pen was passed back to Yellow. “I think he said it was, uh, marijuana?”
An outburst of hacking and coughing was accentuated by Yellow’s fist in his face, waving around and imploring him to take the device. Red took it in one hand, his other gently patting the smaller man on the back.
“You alright?”
Yellow continued to splutter for a bit, nearly keeling over as he tried to catch his breath. Duck was chuckling to himself at the stove, inaudible under the wheezing and the sizzling of butter on a hot pan. The yellow one groaned, releasing one last cough before standing up and wiping his nose.
“I feel tingly,” he said as he wiggled his fingers. Soon, a giggle escaped his lips as he stared down at his hilarious hands.
Red turned the device over in his hands for a moment. Alright.. if Yellow and Duck could handle it, he should be fine, right? He pressed it to his mouth again; learning from his mistake, he did not hold the button as long this time. An easy three seconds. But still, as he held his breath, he could feel a cough tickling his throat and threatening to burst out. He choked a bit, fumbling on a mix of air and his spit before hurriedly exhaling. He passed it off to Yellow, who eagerly took another hit before returning it.
“I think I’m getting the hang of this,” Red mused through exhales of smoke.
“You two better not be hogging it!” Duck barked from his cooking station. “Save some for me!”
Red scoffed as his friend’s words echoed around the room and bounced off the walls. He handed it to Yellow again after a close inspection of the tank; they hadn’t depleted the oil at all yet. “There’s plenty in here.”
“Yeah!” Yellow giggled. “Plenty for meee, hehe..”
The room was a bit too wobbly for Red’s liking. “I think I need to sit down,” he murmured, retreating back to his seat at the kitchen table. Yellow joined him, hopping up on his chair and kicking his feet.
Before long, a plate stacked with three grilled cheeses was presented to them. Yellow eagerly took one and immediately began chowing down. However, as Red went to grab one, his hand was swatted away by Duck.
“Those are mine!” he scolded.
“Wha— So I can’t have any?”
Duck gawked at him. “You didn’t ask!”
Red gawked right back. “Well, I thought it was sort of an implied thing, y’know..? Like you were making one for each of us.”
“Well, I never said I was! It’s your fault for assuming!” he huffed. “But whatever. Fine. Take one.”
He shoved the plate towards the larger man, who awkwardly picked up a sandwich.
“…Thanks.”
He tentatively swept his yarn to the side, turning away from his friends to take a bite. The bread crunched between his teeth, the warm gooey cheese melting on his tongue. The flavors were, needless to say, immaculate. But he needed to say it.
“This is amazing,” he mumbled through a full mouth.
“Yeah!” Yellow agreed with a cheesy grin. He had already finished his. “I was amazed.”
“You have crumbs in your hair,” Duck observed, unimpressed.
He reached over and plucked pieces of bread from the red string. Red, with the slowest reaction time on the planet, batted his hand away after the fact.
“Hey,” he pouted, “maybe I was saving them for later.”
“Well, now you’re not!”
Stomach full of sandwich and head full of fuzzies, Red sank into his chair as soon as he sat down. The world was very soft and warm.
“What’s on TV?” he murmured, fascinating about his favorite shows. He could practically envision them playing on the blank television.
Duck stood at the center of the living room, one hand on his hip, the other grasping the remote. “Well, let’s find out.”
Click.
The familiar voices of a man and dog came to life. Duck beamed. Just what he wanted. “Perfect!”
Yellow groaned. “Grolton and Hovris? Let’s watch something else, this show’s too confusing.”
“Maybe for you,” the green one grumbled, punctuated with an eye roll. Click. The channel flicked to a nature documentary of some sort, displaying a line of ants marching across a log.
Red sat up in his chair, instantly intrigued. “Woah. Look at them go.”
The colony spiraled around the wood in a mesmerizing dance. Some were carrying leaves, others bits of food, specks of color popping among the black dots.
“Wow!” Yellow echoed. “Which one’s the queen?”
Red squinted at the TV screen, trying to discern if one of the tiny creatures looked different from the others. “I don’t think she’s with them,” he guessed. “I think she stays at home, right? And they bring things to her.”
“Wow,” Yellow repeated, eyes glued to the screen. “Amazing. They work hard!”
Duck plopped down on his chair with his arms crossed. He huffed. “They’re not that impressive..”
Red chuckled at his housemate’s dismissive attitude. “Yeah? When’s the last time you lifted something ten times your body weight?”
“Last week!” the bird squawked. He gestured to Yellow. “Remember those groceries? That one’s had to weigh at least a hundred pounds!”
“So..” Red calculated, gears grinding in his head as he did the math. It was simple, really—but in his state of mind it felt like algebra. “That’d put you at ten pounds, yeah? I think you’re a bit heavier than that.”
“Shut up!” Duck snapped. “Says the heaviest one!”
“Shhhh!” Yellow hushed. “I’m trying to listen to the ants!”
“They’re.. not saying anything,” Red mumbled under his breath, as to not further upset his housemate. Also, so he could tune in to the ants to be sure they weren’t talking. They were not.
“These ants are so boring,” Duck complained, “if I wanted to see pathetic creatures crawl around with no purpose, I would just watch you two.”
“They do have a purpose!” Yellow roared, and without warning, leapt onto his housemate. “Take it back!” Red watched the punches fly for a moment before his brain processed that he should intervene.
“Hey!” he barked, cries muffled by the sounds of his housemate’s violence. He grabbed them both by the backs of their shirts, pulling them apart with ease.
“Let me at him!” Yellow snarled, still making futile grabs at their green roommate.
“No,” Red scolded, holding them firmly in place at his sides. “You two are going to sit here like good boys and enjoy the show.”
The bird writhed and squawked in his grasp. “Like hell I am! Unhand me, beast!”
His grip tightened. “I will do no such thing.”
Surprisingly, there was no more protest from Yellow. He was limp in Red’s arms, behaving like a good boy, in fact. His drooping eyes were glued to the screen, threatening to close and send him off to dreamland.
“They’re very relaxing,” he murmured, captivated by the little insects dancing across his vision. Duck had stopped writhing now, apparently hypnotized as well. Red wasn’t safe from the allure either; he found himself at peace watching the colony perform their routine. It was relaxing. Comforting, even. There was a certain familiarity with the way they maneuvered, a sense of belonging…
“Hmph,” Duck vocalized, but that was as positive as he would be about the ants. Soon, his silence devolved into soft snores. A quick glance at Yellow told the larger man that both his housemates were sound asleep.
“Huh.” He settled back in his chair to get comfy, arms still secure around his friends. “Guess that’s my cue.”
Red rested his head against the plush chair, feeling it conform to and cradle his skull. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming already; the world surrounding him was impossibly warm and fuzzy. It could have been the two creatures piled on him. Or, it could’ve been the drugs. It was a toss-up at this point. And at this point, he was ready to clock out. His eyelids weighed the most they ever had in his entire life, fluttering with the extreme effort to stay open. But, not all battles can be won, and he was soon defeated by the power of sleep. Maybe next time!