And lo, two shadowy figures were crouched in the deepest recesses of the building, huddled before a great pillar; one of many. One figure concentrated on some object at the base of the pillar, while the other glanced from side to side, watching for any movement.
"Don't cross the wires," the watcher whispered to the other figure on the dirt floor.
"Alright."
"Be careful!"
"I will."
"You're going to cross the wires."
"No I won't."
"You crossed the wires!"
A small red light lit up on the black box on the floor, and was accompanied by a faint beep. The figure in front of the box shrieked a "Yeee!" and fled off into the shadows. The remaining figure hurled himself away from the pillar, covering its head as it landed.
The box erupted in a rather unimpressive puff of fire and smoke. The blast left a slight scorch mark on the pillar, but accomplished little else. A moment later the room was illuminated by a string of pale lights which dangled from the ceiling. A new shadow then fell across the room, landing on top of the figure lying there. The figure, noticing its lack of death, raised its head to look around.
"Janitor Hank!"
"Rico! Why are you so stupid?"
The boy climbed to his feet, and dusted off his long, flowing cloak. "Am I? Or am I brilliant beyond your comprehension? Not many would think to blow out this support pillar."
"Uh huh. Alright. First of all, this pillar is just there to look pretty. Second, that little pop wouldn't've scared a rabbit. Third, I'm getting pretty sick of cleaning up after you. And yes, stupid. Accept it. Now take your junk and stay out of the basement!" He emphasized his point by jabbing at the pillar with his mop. He scrubbed at the residue while Rico collected himself and a few choice pieces of shrapnel, then scurried off to the stairs from whence he came.
At the top of the stairs he met the other figure. Timmy had also realized his lack of death, and so had instead committed himself to catching his breath after his twenty meter sprint.
"That was close," he panted.
"That was worse than close; it was stupid. Now I'm going to bed."
"But it's nine in the morning!"
"Oh. Well in that case, I'm going to bed," and with that he dashed by the younger boy and disappeared down the hallway.
It was some while later when he reached his own room. He closed the door behind him and stumbled toward his bed, trying not to trip over the ubiquitous piles of folded and unfolded papers, dirty and clean laundry, and three and a half inch floppy diskettes. When he was close enough, he hurled himself onto the mattress and rolled into position. After staring at the ceiling for a little while he sighed. Maybe Hank was right; he didn't listen to enough janitors. The thought drifted through his mind as he fell asleep.
Rico mopped a path through the infinite while his bucket floated silently behind him. The diligent swabbing left in its wake large streaks of white in the otherwise sprawling blackness. "Stubborn void stains," Rico mumbled. Just then, a single geometric point expanded into a scary Janitor Hank face that looked down and laughed at Rico. He saw several gold fillings among the janitor's teeth that he never knew existed. The disembodied face then spoke; its lips moved out of sync with the words, which rang out with a resemblance to a thousand William Clintons, speaking backwards into a tape recorder and then played backwards again.
"Can you understand the glory? Let me help you." And thus, two automobile-sized, mop-wielding fists appeared to either side of Rico. The mops, being of standard size, looked comically small in the fists, but were more than large enough to be effective as they were swung back and forth, slapping Rico about the face and neck. Two simultaneous overhand swings broke the mop handles off on Rico's shoulders, and sent him crashing through to another plane of reality. "Should've gone into politics."
Rico stood at a podium before the masses in a grand hall. A generic announcer voice called out through the speakers, "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America." There was silence then, broken only by patches of slow clapping and coughs. Rico cleared his throat and began his speech.
"Thank you." He looked out across the crowd. "Looks like we have a diverse audience tonight: the associated press, the Rico fan club, the Anti-Rico fan club, and Mrs. Henry's first grade class. Okay...let's go straight to the questions. Yes, you sir."
"Mister President, some of your critics would say that your decision to bomb all of Europe without provocation or purpose was, and I quote, a 'grotesquely bad and/or stupid decision of catastrophic proportions.' How would you respond?"
"I wouldn't. Next! Let's hear from the little girl in pink with the eerily large, dilated eyes."
"Hello sir. My name is Suzie, and I have a question."
"Suzie? I don't care. Next! Does the Anti-Rico club have something to say?"
"We think--"
"That's nice for a change. Now shut up!" Rico cleared his throat again. "I think that takes care of everything."
The Five Stages of Acceptance
Denial
"Checkmate."
"This is not checkmate."
"Yes it is. Your king is hopelessly cornered."
"I'll just move him."
"You can't. That's what makes it checkmate."
"Then I'll move something else."
"He's about to get lynched by three soldiers; no single move can save him now. And you can't just move something else when the king is in check, let alone after the game is already over."
"...This is not checkmate."
Anger
Judy set the last piece of glassware upon the shelf, then took a step back to admire the display. "Perfect," she smiled. Yet then a strange, distant sound drew her attention to the front window. She squinted her eyes and stared outside. Some distance away, over the top of a hill, there came dark figure. As it drew closer, it became quite obvious that it was a knight in black, glistening armor, running full tilt toward the store and screaming all the while.
As he neared the building, he reached behind his back and proceeded to brandish a rather large battle axe. He hurled himself through the front window, and flew in slow motion through a sparkling shower of glass shards. He brought the axe down as he landed, and sliced neatly through every shelf of the display case, sending the fragile wares crashing to the cold, uncaring floor below. Another swing took a leg out from under a table, and another chopped through some fine china in midair. Still screaming wildly, he stomped on the fragments around his feet, then burst back outside through the front door. He faded away into the distance, and there was silence.
Depression
"Would you like some juice, dear?"
"Why bother? We're all just going to die someday anyway."
"So...no juice then?"
"...Just a little."
Bargaining
"I'll give you five bucks for that thermonuclear device."
"Five million."
"Ten."
"Three million."
"Fifteen."
"One million."
"Seventeen."
"Half a million."
"Twenty."
"Deal."
Acceptance
"Want a 'hurts donut'?"
"Sure."
Rico sat bolt upright in bed. "Gah! What the hell was that?" He rubbed his eyes. "A dream? This 'sleeping' nonsense must end!" He clenched a fist before him, as if to crush the offending somnolence.
Approximately twenty hours later, Rico stomped more heavily than usual into homeroom, being weighted down with more than half a dozen two-liter bottles of variously colored liquids. Each had a tube feeding into it, the other end of which dangled at some angle or another in front of Rico's face. Scary purple semicircles hung below his eyes. He drew some strange looks and some sad shaking of heads as he made his way to the back of the class to take his seat next to Timmy.
The puny boy leaned over. "Rico, what is all that?" he whispered.
"Soft drinks. Lots of them. I can't afford to dream anymore; it puts bad thoughts in my head. I could end up joining the student government, or worse. Now," he suddenly yelled out, kicked back, and rested his feet on the desk. "Excuse me while I...kiss the sky," as he sipped from all the tubes at once.
"But people go crazy if they don't sleep."
"Shh. It's sky time. And anyway, the only conceivable flaw with this plan is that it fills my bladder to an ungodly level. Even that wouldn't be a problem if random bathrooms in this school weren't locked."
A shriek of dismay pierced the air from out in the hall. A girl rushed into the room, dancing from foot to foot, shaking her hands, and muttering "ew" to herself repeatedly. "Someone peed in the sink in the girls' bathroom!" she explained with a shudder.
"Hm. I was wondering why the urinals were so high up from the floor." The room filled with the sound of two dozen bodies turning to look at a single point. "What? Don't judge me; I have enough for all of you!" He sipped some more, swallowing loudly.
"Ricooo," Timmy hissed. "You can't stay awake forever, even with those drinks."
"You might be right. I'll have to switch to something stronger."
By Wednesday Rico had switched to Jolt brand cola, with twice the sugar and twice the caffeine of the standard, mortals' carbonated beverage. Too intense to be bottled in anything larger than a twenty ounce container, the drink had been collected by Rico in such units, then combined in two-liter bottles. By the end of the day Rico had developed a nervous twitch and an unhealthy amount of gas, of which the former could perhaps be attributed to sleep deprivation. The latter, though, was unmistakably the work of the Jolt. Such was the rationale, mayhap, behind the gradual disappearance of the drink from local gas station and convenience store shelves.
There was also the question of how Rico could afford to keep such a supply without having any source of income. "By taking change from the school fountain," was his response. When confronted with the fact that there was no school fountain, he replied that maybe he had taken it from the vending machines instead; whichever.
On Thursday the downward spiral was complete. Rico was hooked on coffee, and an eerie look had come over his increasingly bloodshot eyes. He huddled in the corner stall of the bathroom, clutching his thermos of Colombian nectar jealously to his chest. Timmy peered under the door at him.
"Are you alright in there?"
"No. I'm great."
"Great?"
"Nay. Good beyond good; so good that it rips your face off and shows it to you before you die, as you lie bleeding and twitching on the floor in a growing puddle of your own vomit and excrement; so utterly perfect that it kicks Grover Cleveland's ass on two non-consecutive terms."
"...Rico, I...I think I should hold on to that thermos for a while."
"No! It's fine."
"It's not fine. First it was the gateway soft drinks, then it was Jolt, then the cola 'beer helmet', and now this. You're outta control, man."
"Hey! I can stop anytime I want!"
"Don't you know what that stuff does to you? It goes right through the tubes like greased lightning."
"I can handle it, man."
"Alright, then I'm gonna have to cut you off," and with that, the tiny boy darted under the door, ripped the thermos away, and tore off out the door and down the hallway. Rico, of course, gave chase, and almost immediately began catching up with Timmy, who had once held the title of slowest boy in the school for thirteen consecutive months, not including summer break.
With an unearthly growl, Rico prepared to pounce. Timmy, sensing his impending doom, had but one option; he threw himself at the floor, rolled away, and curled up in a fetal position. Rico took the opportunity and leapt at his prey. He pulled at the thermos, but was surprised at the resistance. He struggled and twisted, and was rewarded with the cap pulling off, and the contents of the thermos emptying all over the floor. Timmy peered out from his ball of self. Rico appeared to be considering the benefits of drinking from the floor.
"Eh, forget it. I gotta go."
"Go where?"
"No, I gotta go." He walked rather oddly towards a nearby bathroom door. He held out an arm to open it, but was met with an all-too-familiar thud. Locked. He banged on the door a few times. "No!" He looked from side to side in desperation. Then he saw it. The drinking fountain. "Close enough."
"Rico...you wouldn't."
"Don't interfere, boy! There are strange powers at work here..."
Mayhaps it was the sleep deprivation, caffeine exposure, natural dysfunction or all three, but he did. As if by divine sadism, the dismissal bell rang just as he finished. Scores of students flooded out into the hallway, yet one stood out above the others; by at least eighteen inches. He strode confidently through the crowd, hands on his hips, to the fountain. He threw his head back and laughed in a tremendous, Herculean voice.
"Ahahaha! What a fine day for a cold drink." He bent, down, way down, and pressed the button on the fountain. He drank deeply, way deeply. He then promptly stumbled back and spit a fine mist into the air. "What manner of trickery is this?!" he roared. He whirled around, trying to look in all directions at once. His eyes came to rest on an odd-looking, cloak-wearing boy who appeared to be stifling laughter.
The beast reached out one huge hand and plucked the boy up by the head. Using his other hand he carved the word 'guilt' into the boy's forehead.
"I had to go," Rico explained.
"Then you may go. To hell." He clenched his free hand into a fist, and quickly rammed Rico's face into it.
Timmy floated up beside the two. He had finally emerged from his Timmy-cocoon, and now had beautiful pastel, cinnamon-flavored butterfly wings. "Toldja so," he chirped before flying away.
Rico sat bolt upright in his chair. "Gah! What the hell was that?"
"That," came the stern voice of the president from across the table, "was a proposal to reduce asbestos in the building. We all know how you feel about asbestos, but you could try to be a little more constructive at these meetings, maybe contribute once in a while. The well-being of the student body just may depend on it."
Rico rubbed some of the sleep from his eyes. "I submitted that script for the next school play just the other day."
"You mean Reservoir Dogs?"
"Yes!"
"The school has a very limited budget. We can't-"
"Look, I'll supply all of the props."
"Everything. All the fake weapons and everything?"
"...Yes, of course. Fake."
"Alright, fair enough."