“Where’d he go?” Asked Wilder after gathering himself from the tumultive transport.
“Unsure.” Replied Sprocket. “But we’ve got to get him out of here.”
“Where’d we go?”
“We’re still in Tony’s Pizza. This is the storage room.”
“The storage room? How come there’s cows in here?”
“They slaughter them freshly every morning. That way the meat is always tender.”
“I knew that there was something peculiar about their pizza.”
“The best of the best, that’s what they are.” Sprocket replied.
“So you know Tony?”
“Oh yes; I met him when he was a child.”
Wilder began to ask for clarification, but then decided against it. If one asked Sprocket to
explain a mystery, he would respond with a parable or an ancient proverb which was ten times as confusing.
“He told me that his dream was to build a successful chain of quality pizza restaurants that delivered as soon as the food was ordered, but in which the food was still baked fresh. I naturally explained to him the process of interdimensional hopping and time travel, and the rest is history! Tony began his chain of restaurants, and I got free pizza for life.”
“Most excellent.” Wilder replied in admiration of his friend’s pizza grant. “So are we above
the pizzeria right now?”
“Kind of. We’re in the next dimension up from where the pizzeria was. Tony actually
stores all of the products in the same ‘space’ as where the pizzeria is, but it’s in another dimension, so it’s not visible.”
“I’m confused.”
“Read Edwin Abbott.”
“I don’t know how to read.”
“Try it in French, then. It’s much more exciting.”
“But I don’t know how to read Fre-”
“Hush!” Sprocket interrupted. “I think I hear something.”
Wilder hushed, and listened attentively. He didn’t hear a thing.
“I don’t hear a thing.” He whispered.
“Exactly! The hobgoblin has escaped through a wormhole which leads to a town
inhabited entirely by mimes! Quick! Let’s away!”
Sprocket ran down a corridor like a madman chasing the lack of sound, and Wilder followed obediently. The things that Sprocket said often confused him mightily, but he appreciated his companion’s utter madness. Sprocket would often correct him, saying that he was eccentric, not mad, but Wilder could never remember which was which, and Sprocket always encouraged him, saying that he had always aspired to one day be absolutely mad as a hatter, which made Wilder feel much better. Sprocket slipped underneath a fridge, and Wilder made like a lemming and slid after him.
They had transported again, and were indeed surrounded by screaming mutes.
“Calm down and tell me where the beastie went!” Sprocket was yelling. The commotion ceased, and the mutes glared at them. “Oh...right then. Motion to me where the beastie went!” The motion was unneeded, however, as a great invisible building off in the distance toppled, making a glorious thunder of silence.
“Let’s away! Shouted Sprocket, and he and his friend sprinted off to investigate.
They had arrived at the ruins of the great invisible castle, and began surveying the ground.
“Look under all this rubble and see if you can find the Hobgoblin!” Sprocket said hurriedly, and began throwing shards of invisible brick all about.
“Sprocket?” Wilder coughed. “Why do we have to look under the pieces of rubble if they’re invisible pieces of rubble?”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Wilder stood silent for a moment, and was about to respond that, why, yes, he did have a better idea when Sprocket resumed.
“No matter! I’ve found the creature!”
Not three yards away the Hobgoblin lay, his chest pressured by an invisible plank.
“Quickly! Get this beam off of him!” Sprocket yelled. After finding the edges of the board (a rather convoluted process), he and Wilder freed the beast, which sat there, tired.
“Why isn’t it moving, Sprocket?” Wilder asked, confused.
“It was born out of a flash of anger,” Sprocket replied. “His life span was longer than most.”
“Thank goodness it wasn’t long!”
“Yes. Even when short-lived, a shock of unrestrained wrath can create a great mess of things. Even when you can’t see the effects, they’re still massive.”
“Like this big old invisible building?”
“Exactly.”
The two boys sat looking at the dead and dying Hobgoblin for a minute.
“Why Sprocket, that was almost poetic.” Wilder muttered without looking up.
