Poke a frog with a stick, watch him dance. We are, each of us, born with everything we need, and we spend the better part of our lives searching for what we want, and when we get old, we want to lose it all before we die. Funny, we can say whatever we want in our heads but it isn’t set in stone until it’s said out loud. Punching stone hurts like a motherfucker.

Knuckles is a firm believer in the philosophy that you can figure out any individual by watching them walk onto a bus and sit down. Which side they sit on, how they avoid close contact with the other passengers, horizontal or vertical seating, back or front, etc. etc. He had a guy’s sexuality lined out like cocaine before I rolled a 20 and punched his lights out. Fuck him for thinking of the idea first.

I had a bad experience on a bus once and I guess that’s why I had to drag his dick ass home. Children are immune to guilt and thus can look you straight in the eyes without flinching. Why I was taking the bus, I don’t know.

The tape is in crumbs on the scattered floor. Snow is falling on the TV. I feel like I’m just an outlet for writer’s block but whatever, it’s time to go to work.

I carpool with Knuckles now. He picks me up. “Your car is so stupid, echidna.”

“Wait until we get to it, at least.”

He sets me down in the passenger seat, crawls over me to get on his side, and starts the car. “Sounds like a bird drowning in hair gel.”

“You would know, spikes.”

“Like hell.” I think we’re still looking for the gem, the Mysterious Moon Ruby. And I still have to kill Robotnik’s seven stupid robots.

“You watch the video?”

“Um… no. Okay, so I did. So what? I hate obscure cinema. You want to say something, you come out and say it. I ask you if you want a drink, you say, the sky is purple and bleeding, what shit is that? It’s like marriage; I want something I can ignore.”

Knuckles grins as wide as a pyramid. “Such a cranky bastard. I am going to say something stupid now!”

“Don’t you dare.”

“I’m agonna!”

“Don’t do it!”

He takes a deep breath. “I’m the second robot… nah, I’m playin. I wouldn’t do that. I would but not while you’re expecting it.”

“… You’re an idiot.”

“Hey, if I am then you are too.”

“How does that make sense in a world with gravity?”

“You recognized it, didn’t you?”

“I hate you.” The first robot sure was a burly fucker. Couldn’t see past his own fat cells, that guy. Vision sucked into a black hole. Acne like a voodoo curse or scratching face after ass. Vocabulary strikes again? “What do you want the answer at the end of your life to be?”

“I want to know why shit can’t handle our insides. Hey, look, Robotosized Mobians!”

“Ugh! Those fuckers! I hate them!”

“Shit yeah right, I do too! Look at em, looking all smug and silver skinned. Fuck em. Fuck em fuck em fuck em, clanking up and down the sidewalk, disturbing the peace-”

“Stealing our jobs-”

“Changing the weather-”

“Resurrecting zombies-”

“Eating our babies-”

“Bein all bad at grammar-”

“Spitting-”

“Burning food left and right-”

“Swearing in church-”

“Exercising poor hygiene-”

“Exercising poor hyenas-”

“They think they can get a handout just because they had skin once.”

“Pfft, nope.”

“No fucking way!”

“Not gonna happen.”

“Not on my watch.”

“Not on my face.”

“Not anywhere on me, for that matter!”

“They can’t have my face.”

“But oh they want it.”

“Oh how they want it.”

“They want it!”

“That’s it, I’m running them over.”

“Yeah! Wait, come again?”

The car hops the sidewalk and barrels right into two of them, breaking them like milk bottles. I can see the surprised expression on one before the wind tears it from the windshield in a piñata explosion of oil and grease. We bounce over two priests, a nun, and a Jew walking into a bar, and then into the bar, then the pub, the winery, the distillery, the church, and then a burlesque house and a whore house. We probably kill people and our car is covered in fur stuck to red glue, or blood, as I like to call it. Knuckles finally remembers the breaks but instead presses harder on the accelerator. A brick wall is nice enough to slow us down.

I wake up wearing concrete like a suit, coughing to beat the band. Knuckles is a few feet away in a mirrored predicament and the car is a firecracker behind us.

Knuckles stands to his feet, wobbling like a caricature. He has a severed foot in his hand. “Yours?”

Not mine. The foot is a plant, sprouting wires. Below us the victim, number two of Robotnik’s robots.

I’m excited, in spite of context.

“Yes! Way to go, Knuckles! Winning without even trying. Go team go, right?” He smiles, still dazed. He looks at me with an odd expression.

“Nice coat, by the way.”

Knuckles’ face suddenly caves in on itself. His hands try in vain to salvage the eyes but don’t make it that far. His legs manage to commit suicide and homicide, stabbing at every angle. He shits out his heart. His ribcage opens like a mouth and swallows the body whole, leaving no mess behind. The metal foot falls to the ground. His eternal scream rings in my ears and dogs bark.

“… Dammit.”