The Chosen One - Page 3

The janitor was grateful that his daughter was in school that day because if she was at home, there was a good chance her mom might have hurt her. So anyway, that day, he finished the vacuuming in 2 hours. It usually took him 3 and half, so he got home very early. They sat at the dinner table making ornaments and listening to the radio. The janitor bought some hooks on the way home, but they soon ran out, and the daughter was looking for something to use to hang the paper angel she'd just made. He felt in his pocket, and there was the Chosen One. He pulled it out, and bent it so that it'd make a hook. They set up the tree the next day and decorated it.

About a week after Christmas, the daughter took the tree down herself as a favor to her father, who had to work late. She wasn't very careful, and the Chosen One remained on the tree. What happened was the paper angel it was holding up fell off, and the daughter didn't notice the paper clip that was still on the tree. She lugged it to the corner where the garbage man picked it up on the next Monday.

The Chosen One fell off the tree in the garbage truck. It slipped through the other trees and the bags and old diapers and lay on the floor of the back. It was only three weeks later when the guy at the dump that cleans the trucks found it that it moved from that smelly old truck. The guy turned the nozzle to make the spray even stronger, and the Chosen One shot off the truck into a pile of dog dung. The dump kept a dog as a mascot, sort of like fire stations do sometimes. Or rather, the dog hung around there because he was so smart he managed to avoid the pound people. Or rather, the pound people didn't really care about a stupid dump dog. Either way, the Chosen One was stuck lying in his poop. It didn't smell too lovely, but that's ok because it wasn't like paperclips have the ability to smell anyway.

It was winter at this time. The next spring, an acorn that had fallen on the soft nutritious area where the dog feces lay began to grow. After a couple years, it had grown into a very respectable sapling. The Chosen One became entangled in the tree's roots, and for the next twenty years remained there. Then, the tree got sick, probably from loneliness. There weren't any other trees near there because, you know, it was a dump after all. The head garbage man decided to cut down the tree, and then it was thrown into the dump. The leaf end of it was buried in the other garbage, and the root end was in the air. The Chosen One hung gleaming and tempting on the gnarled roots of the dead oak. A bird plucked the paper clip from its little prison and took it with her to her nest. She pooped on it, and her magical poop made it vanish...

Into oblivion.