Darkside55
The Freeman
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
- Messages
- 12,083
- Reaction score
- 93
I don't know how it got there. I don't know why it's there. I can't even begin to tell you what it looks like on the other side, or who--or what--inhabits it, but they're obviously sentient and have a notion of fair trade, because early Sunday morning, just past midnight, my friend and I bartered with them.
A bit of preface: my friends and I are huge toy collectors. What income doesn't go to bills mainly goes toward expanding our collections, collections that stretch across bookcases, shelves, tables and computer desks. We're always going on "toy runs," hunting for the latest and greatest pieces of plastic to proudly display, like marks of status amongst fellow collectors. (Though I should mention that we take our stuff out of their boxes and play with them, then pose them on the shelf. That'd give most collectors aneurysms, but any true toy fan'd tell you that toys are no good unless you take 'em out and play with them)
Now, if you want to shop for awesome toys, you hit up Chinatown and Japantown in San Francisco, which is exactly what my two friends and I did Saturday. They drive down from Central California, about an hour-and-a-half away to come down to the Bay Area and spend their paychecks.
We amassed an impressive haul on Saturday, and as the day wound to a close my friends convinced me to drive up with them to Central and spend the night.
Back at my friend's house we opened our packages, took out our newly acquired figures and talked about how cool they were, their detail, checked their articulation, etc. During our conversation I absentmindedly bent down the wrist of one of my figures too far, and the hand popped off.
Not to worry, it's supposed to do that. Interchangeable hands.
Except the hand dropped, hit my shoe and bounced under my friend's bed.
Now, we have a little joke that certain areas of my friend's room are a 'dead zone'; you drop something and it's gone, even if you saw where it fell. It's happened before; there's an area behind his door that seems to love scarfing up missiles in particular. But thankfully it didn't fall that way, and only went under the bed. "Good thing," I said, "I wouldn't want to lose that hand like we lost those Iron Man missiles." We all laughed.
Now at this point, some other friends dropped by, and they decided to go out for a bit, which worked out fine because it meant me and my friend whose house it is could move the bed and not worry about directing people to move around while we searched. (Having that many toy-filled bookcases in your room means there's not a lot of space to move around)
They exited and we began our search. "Let's move the bed," he says.
He tried lifting it at first, but as it weighs a few hundred pounds he could only keep it up for so long. (I should mention that this bed has a large wooden frame that doesn't rise off the ground, with several shelves built into the bottom) I felt around for it when he lifted, but no dice. That extra little boost the hand must've gotten from ricocheting off my shoe must've put it further underneath than we'd thought.
Next we tried pulling out the shelves, getting deep under there and excavating all the crap that'd piled under his bed that he hadn't cleaned in who knows how long. Receipts, empty water and soda bottles, that sort of thing. We stuck a lamp close to the bed and started pulling stuff out, hoping that with everything removed we'd be able to locate my figure's missing hand, and also hoping that by pulling things out and setting them aside that we wouldn't be pushing the hand deeper or further back toward the wall.
At first it was like I said: bottles, receipts, that sort of thing. My friend pulled out a square of paper that had some weird writing on it that didn't look like any language we'd ever seen, scribbled in pencil, and we laughed about it saying, "What the fuck is this?"
Next we pulled out two spoons. "Why do you have spoons under here?" I asked, thinking my friend REALLY needed to clean his room. I didn't want to say anything but as a particularly clean guy, it bothered me that he could accumulate all this junk under his bed. And one of these spoons was messed up; it looked like the thing had been gnawed on. Chunks of metal were missing off this thing.
"I don't know," he said. "I seriously don't know where that spoon came from. I don't even OWN those kinds of spoons." And it was true: the two spoons had markedly different handle engravings from each other, and neither had a matching set in his kitchen. Not easily perturbed we shrugged it off and set the spoons aside.
"Oh!" he said suddenly, reaching under the bed. "I think...I think I got it." He extracted a tiny figure's hand, but it isn't from my figure. "Well, I don't know what it goes to. I've never seen that hand." We placed it on top of the shelf we moved and went back to searching.
Time passes. No luck. We've got the lamp under there, we're feeling around, can't find it, can't see it, and I am getting seriously pissed. Brand new figure that I'd been searching for, that cost me a pretty penny, right out of the box and there goes its hand.
I told my friend to look inside the shelf, that it might've bounced in there. He doesn't think it possible, but he looks anyway. Meantime, I'm sitting next to him checking this little area of the bedframe that can be used to hold stuff. It's a long rectangle with barred slats that runs along the side of the bed. There are little bits of things here: a piece off some toy robot, some more little papers, but mostly just lint. I'm pushing the lint around, removing the papers to make sure nothing's hiding under them. There's a pen that was sitting in the little area; I use the pen to probe the sides where I can't see or reach, making sure to sweep it across very tightly, making sure I cover every inch. If the hand was there, I would've pushed it out into the open.
It wasn't there.
"God damn it! I can't lose that ****ing hand!"
"Do you really need it?"
"YES."
"Can you take one from another figure?"
"No."
"Well, sorry bro, it's not here. We just looked everywhere it could've been and didn't see it."
"How the hell could it have disappeared? Stupid fucking dead zone. It's like a portal underneath your bed." Despite being upset, we had a good laugh at that.
We started to clean up, placing things back where they were with the exception of the garbage, which I insisted needed to be thrown away. We put the shelf back into place, discarded the trash, and threw the little hand we'd found back under the bed. Let the bed dimension have it, we joked.
"Hey!" he says suddenly. "Is that it?" He points to the little cubby area. There, in view between the tiny wooden bars, is my figure's hand.
"What the hell?" I say, indignant. "I looked there. I moved everything out. I ran the pen across that area; you SAW me. You were right here." I pulled the hand out, set it down on top of the bed. I'm relieved to have it back, but what the hell just happened?
"What else was in there?" he exclaims. There was that piece of a robot that I mentioned, and the rest was pretty much lint. Except on closer inspection, there was a missile sitting in there. A missile that was definitely not there before, a missile that would've been seen, would've been felt by the pen and wasn't likely to be confused with anything else, nor hidden under anything else. A flame missile, from an Iron Man toy. The very same missile we'd joked about.
I wouldn't say we felt tense, or scared, but we certainly were intrigued and a little bit baffled. We'd left the TV on whilst searching, and as we were tuned in to Adult Swim, Fullmetal Alchemist's intro was coming on with its talk of "equivalent exchange."
"We threw the hand in there, got back a hand. Maybe whoever's on the other side of the bed dimension made a switch."
Our next course of action was clear.
"Let's throw more stuff in there!" We threw back the weird spoons, the robot piece, some other things I can't recall. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted sincerely,
"THANK YOU BED DIMENSION!"
Nothing more appeared in that little cubby, but when we both stood up, there was a toy batarang sitting in my figure's box that I have no idea how it got there. Seeing as how me and my friend were the only two there at the time, I can only assume it was "exchanged" for one of the other things we put back and placed there without us seeing. Thinking about it now I'm not even sure why they would give back a batarang; likely it was something that fell down there before and they thought that a robotic jetpack was a good trade.
We exchanged no more things that night, but thanked the bed dimension and hoped that they would enjoy the spoons and the robot piece.
Now, as for the inhabitants of the dimension behind his door that swallows up missiles, we don't think we'll get anything back from them. We have theorized that, whatever dimension they are from, they are fighting an enemy whose only weakness is tiny plastic projectiles, and they will not forfeit their ammunition.
A bit of preface: my friends and I are huge toy collectors. What income doesn't go to bills mainly goes toward expanding our collections, collections that stretch across bookcases, shelves, tables and computer desks. We're always going on "toy runs," hunting for the latest and greatest pieces of plastic to proudly display, like marks of status amongst fellow collectors. (Though I should mention that we take our stuff out of their boxes and play with them, then pose them on the shelf. That'd give most collectors aneurysms, but any true toy fan'd tell you that toys are no good unless you take 'em out and play with them)
Now, if you want to shop for awesome toys, you hit up Chinatown and Japantown in San Francisco, which is exactly what my two friends and I did Saturday. They drive down from Central California, about an hour-and-a-half away to come down to the Bay Area and spend their paychecks.
We amassed an impressive haul on Saturday, and as the day wound to a close my friends convinced me to drive up with them to Central and spend the night.
Back at my friend's house we opened our packages, took out our newly acquired figures and talked about how cool they were, their detail, checked their articulation, etc. During our conversation I absentmindedly bent down the wrist of one of my figures too far, and the hand popped off.
Not to worry, it's supposed to do that. Interchangeable hands.
Except the hand dropped, hit my shoe and bounced under my friend's bed.
Now, we have a little joke that certain areas of my friend's room are a 'dead zone'; you drop something and it's gone, even if you saw where it fell. It's happened before; there's an area behind his door that seems to love scarfing up missiles in particular. But thankfully it didn't fall that way, and only went under the bed. "Good thing," I said, "I wouldn't want to lose that hand like we lost those Iron Man missiles." We all laughed.
Now at this point, some other friends dropped by, and they decided to go out for a bit, which worked out fine because it meant me and my friend whose house it is could move the bed and not worry about directing people to move around while we searched. (Having that many toy-filled bookcases in your room means there's not a lot of space to move around)
They exited and we began our search. "Let's move the bed," he says.
He tried lifting it at first, but as it weighs a few hundred pounds he could only keep it up for so long. (I should mention that this bed has a large wooden frame that doesn't rise off the ground, with several shelves built into the bottom) I felt around for it when he lifted, but no dice. That extra little boost the hand must've gotten from ricocheting off my shoe must've put it further underneath than we'd thought.
Next we tried pulling out the shelves, getting deep under there and excavating all the crap that'd piled under his bed that he hadn't cleaned in who knows how long. Receipts, empty water and soda bottles, that sort of thing. We stuck a lamp close to the bed and started pulling stuff out, hoping that with everything removed we'd be able to locate my figure's missing hand, and also hoping that by pulling things out and setting them aside that we wouldn't be pushing the hand deeper or further back toward the wall.
At first it was like I said: bottles, receipts, that sort of thing. My friend pulled out a square of paper that had some weird writing on it that didn't look like any language we'd ever seen, scribbled in pencil, and we laughed about it saying, "What the fuck is this?"
Next we pulled out two spoons. "Why do you have spoons under here?" I asked, thinking my friend REALLY needed to clean his room. I didn't want to say anything but as a particularly clean guy, it bothered me that he could accumulate all this junk under his bed. And one of these spoons was messed up; it looked like the thing had been gnawed on. Chunks of metal were missing off this thing.
"I don't know," he said. "I seriously don't know where that spoon came from. I don't even OWN those kinds of spoons." And it was true: the two spoons had markedly different handle engravings from each other, and neither had a matching set in his kitchen. Not easily perturbed we shrugged it off and set the spoons aside.
"Oh!" he said suddenly, reaching under the bed. "I think...I think I got it." He extracted a tiny figure's hand, but it isn't from my figure. "Well, I don't know what it goes to. I've never seen that hand." We placed it on top of the shelf we moved and went back to searching.
Time passes. No luck. We've got the lamp under there, we're feeling around, can't find it, can't see it, and I am getting seriously pissed. Brand new figure that I'd been searching for, that cost me a pretty penny, right out of the box and there goes its hand.
I told my friend to look inside the shelf, that it might've bounced in there. He doesn't think it possible, but he looks anyway. Meantime, I'm sitting next to him checking this little area of the bedframe that can be used to hold stuff. It's a long rectangle with barred slats that runs along the side of the bed. There are little bits of things here: a piece off some toy robot, some more little papers, but mostly just lint. I'm pushing the lint around, removing the papers to make sure nothing's hiding under them. There's a pen that was sitting in the little area; I use the pen to probe the sides where I can't see or reach, making sure to sweep it across very tightly, making sure I cover every inch. If the hand was there, I would've pushed it out into the open.
It wasn't there.
"God damn it! I can't lose that ****ing hand!"
"Do you really need it?"
"YES."
"Can you take one from another figure?"
"No."
"Well, sorry bro, it's not here. We just looked everywhere it could've been and didn't see it."
"How the hell could it have disappeared? Stupid fucking dead zone. It's like a portal underneath your bed." Despite being upset, we had a good laugh at that.
We started to clean up, placing things back where they were with the exception of the garbage, which I insisted needed to be thrown away. We put the shelf back into place, discarded the trash, and threw the little hand we'd found back under the bed. Let the bed dimension have it, we joked.
"Hey!" he says suddenly. "Is that it?" He points to the little cubby area. There, in view between the tiny wooden bars, is my figure's hand.
"What the hell?" I say, indignant. "I looked there. I moved everything out. I ran the pen across that area; you SAW me. You were right here." I pulled the hand out, set it down on top of the bed. I'm relieved to have it back, but what the hell just happened?
"What else was in there?" he exclaims. There was that piece of a robot that I mentioned, and the rest was pretty much lint. Except on closer inspection, there was a missile sitting in there. A missile that was definitely not there before, a missile that would've been seen, would've been felt by the pen and wasn't likely to be confused with anything else, nor hidden under anything else. A flame missile, from an Iron Man toy. The very same missile we'd joked about.
I wouldn't say we felt tense, or scared, but we certainly were intrigued and a little bit baffled. We'd left the TV on whilst searching, and as we were tuned in to Adult Swim, Fullmetal Alchemist's intro was coming on with its talk of "equivalent exchange."
"We threw the hand in there, got back a hand. Maybe whoever's on the other side of the bed dimension made a switch."
Our next course of action was clear.
"Let's throw more stuff in there!" We threw back the weird spoons, the robot piece, some other things I can't recall. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted sincerely,
"THANK YOU BED DIMENSION!"
Nothing more appeared in that little cubby, but when we both stood up, there was a toy batarang sitting in my figure's box that I have no idea how it got there. Seeing as how me and my friend were the only two there at the time, I can only assume it was "exchanged" for one of the other things we put back and placed there without us seeing. Thinking about it now I'm not even sure why they would give back a batarang; likely it was something that fell down there before and they thought that a robotic jetpack was a good trade.
We exchanged no more things that night, but thanked the bed dimension and hoped that they would enjoy the spoons and the robot piece.
Now, as for the inhabitants of the dimension behind his door that swallows up missiles, we don't think we'll get anything back from them. We have theorized that, whatever dimension they are from, they are fighting an enemy whose only weakness is tiny plastic projectiles, and they will not forfeit their ammunition.
