PUBLIX

I woke up this morning feeling rather different. The bright lights of the immense Publix came flickering on and I stared at each of my friends as they slowly opened their eyes.
I must have been the only one who noticed today was going to be different. They all awoke with the same expression on their face as every other day I have seen them.

I watched through the plexi glass and saw the Publix manager come waltzing in. He disappeared into the back of the customer service office. Over the next few minutes, more cash register clerks came in and got ready to do their everyday job.

“Are you alright?” said Timmy the horse Plushie.
“Yeah, I guess.” I said, noticing my pointy cat ears twitching.
“You don’t seem fine. If something’s wrong, you can always tell me.”
“Well, you see. Something is telling me that today… somebody is going to win.”
“WIN? Someone is going to win one of us? That means someone from this vending machine will be gone forever!” Timmy said at full volume.
“SHH! I don’t want everyone else to hear! They’d get upset. Just keep this between you and me.” I said miserably.
“Do you know who is going to be The One?”
“No. I wish I did though.”

Timmy sighed as he slowly walked over to the other side of the vending machine to be with his family. Or what he would call “family”. His friend Doodle, the turtle, adopted him and became his father, and Beth, the squid, adopted him as a mother, making them spouses.

I didn’t really have family in this plexi glass shaped hell. I was the only cat in the box. I didn’t believe that anyone could just adopt me. How can a squid and a turtle adopt a horse? I just think that everyone here are my family friends, basically. We’re all so close. I didn’t know who was going to leave the vending machine home, but I had a funny feeling it was me.

I needed to talk to Timmy again so I called him over. I told him I had a funny feeling it was going to be me and I gave him information we could contact each other with. I told him that I guarantee that somehow, sometime and place, we’ll see each other again. My brain was sending me signals that it was going to happen.

About two hours later, I started to get nervous. I didn’t know when that time was coming. Maybe it wasn’t coming at all. Maybe that was just a horrible nightmare I had and I thought it was a dream.

But reality struck me at an awful moment. I gazed to my right to find that two young kids, around the age of seven to eight, were coming straight towards my home. Their eyes were wide open with excitement and they were walking at a pretty fast pace, pointing directly towards me.

I quickly turned to see if Timmy was there and I decided to lie next to him. We were in the corner, which was the highest part of the mountain of plushies, but usually when the mountain is high, it means that that area is hard to get one of us from.

“CODE RED EVERYONE!” I scream at the top of my lungs.

The kids arrived at the front of my glass home. The young girl tapped at the glass and pointed in my direction. The young boy that was with her shook his head in agreement and pointed too.

The two kids quickly disappeared into the distance of the Publix isles. I thought we would be safe and they would forget about us. There really is no way to get out of this box. But time had run out once again. They promptly returned with money in their hand.

The blonde boy inserted three round silver objects into the hole of the vending machine. He grabbed the handle next to it and jolted it forward, towards Timmy and I. The vicious looking spider-like object dangling above our heads rushed towards me. It wasn’t exactly over me, but it sure was close. The blonde boy pressed the red shiny button on top of the black handle and the claw came downward. It barely missed my friend Hannah, the owl and didn’t clutch on to anything.

The claw was going in the opposite direction of us, towards the front of my home. The claw opened it’s spider-like fingers above the “ditch”, as we called it, and released nothing but air.

I knew we weren’t safe because the claw makes it way three times before it stops. The claw went back into its original position, but only stayed there for a few seconds. Again, the claw came rushing toward me and Timmy and I were squishing up against the wall, trying not to be taken by the claw. I watched as the two kids looked exceedingly anxious.

The claw came downward and barely missed us once again. I was started to feel less worried because the kids only have one more opportunity to take hold of one of us. I took a quick glance at the blond hair boy. He looked disappointed and heartbroken.

Within just a few seconds, many messages were going through my head all at once.

What would happen if he the boy did end up getting the claw in the right area and he got me? Would it be a good thing if I was taken by the mighty claw? What if the claw only takes Timmy and not me?

“DAHH! I hate these moments! Can’t everyone leave us alone?” I yelled loudly.

Not noticing, the claw was directly above us. There was no use trying to escape this one. The claw had just started making its way downward toward Timmy and I. Everyone in the glass box started screaming for us and telling us to get out of the way, but it was too late.

I felt a sharp pain in my left leg as I was being compressed by the claw. To my surprise Timmy  and I  were both  being dragged up. It looks like Timmy is going to be coming with me in my journey of a new life.

I yelled at everyone down below sending them my best wishes. I saw a few of my friends start to cry and it immediately made me sad. At that same moment, a tear drop rolled down my left cheek and plummeted its way down to the bottom of my home, probably landing on one of my friends.

I looked at Timmy and smiled, knowing that we would live the rest of our days together. The smile quickly came to an end though because the claw had stopped moving and we were hovering above the “ditch”.

Timmy and I rapidly went through the “ditch” and were going through a tunnel until we saw some light through a crack. A big black rectangular-shaped plastic door opened and I finally saw who awaited us. The blond haired boy and the brown haired girl grabbed us and held us in their arms.

I was being held by the boy, who seemed extremely excited, and Timmy was being held by the girl, who was hugging him tightly.

“Maybe this isn’t going to be as bad as I thought after all” I said to myself.

“Thanks so much Bob! Now we both got the toy we wanted! You got your favorite animal, a cat, and I got my favorite animal, a horse! What are you going to name it?!” the girl exclaimed.

“Hmm… I don’t know yet.” Bob said thoughtfully.

I started dozing off in the boys warm hands. I glared at Timmy, who looked kind of nervous. My thoughts about being with the boy seemed good. He looked like the type of kid who actually takes cares of toys like us.

Bobs hands suddenly lifted up and I approached his face. He smiled and quickly put me back down, gently putting me into his coat pocket. I curled up into a comfortable little ball, but in a position where I was still able to see the outside of his coat.

I looked at the girl who contained Timmy. Timmy was being put in her pocket as well, and I was able to see her from my view. I waved to him while he waved back and smiled with it.

I put my head back down and closed my eyes and started to dream, falling into a state of unconsciousness to the state of the boys cadenced foot steps.