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Zor and the Angel Blob


by yoyote

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Zor the Pea Chia was feeling small. Well, he had been small for as long as he could remember, but today he was feeling abnormally small. He felt like he could sink into the ground, be trampled upon and forgotten.

     He wasn't sure exactly how this feeling had come upon him. It had crept in slowly, reinforced bit by bit as each disappointment pierced his little heart. Now it was so heavy, so real, he wanted to jump into the Food Shop, curl up among the vegetables and wait to be eaten.

     Normally he was such a lively Chia. Whatever in Neopia had happened...? He dropped lightly onto the grass, put his little hands on each side of his round face, and thought back to the events of the day.

     That morning, he had asked his sister Blippita for a ride on the air, and the purple Draik had replied with an absentminded sigh, "Oh, Zor, I'm sorry, I'm just really tired today. I've been practising flying all morning. Go find somebody else to play with, all right?"

     So he had gone to find his oldest sister Yinna, who was sitting with yet another one of her boring books. He'd tugged gently at her. "Rest your eyes for a while, won't you, Yinna? Come play with me."

     The orange Grundo had replied kindly, but firmly nonetheless, "I'm busy today, Zor. After I finish this book I've got to head over to the dock to board a ferry for Mystery Island. I have a Strength class at the training school to get to in two hours. I'll be back in the evening, I promise, and then I can play with you. Why don't you find something else to do in the meantime?"

     Undeterred, Zor had hurtled into the garden, to find his brother Yoofyoof drawing in the sun. "Let's play, Yoofyoof," he'd proposed eagerly. "Throw me up and down! You know you love to do that." But the gold Krawk had merely lifted his claw from the paper, turned ever so slightly, and shaken his head slowly no.

     In the end Zor was reduced to wandering in the garden, amusing himself by climbing plants of various shapes and sizes. When that got boring, he sat down on the grass, hauled out a nearby stalk, and started deliberately shredding it into pieces.

     It was his owner Yoyote who came back from shopping a while later, put down the groceries and asked him what the matter was.

     "Nothing's the matter," said the tiny Chia sullenly, ripping another piece off the grass. "Blippita and Yinna and Yoofyoof are just being boring again, as usual."

     Yoyote held out her hand, offering to carry him back indoors, but he stayed put. After a pause, Yoyote suggested, "Do you want me to take you to the merry-go-round?"

     "No."

     "But you don't want to be left alone either."

     Zor didn't answer.

     "Zor, I know it's hard on you being the youngest and smallest in this household. But you mustn't blame your siblings... they have other things to do besides playing with you, and sometimes you just have to respect their points of view. Think about what you can do for others, my dear Chia, beyond what others can do for you. And you have your own discoveries to make, too, your own adventures to go on. There are other fun things you could try, when you aren't playing with your siblings."

     Zor looked up. "What could I do?" he asked.

     "Try going out and making some friends," said Yoyote with a wink.

     *****

     Zor bounced down the sandy path. Wheee! Yoyote very rarely allowed him to go out alone, since he was so small and vulnerable, but today she seemed to decide that he was finally mature enough. Today he was free. Today he could do whatever he wanted.

     He dodged deftly between big, clumsy Neopets, high-jumped curiously to peer in at shop windows, and whirled from rattling cart to rumbling trolley. He hopped from fence to fence, admiring Neopian gardens, and he skidded on leaves across puddles.

     Presently Zor came to an unfamiliar place, where an interesting building caught his attention.

     It was a grey, lumpy-looking building, with an amazing assortment of chimneys and many narrow windows. There were strange sounds coming from it, creaks and glops and wh-whir-whirrs. Inside the windows there was a hum of exciting activity, accompanied by flashes of dazzling colour.

     Cautiously, the Pea Chia sneaked up to a side-door, made sure that nobody had seen him, and squeezed himself through the gap under the door into the mind-boggling interior.

     Whoa. This had to be the legendary Freaky Factory!

     Boxes of stuffing, cloth, buttons and other accessories were crowded, more or less in categories, in a dark alcove to one side. A dark, snaking belt creaked swiftly along, carrying crude, unpainted plushies into the distance.

     Zor let out his breath, flapped both his tiny arms for no reason at all, and did a running jump to land upon the moving belt.

     The alcove of raw materials shifted out of view, and several more rooms went by, a sewing room, a maintenance room... he could not make out exactly what was going on in them. Then he noticed that another moving contraption, this time snaking along the ceiling, was coming toward him. Thin strings lowered themselves from the contraption, dangling, as it aligned with the belt he was sitting on.

     Now he was passing through a narrow passage, with high shelves on each side. Blobs of paint leaped off the shelves and attached themselves to the strings. Zor got tired of sitting passively on the belt with the unpainted plushies, and jumped up to catch hold of a string. Oooh... now he was flying, almost, and getting a very different view of everything.

     "Hello, green blob," came a strange, somehow sticky-sounding voice, so bizarrely close that Zor nearly let go of his string.

     "What?" Zor spluttered, looking in the direction of the voice. "Who...?"

     He found himself face to face with a pure white blob, who was dangling calmly not two inches away. The blob was wearing a little golden halo, and was regarding him with an angelic smile. "The name's Blobby," it, or he, offered helpfully. "And you are?"

     "I'm Zor. Well, my full name's Zoradysis, but everyone calls me Zor. I'm a Pea Chia."

     "What's a Pea Chia?" Blobby enquired politely. "You look like a green blob to me, which is already interesting enough... I didn't know that blobs came in colours other than red, yellow and blue."

     "I'm a kind of Neopet," said Zor, but that only made Blobby laugh.

     "Oh, you must be joking! Neopets are big creatures who buy the plushies we paint. I've seen a few of them, and you don't look like them at all."

     "I'm a very special Neopet," said Zor. "The smallest kind there is, actually. It's not easy to be a tiny Neopet. I must say, I'm very glad to meet you – you're the same size as I am!"

     Blobby laughed again. "Odd," he remarked. "Very odd. Most of the blobs here wish they were bigger, you know, so they can contribute more to the painting. Of course, there are some blobs who are too big, but we shan't talk much about that at the moment. Me, I'm the perfect size – I'm the blob that every blob should be."

     Zor gave up trying to explain his Neopet-ness, asking instead, "What kind of blob are you, then?"

     "I'm an angel blob," said Blobby proudly, but with a touch of sadness. "You see, in my previous lives, I was a very naughty blob. In one life I didn't jump off the string at the right time, and splashed onto the conveyor belt, causing a great deal of nuisance for the workers who had to clean up. In another life I joined up with a whole lot of other blobs to become a really big blob, and when we got to the plushie-painting area, we splashed majestically – into the wrong vat, too – causing another giant mess. But this time I'm going to make up for all the selfish and silly things I did. Oh, yes, I am... just you wait and see." He looked very virtuous, clinging delicately to his string.

     Zor became aware that their surroundings were changing. Space was opening up, wider, and flurries of activity were buzzing about. He saw three great vats coming into view, one rimmed with red, one yellow, and one blue. The belt carrying the plushies dipped lower and began to pass through a painting machine. The vats glopped actively, channeling the paint within them into the painting machine. One by one the plushies were coming out, beautifully painted.

     And one by one the paint blobs were releasing themselves from the strings, dropping in graceful semi-arcs into the vats.

     Glop, glop, glop, glop...

     The vats were looming closer and closer.

     Blobby gave Zor a final smile. "Well, this is it," he said.

     Zor felt a terrible fear loom over him. "But what's going to happen?" he cried, feeling stupid for asking such an obvious question.

     "I'm going to be a good blob this time and do what I can for others," said Blobby, facing the empty yellow vat as it came nearer. "I'll fill that vat up with yellowness... and below there, a beautiful Chomby plushie will be painted yellow. That Chomby plushie will be delivered to a store, and end up in a young Neopet's arms... by jumping into that vat, I will make a child very happy."

     The light caught his pearly body, and for a moment he glittered like a star. Then he fell, in a great streak of brilliance, into the yellow vat. In an instant he was gone... and the cavernous vat filled up, becoming a lovely honey-bright pool.

     Holding onto his line, Zor watched the Chomby plushie sail out from the painting machine, golden as the sun, golden as Blobby's halo had been.

     For some inexplicable reason, Zor wanted to cry. He had never seen anything so selfless before.

     But then he had to break out of his thoughts, because the strings were folding back upward into the contraption, which was now curving back the way it had come. Zor let go of his string just in time, and leaped down onto the belt bearing the newly-painted plushies. Before he could catch his breath, a paper box folded over him, trapping him along with the yellow Chomby plushie.

     The sounds of the factory faded away. The box was picked up, steadily, and placed onto some kind of cart or vehicle. Presently Zor felt the ground shake in a smooth rhythm, and knew in the darkness that he was moving on.

     *****

     Zor shuddered in apprehension when he felt the box lifted again and placed upon a solid surface. He pressed himself against the Chomby plushie, holding on tight. And then, just as he had expected, the box was opened.

     Somebody took the plushie out; Zor took care to maintain his grip and to stay out of sight. The uncomfortable moment in mid-air didn't last long. Soon he was placed onto a shelf along with the plushie, and the shopkeeper was reaching into another box.

     Zor seized his chance. "Goodbye," he whispered to the yellow Chomby plushie. "Go ahead and make someone happy. You may never have known Blobby, but I'll never forget him."

     The shopkeeper turned to stock another plushie. Zor slipped behind the rows of toys, ducked out at the edge of the shelf, and zipped out the door.

     All the way home, he was deep in thought. He reflected on his own actions, how he'd demanded attention like an ever-greedy kid, how he'd failed to see things from other Neopets' points of view. How he'd thrown ridiculous tantrums when he didn't get what he wanted.

     He replayed Blobby's selfless act over and over again in his mind. Blobby was only a blob of paint, Blobby had a shorter life-span than he did, Blobby had never seen any place bigger than the factory... but even Blobby could do something for others.

     What could Zor give?

     Zor stopped in the glow of the sunset, spread wide his little arms, and stood in a rare, graceful gesture for one thoughtful moment. The biggest hug he could give measured about four inches, he estimated. But if he did it over and over, if he gave a hundred hugs... he could make his love felt.

     Yes, he could.

The End

 
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