“Chippy— you’re alive?!” I squawked as I entered the kitchen.

There in the early evening dusk, was the unmistakable form of Chippy. I had nearly forgotten about the strange creature. I thought he was dead; but, Felix was right, he was alive. And still a bag of chips. A walking and talking bag of chips. Creepy.

“Fuck yeah in the ass I am alive, brother!” he said as he danced a bit, or at least moved very suddenly. “You can’t keep the chip-clan down!”

Chip clan? I added it to my mental compendium.

“Sweet . . . uh, how have you been. You know, since that night. I haven’t seen you around . . . you know.”

“Yeah, well, I died, so sorry I wasn’t there when you were blasting a load into a sock while licking cheese dust off your other hand.” Chippy said in an edgy intro. “But I am back now and ready to help you and the cat.”

“Wait . . . how are you back?” I asked, genuinely curious how life and death happened in the under-reality.

“It is what it is, man. Freight shipments and neurogenic entanglements in the firmament. Basic shizz. So, wait, where is the cat? I came full on to talk to that thing— no offense, newbie.”

“Uh, none taken, I guess. But Felix— is his name— is not here. He hasn’t been here for over a month and I am worrying about him.”

“A month? Long time. Very long time,” Chippy suddenly said, very somber. “You’ve begun the search?”

“No. How can I? I don’t have any skills with magic or weapons. I don’t know where to look or how to get there.”

“But, you are a member of Full Time, right? You have a trainer or can call upon your associates. Right?”

“No. I have only met one member of Full Time since I was initiated and he has gone missing too. He gave me this mesh glove thing, told me to practice jumping a candy bar, and then vanished. I vaguely know the way to the hideout, but that is it. I was going to go there soon but not much I can do in the meantime.”

Chippy took a moment to respond. For a bag of chips that was mostly hot air, he now seemed remarkably human.

When he continued to pontificate, I asked, “What help did you need from Felix?”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“It ain’t worth telling you. You are a baby. Nothing but a newbie. A baby-newbie.”

I wanted to say to Chippy that he needs to tell me because I was the next best thing he had to an ally; I wanted to take him in my hand and shake him up and down to treat me with respect; to shout at him to stop being so melodramatic. But he was totally right. I was a newbie. I knew next to nothing. And in the morning, I was going to investigate a Shimmer with a tool that I didn’t even know how to really use. It could easily be an all-day affair.

So, instead of saying any of that, I simply said, “Okay, well. Good to see you again. Hang out if you want, but I am just going to be chilling in my bedroom. See ya?”

I didn’t wait for a response as I re-entered my bedroom. As expected, though, Chippy did not stay on the kitchen counter for very long.

“Oh, alright, I guess I will tell ye!” Chippy said while climbing up my comforter and standing tall on my bed as I lied down, him appearing awfully close to me due to the curvature of this mostly two-dimensional world.

“You see, my people are being killed.” Chippy said very seriously.

“Killed?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, what do you mean? You and your people are chips, right? Weren’t you meant to be killed— by which I assume you mean eaten?”

“No! Different!”

“How so, then?” I said before Chippy could go on a rant. “What is life and death to a super-normie?”

“It is different for everyone. But listen. To. Me!” Chippy talked exasperated. “My people are dying and I don’t know what is causing it.”

“Okay, Chippy, well . . . how are they dying?” I asked, not knowing anything about Chippy’s situation or ontology.

“More and more are becoming . . . deformed. Some newbies come to us fresh from the truck and half of them are Strange from the get-go.”

“Wait, what do you mean, strange?”

“Jeebus, did those guys who you were with not teach you anything?!”

“No . . . not really. I have this, uh, mental graph in my head still . . . “

Chippy just looked at me. I have no idea if he knows what graph I am referring to or if he is just plain ignorant. But either way, he looks unamused.

“Wow. Just wow. So I am screwed, right?”

“For real, bro-ham.”

It seemed like a really long time, but it was probably only a few minutes, but Chippy and I just stared at one another. Each of us probably thought that the other was about to say something profound and insightful that would remedy the situation in a hurry. But, yeah, nope, that wasn’t going to happen, not from me.

Instead, I roughed along with my own life and replied to Chippy, that “you can come with me to the Full Time office if you want. Then we can drop by the store. Maybe take a look myself at what you mean?”

Chippy appeared downcast, but he nodded. “I will be in your pantry.” He said and then clambered off to my cupboards where he shared the space with several bags of half-eaten tortilla chips.

I shrugged. Realistically, I should have been more worried that a talking bag of chips was anxious about the dire situation of his people and that this emissary was now sleeping in my pantry. But that was old me. Not new me. New me lost his ability to care.

Now . . . I just did what I needed to do in order for life to make sense.

And even that was hard enough.

Becoming drowsy, I quickly nodded off to sleep, but to me, all of my eight hours of rest seemed like just a blip. Then, suddenly, the sun was up and I was off to another day.

Another. Day.