Christmas loomed like an insistent bum in the street ahead and Brant was similarly wary of both. He knew neither what to say or what to give, felt guilty about not wanting to give anything.

His son played with the wrapping-paper tube, a skeletal delight for the grave-robbing children of the world. Usually employed as a sword, or a telescope, the boy had opted for an arm extension.

“A robot?”

“I am not a robot,” his son said, robotically. “Robots are evil.”

“True,” Brant said, moving into the bathroom.

Inside, he looked into the mirror and adjusted his emotion settings.

Jellybean Highfive tried to find the magic secret of the wondrous javelin but the man in short shorts had thrown it far away.  

After it he went, like a galloping horse upon which rides a girlish-sized man in bright clothing. He soon caught sight of it again and hastened to the place where it lay. Its point was embedded in the firm grass and its hinder-parts tottered like an insistent metronome. A quivering glory.

“I have found it,” Jellybean said. Then, like men caught up in profundity often do, he said it again. “I have found it.”

A man with a clipboard came and wrote down something about the magic device. Surely those words were an oracle, and Jellybean longed for them as a man longs for long longings.

“Do you know the way to the Avenue of the Twilight of the Javelins?” Jellybean asked the old man.

“I just work here,” the man said.

“Yes you do,” Jellybean said. “Yes, you do.”

Jellybean Highfive emerged from the corner he had been hiding in with all the concentrated silence of a Junior High band practice warm-up. He untangled his foot, just now clotted with a small paradise of exotic chimes and bells.

He was in this office to steal something important. It is often the important things that want stealing. Very few of the sticky-fingered sort get long in the tooth climbing through windows to pinch potatoes and packing peanuts. Jellybean Highfive was not no uncommon thief. In fact he didn’t feel like a thief at all –but he wanted to feel the feeling of that feeling.

On the previous evening he had seen a dramatic film about a particularly likeable robber and wanted nothing more than to nab something in secret and frustrate the universally wicked police forces of the wicked universe.

“What are you doing crashing around in your own office, Jellybean?” Karl called from down the hall.

His operation discovered, he decided in haste to quit the adventure. He made for the window and, after a few minutes struggling to figure out the operation of the locking swivel, he bolted from the window. His fall terminated three feet down in the overgrown rhododendron bushes that lined the building where he worked.

He did not immediately move. His mind pondered the innumerable excitements of the life of crime. His imagination teemed with happily criminal opportunities. Eventually he peered up from his deliciously concealed hide-away and noticed an opened window.

“Perfect.”

Jellybean Highfive surveyed the room. This took a long time because the questions were detailed. He finished and returned to the table.

“The last time I was here was months ago, back in the late 2000’s. A lot has changed, but some things remain the same. For instance, that waiter still has the same shirt on,” he said.

“I think that’s a uniform,” Karl said.

“I don’t pay you to think.”

“You don’t pay me at all, Jellybean. I’m your boss.”

“Only in a technical sense, Karl.” Jellybean squinted up at the ceiling. “Anyway, I don’t work for you today.”

“You did earlier.”

“But I clocked out, so…”

“It’s still today.”

“Technically, you’re right. But I’ve got a feeling about this day.”

“Is it remorse? Because that’s what I’m feeling.”

“No, it’s orange.”

“Orange?”

“Let me be more specific,” Jellybean said, “I mean the color, not the fruit.”