Story traded for Art. Story by EXPLOSION MURDER KING
The universe is a spiral, you can walk backwards, and be where you were before, or head forward, on and on, and evolve - but the roads never touch, they never intersect - a vacuum is very similar in its potency, a creation much like a collapsed reality having spun too far out control, sucking everything and anything into its voracious maw, clearing the canvas for the next generation to befoul or polish to excess. And there I was, beholding this modern marvel of a cleaning monstrosity, straining to hear the agonized death-cries of the disgusting debris being hauled from their eternal vigil within my old carpet as some form of morbid victory over filth and my own tendencies towards slobbery.... A great misfortune, this day - this peace was far too fleeting, that I had such a weapon in my arsenal against the unyielding nastiness of the world, as there was an uncomfortable sound much akin to a smothered rhinocerous belching, a huff of smoke and the sudden and undeniable crunch of gears snapping as a billow of dust exploded directly in my face. Through choking coughs, abrasive oaths to whatever deity would hear my curses, and tear-stained eyes, I knelt beside my wounded companion, delicately cradling the canister by which it normally held so much. My heart was subsequentially swallowed, released back into this world, and then swallowed again by the sight - my beloved contraption groaned once, sputtering out the rest of a cockroach carcess from deep within its bowels, and fell silent. My palm rested solemnly against the pedal I would normally push to rev the beast to life in our combined journey towards cleanliness, idling in fond grief over the times we had spent, warring against dust and grime as my mind raced and grasped at the reality before me, and the potential loss of such a close friend. Never again would I accidentally suck up the edge of a rug, only to laugh about it afterwards as I desperately try not to catch my entire house on fire in my attempts to dislodge flammable devices from its all-devouring grip... No! This couldn't be - tears of vague discomfort welled into crystalline drops of despair as I shoved the fallen suction-warrior into my manly bosom, begging the sky, the heavens, hell beneath me.. anything that could spare my vacuum from such a terrible fate. No one answered - I was left, alone on the floor, covered in everything nasty, sitting next to the shriveled husk of a dead insect which had taken my beloved device away from me, my life... Slowly, I rose, carrying the departed machine much like one would carry their dead lover from a tragedy, pondering on my own existence and the unfairness of it all.. until, I remembered! A glimmering light in such a dark abyss! I ran to my sock drawer, hauling out a small piece of paper etched with the scriptures of my impending salvation. I still had a lifetime warranty on my expensive vacuum.