Joey Fucknuts Builds a Flying Machine

Joey Fucknuts lit three cigarettes and looked up at the hot blue sky, wondering what was actually up there.

It made sense to him that there had to be something up there that he couldn't see. The sky was the biggest thing he was aware of. He was pretty sure that the sky was even bigger than the ground, which was already really big. And he knew that there were things up there. He saw things up there all the time. Some of them even stayed up there, which was weird, because he couldn't do that. He had tried throwing things and getting them to stay up there, but it never worked.

He started an itemized list of what he knew for sure was up there, to organize his thoughts when they felt too big for his head. It was written on one side of the ruins of Vulture Vic's Diner in bearing grease. Joey had seen writing utensils before, but had forgotten about them after his death. The grease served his purposes well enough, and made it so that the letters were larger and easier for him to read.

1 - BIRDS

TINY. COMES DOWN SOMETIMES. EATS STUFF. USES BIRD ARMS TO STAY UP??? ASK ONE HOW TO DO IT

Joey had seen a number of birds before, and had seen that they could go up into the sky more or less whenever they wanted. He knew that they were alive, almost in the same way that he was. He knew that they came down though, probably because they had to. He reasoned that anything that could stay in the sky as long as it wanted would probably never come down on purpose. He furthermore reasoned that if birds were alive, and could move around and eat stuff the way that he could, that the easiest thing to do would be to simply talk to one and ask it how it went up into the sky so easily, or at least ask it where it learned how to do it so Joey could also learn.

Joey liked learning, which is why he was mayor.

2 - CLOUDS

PROBABLY BIG. REALLY HIGH UP. DOESN'T COME DOWN. GOES AWAY SOMETIMES. CHANGES SHAPE ALL THE TIME. KIND OF SCARY? ALSO PROBABLY MAGIC.

It was here that Joey began to enter dangerous and somewhat frightening intellectual territory. Clouds made Joey uneasy, as they flagrantly violated what he understood to be some universal constants. Everything else he was aware of, save for a few critical exceptions, came down after going up. Clouds did not. The objects he was familiar with did not change shape unless something was done to them. Clouds did not appear to care. They also disappeared and reappeared, apparently at random, refusing to adhere to anything resembling good sense or order as Joey understood it. Joey did not trust them, and suspected that clouds were things made by wizards, or, more horrifyingly, were wizards themselves.

3 - SUN

FUCK FUCK FUCK SHIT OW FUCK

Joey had spent an entire day from dawn to dusk watching the sun to see what it actually did all day, and had hurt his eyes. This made him angry at first, because he had done nothing to the sun and he saw no reason why it had to hurt him, and then it made him afraid, because if it could hurt him without even touching him what else could it do. He then spent some time looking directly into the stream of a garden hose to cool his eyes off, wondering what exactly he was dealing with and whether he should stop. The sun was more mysterious and threatening than even the clouds were, and he began to think that the sun was the clouds' boss, probably. Which was why it was so strong and bright, just like his Boss.

4 – SKY ARROW THINGS

SORT OF LIKE BIRDS, BUT REALLY HIGH UP AND NOT FLAPPY. NOISY. NOT SURE HOW BIG. DOESNT COME DOWN. WHAT ARE THEY POINTING AT???

These were perhaps the most mysterious things Joey had ever seen. These objects would appear, often making a very loud, rumbling sound like thunder, and would point in a direction of the sky while moving in that direction. They were obviously trying to get his attention, but he had no idea whatsoever what message they were trying to send. They also sometimes pointed in different directions, which was very confusing. Joey surmised that there were pieces of this message that he was missing, but was determined to find out just what exactly these things were trying to tell him.

Joey was sitting on a pile of burning tires, enjoying the way the heat felt on his rear, and looking at this list he had made on the side of the building. He smoked, and thought. There were so many things he didn't understand. He wanted to eventually understand them all, so he could be smart and make the Boss proud, but it was the things in the sky that interested him most. He was fairly certain that learning about what was in the sky would make him happy, and would make the Boss happy too. That would be nice.

But he had no idea how to get there.

“Joey! Joey, help!”

Two dead men and a dead woman came up to Joey on his throne of burning rubber. One of the men had four arms and wore a chef's apron. This was Chef, and he made the best oil soup and scrapburgers in town. The other was over 8 feet tall and muscular enough to physically tear a car in half, which he would do upon request whenever someone was too impatient to unbolt everything normally. His name was Awesome, because he was awesome.

The woman was wearing what Joey thought was a very cute yellow sundress and carried an umbrella with a small flamethrower installed in it, which, she had explained to Joey previously, was supposed to burn the rain before it could make her wet. Joey thought that was pretty smart. Her natural, humble intelligence combined with her milky eyes and missing lips made her impossible to resist. Her name was Flower, because she was very beautiful. Joey had a crush on her but was too shy to ever say anything.

Chef was at the front, and was carrying a small cardboard box with pictures and writing on it. He held it up to Joey.

“Joey, we found this thing, but we don't know what it is. See, wait, look, check this out.”

Chef shook the box, and there was a rattling sound.

“Joey what the fuck is that, even! I don't want to open it in case it's got bugs in it, and bugs creep me the fuck out. It's got words on it though, so maybe you could look at them and tell us what's inside?”

Joey nodded, not wanting to look stupid in front of Flower. “Okay, let me see.”

Chef handed it up to him, and Joey looked at it.

It said: “LEGO” in white letters on a red and yellow background, and the words “Boeing 787 Dreamliner”, which didn't make any sense to him. But at the bottom and on other parts he could see the words “construction” and “kit” and “toy”, which he knew.

The picture on the front looked almost exactly like one of the sky arrow things. And it was in the sky. It was flying.

Awesome was saying very loudly, “What's it say, Joey?! Is it bugs in there, or is it, like, a food? Wait, is bugs food sometimes?”

Flower laughed. “No, dummy, bugs isn't food.”

Flower's laugh knocked Joey out of his reverie.

“It's a toy. It's made out of a bunch of pieces, and you put the pieces together to make… this thing.”

Flower put her fists in the air. “Cool! This is gonna be a lot of fun, probably!”

Awesome cracked his knuckles, which produced pops as loud as gunshots, and replied, “Yeah! And after we build it up, we can smash it! The smashing part is always the funnest part.”

Chef narrowed his eyes. “Wait. But it's made out of little parts? But that means… that means after we smash it we can build it again.”

Flower gasped and shook Chef by his shirt. “Holy fuck, Chef! We can just keep doing it! It's just like cars! Okay, I'll be in charge of building, Awesome can be in charge of smashing, and Chef can be the boss!”

The trio walked away, talking excitedly about the prospect of an afternoon spent having fun building and smashing things.

Joey was confused.

That was a sky arrow thing, he knew it. And that box had parts in it, to somehow make one of them. If that was the case, and people made toys out of the sky arrow things, then it was possible that the sky arrow things were actually machines.

And you can make machines.









Think, Joey. You can see it. Gather your tools. Forge your people wings of glowing iron, and fly. I know you can do it.

Joey huffed a plume of smoke from his missing nose, and frowned in determination.

“I won't let you down, Boss.”







