Hello, and welcome to part two. In this part, you will continue the story that was first laid out in part one. If you have not read part one, then obviously you made a mistake in coming here.  Shame on you.

If you read part one, congratulations! You have absolutely no regard for good advice. Didn’t I tell you to stop reading? I distinctly remember; I gave you a certificate and everything! Go look, it’s there! In part one! Where you should have stopped!  Don’t you have something better to do than just sit here and read? Ride a bike, iron your trousers, burn a house, something! Anything! Anything at all would be better than this rubbish!

…Ah, what’s the use? You’re not going to leave. Why would you? You’ve got nothing else to do, other than sate your insatiable morbid curiosity. Alas, I suppose I have no choice. I can’t leave if you don’t. And there simply is no sense in reading a story with no narrator.

Very well.

But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This is the story of Burt the Store Clerk. Burt was a quiet man, who often had opportunity pass right over his head, and into the hands of other people. This was not his fault, mind you. People just had trouble seeing him, though he stood at a healthy height and had a more than noticable girth. His boss has yet to give him a raise (despite him working at the store for 16 years), the love of his life had yet to make herself known ( even though he had recently reached the age of 40), and he hadn’t had the chance to speak to anyone at dinner since he was 2 years old. Yes, opportunity seemed to ignore dear Burt the Store Clerk.

But not today.

No, today, opportunity was generous. Today brought him the button.

It came to him by the way of a man named Thomas. Thomas, struggling to navigate the labyrinth-like aisles of the massive store, had left the heavy “Op Sec” box behind in Burt’s care. Burt looked like a nice, responsible fellow after all, and there was no way a man that fat could possibly even consider running way with such a heavy, heavy thing. Thomas, of course, had thought wrong.  No later 10 minutes after Thomas had left, Burt had made the trip across the parking lot and was already well on his way home with his recently delivered treasure in the backseat of his minivan.

What compelled him to take it?

Well, not even Burt knew for sure. All he knew was that this “Op Sec” box contained a button.

A button that could very well destroy the world.

And he wanted that button.

That said, he didn’t know exactly what he wanted to do with it. He had no grand visions of world domination, or ludicrously evil ideas of earthly destruction. He just wanted to be thought of, even if it were only for just a few seconds. He thought maybe, just maybe, this button would buy him those few seconds of presence. Maybe even a whole minute if he were lucky.

Burt smiled a little as he thought. Well, why couldn’t people think of him for a whole minute? Surely the button could at least get him a minute in the people’s conscious. It could grant him two, if he wanted. Or three. Four, if he begged.

As he drove on to his humble home, Burt found the number of minutes steadily increasing with every thought. Five minutes. Six minutes. Eight minutes. Ten minutes! Ten minutes, good lord! Was he really so bold as to demand ten minutes of thought? Was he really that greedy?

Perhaps not. But right now, he could at least pretend to be.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Oh, how the numbers came! Thirteen. Twenty.

Twenty minutes! How absurd! And yet, how fun!

He couldn’t help but chuckle to himself. Twenty minutes? Now, that was just silly to him. Twenty whole minutes?

Why not thirty?

…

Yeah. Why not thirty? If he could have twenty minutes of somebody’s time, why couldn’t he have thirty? Or forty? Surely, somebody could spare him forty minutes of thought! He was good person, a sociable person, an interesting person, with interesting…things…of interest! In fact, he had plenty interesting things of interest to think about! Like…like….

Like the button.

Yes. He had the button. He was the one responsible for this button. He, and he alone, safeguarded it from the evils of the world. He was its watchful protector, like a knight or the C.I.A.  Or Batman. He fancied himself as Batman. He envisioned himself, dressed in a black costume, swinging about the city, stopping evil, button-pressing criminals while hearing the sounds of a thousand cheering fans.

Oh, how his heart soared at the idea.  All that cheering, all of that praise, just for him. It nearly brought a tear to his eye.  It certainly brought some sweat to his cheeks.

When he finally pulled up to the driveway, he wasted no time in retrieving the box.  He could practically feel the button’s power humming through the metal. It made him shudder. A surge of adrenaline flooded his veins and made his stubby legs shake furiously with anticipation. He was overwhelmed with the urge to run, to just up and dash over to the door and break it down, to get inside and tear open the top of this metal thing like some savage animal! And yet, he stood there. Shaking and sweating like a dog on a hot summer’s day. For a moment, he forgot why he was standing there in the first place. His mind wandered over to thoughts of the mid-evening meal. Tonight, a difficult decision had to be made. Seasoned scalloped potatoes or Beer-battered fish sticks?  He only could eat one of them tonight. Oh, how it tormented him! He loved the texture and robust flavor of his seasoned scalloped potatoes, but he also relished the crispiness of the beer-battered-

Box. He was still holding the box.

He swallowed something in his throat. To his dismay, it was just a pocket of nervous air rather than a plateful of seasoned scalloped potatoes. Something struck Burt at that moment, something he hadn’t had in a long time. Determination.

Dinner can wait. Now was the time for destiny.

With a side of beer-battered fishsticks, perhaps.

Burt steeled himself, and finally commanded his legs to head for the door. His steps were slow, but strong. They marched to the beat of his thundering heart, and to the sound of building applause. Step. Thump. Clap. Step. Thump. Clap.

It was like a little jingle that kept with his pace.  Step, thump, clap, thuda-thuda, step , thump, clap, thuda-thuda!

The noise begged him to go faster. It was cheering him on, like the fictitious crowd he willed into form!

Step, thump, clap, thuda-thuda!

His feet were practically slamming against the concrete!

Step-thump-clap-thuda-thuda!

He was nearing the door!

Stepthumpclapthuda-thudastepthumpclapthuda-thudastepthumpclapthuda-thuda!

He could already see the adoring crowds!

STEPTHUDCLAPSTEPTHUDCLAPSTEPTHUDCLAP!

He could practically taste those warm, buttery scalloped potatoes!

STEPTHUMP-

“Hey!”

{POP!}

Thomas didn’t quite understand what had just happened. It was all so sudden, really. He finally caught the button-thief. Said button-thief fell over and died. Just like that, for no reason. It seemed rather anticlimactic after all he had been through to get here. He followed the fleeing thief to the parking lot, chased after the bright yellow minivan, got lost in a neighborhood, evaded a pack of rampaging Chihuahuas, fell off an unfinished highway , tumbled down a hill, stopped for a snack, promptly vomited out the snack, and then cornered the thief at his home. All that effort, just to see the man seize up and die right in front of him.  Thomas couldn’t help but feel a touch disappointed.

Also, Thomas was absolutely starting to lose his metaphorical {bleep-word}, because a man just up and died right in front of him. For a moment, he didn’t move in the slightest; paralyzed as he was perplexed. When he finally regained his senses, he did what any rational man would do in such a situation: he stood up, turned around, and then proceeded to scream frantic obscenities to the nearest object. Once he was done, he turned back around to face the deceased store clerk. To his dismay, Burt was still carrying the box

Thomas didn’t know what to do. He needed that box, but he certainly wasn’t going to man-handle a corpse. He took a moment to scan the driveway, to see what was at his disposal. Soon enough, his gaze came upon a lonely branch, which had ventured a few feet away from its home tree.  Several forceful prods later, the corpse slid and flopped cumbersomely away from its obviously-French treasure.

Thomas shuddered as he retrieved the box. It was a vile feeling, stealing from the dead. Sure, he properly borrowed the box to begin with, but the fact he had to peel the thing away from those plump, still warm fingers…

Eugh. The very thought of it was enough to cause his stomach to flop a few times over.

He finally pried his eyes away, and turned to leave. He needed to go. Quickly. The man simply couldn’t bear to stay any longer. And so, he tossed the box into the back of his car, and promptly drove away, vowing to make sure that that infernal box never again leaves his protection.

If you’ve hadn’t already guessed by now, that didn’t quite work out.

Unfortunately, in the midst of the horrible events that had just occurred, Thomas made perhaps the biggest mistake in his entire life. And believe me, that’s quite an impressive feat. You see, Thomas made one horrible, innocent mistake: He was seen.  He was seen at the wrong place. At the wrong time. By what was, most definitely, the wrong person.

But that’s a story for another day.

The Button Part 3

{Narrator-less Special Edition.}

See? Wasn’t that simply more lovely? No narrator, no lousy story about a man named Thomas, no unfortunate deaths, no seasoned-scalloped potatoes, and absolutely no plastic buttons what-so-ever.  It was better that way, don’t you think? I certainly think so.

…. But then again, it doesn’t matter what I think, does it? You came here to read a story about a man named Thomas, not to hear the lamentations of the narrator of a story about a man named Thomas. Even if the the lamentations of the narrator of a story about a man named Thomas were well-founded, and, by all means, something you should pay heed to.

And because you won’t listen to the well-founded lamentations of the narrator of a story about a man named Thomas, the narrator of said story of said person named Thomas will do what’s best for the unsaid audience for the said story of a man most certainly named Thomas.

THE END

This is what you came for: A story with a beginning, middle, and end. Well, here is the end. Please, take it now, while it’s so easily within reach! Stop here, and read no further!

Please, I implore you. Think of the children! I don’t care whose children you think of, just think of them! Think of how disappointed they’d be if you kept reading. Think of their sad, disappointed faces. Do you really want to be responsible for their misery? More importantly, do you really want our dear Thomas  to bemiserable?

Sorry, bad example. What I meant to say was, do you really want everyone else miserable? Of course you don’t. You aren’t that heartless. Only partially so.

Please. Forget about the button. If not for my sake, do it for your own. Believe me, you don’t want to go down this road. And believe me, I don’t want to have to go down that road with you.

Please.  Don’t go on to part 3.