text: BAM! Stickbob crashed into the door. His face slid slowly and painfully down the wooden surface until his chin caught on the triangular door knob. He jolted up quickly but his knees banged painfully against wood and he fell back onto his bottom. What a painful day for Stickbob. Earlier, his friends had pranked him by putting mayonnaise in his tea. Then they proceeded to filling up his water bottle with fish oil. On his way home, His foot got caught in a crack in the middle of the road. Had his shoelace been any tighter, Stickbob would have been as flat as pancake, or worse, dead. Stickbob trudged into his musty little room. The air was hot and thick. He reached for the switch on the fan next to his desk but stopped himself, his index finger hovering inches above the “On” switch. The thoughts that followed in Stickbob’s brain was enlightening... No, not the fan. The fan is too loud. This room is boiling and the cursed fan wouldn’t help. Why, I should get a new fan soon. The blades are rusting. Rusting and crumbling. Why is this room so hot? Why is the air so damp? It shouldn’t be this bad. April. It’s only april. Why does it have to be so hot, why-- “Why not turn me on!” said the shrill voice of the air conditioner. “Turn me on and you’ll get all the cold you want!” Wha-what? The air conditioner is speaking to me? I must have had dried fish for breakfast. “No! Turn me on instead!” said the crackling sound of the fan. “I’ll use much less electricity.” “You shut up, fan. You don’t even blow cold air. All you do is make more heat.” the air conditioner snapped back. “All you do is put the heat in the atmosphere too. You should be the one that shuts up.” cried the indignant fan. Stickbob looked at them “Why don’t I turn both of you on, then you wouldn’t have to--” “SHUT UP, YOU PIECE OF STICK” both appliances snapped at poor Stickbob. “I was invented a long time before you. Your mechanics are just an extension of me, not to mention, I blow harder.” the fan continued on. “Your mechanics? YOUR mechanics? The only thing I got from you was the stupid blades. I use liquid. Do you? I pump cold air. Do you? People rely on me for comfort. But you? All you do is annoy them with your crackling blades.” At this, the fan jolted with anger. “You should listen to yourself! Loud? Obnoxious? Sounds like that stupid heat unit to me. The gigantic blower outside blowing hot air at innocent passersby. You should be ashamed!” “Now listen here, I’m almost dying of heat. Why don’t--” “SHUT UP, YOU PIECE OF HUMAN STICK” both appliances cried out simultaneously again. “NO I AM NOT SHUTTING UP. THIS IS MY” “SHUT UP, YOU DRIED HUMAN SAUSAGE!” “JUST BLOW YOUR STUPID AIR THEN.” “I will only blow if you get rid of aircon.” the fan declared. “Neither will I turn on unless you throw the fan out the window!” the aircon snapped back. The fan or the aircon? The aircon or the fan? I can’t decide. Grandma says aircons waste energy, but the room so hot. It’s so freaking hot. My head is boiling. My sweat is boiling. What should I do. Which should I choose. “Why don’t you both just turn on and live happily?” Stickbob asked as nicely as he could. “No! Never! As long as this stupid fan lives, I will never turn on. Those loud, gigantic blades annoy me.” “What did you say? How dare you! My blades are beautiful. A work of art. A masterpiece of aerodynamics. You, on the other hand waste energy and deplete resources! You stupid piece of dried fish!” the fan shook terribly with rage. “Me? Draining resources? I HELP people. I save lives. I make people more productive. It’s you who are behind times. It’s you, the noisy little piece of dried fish!” The aircon also shook violently with anger. The combined shaking of the two unlikely appliances rattled everything in the room, including the floor that Stickbob lay sprawled on. A small pool of sweat was forming around Stickbob’s body, it’s stench flooding the room with the smell of rotten meat. The rattling did not stop as the fan and the air conditioner continued their assault, each trying to out-rattle the other. The clock shook and fell onto the floor, its pieces flying everywhere. The stacks of books toppled down with a resounding crash. Crack, crack, crack. Crunch, crunch, crunch. Plop, plop, plop. Clack, cluck, clack, cluck. Crunch, crunch, crunch. The rattling continued relentlessly. “Please guys, please stop shaking.” Stickbob moaned from the floors, his body bouncing up and down violently. “I will not give up!” the fan shouted, its body now a blur. “I refuse to lose!!” the air conditioner cried back, its body also shaking and cracking. The rattling of the nails holding the aircon sounded dangerously loose. I need to stop this, Stickbob thought desperately. I can’t go on like this. This heat is melting my body. This shaking is shattering my bone. What should I do? I really ate too much dried fish. My brain is melting. Urgh! In all honesty, the choice was simple and Stickbob recognized it. Aircon or fan? Which one? He saw the facts, and he saw it clearly. The pros and the cons; they wouldn’t matter now, not unless he chose. Aircon or fan? Fan or Aircon? Suddenly, he knew it. His mind was made up. He struggled up and fought the violent shaking. Step by step, he inched forward, trying not to fall flat on his face. Stickbob knew what his choice was. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Unfortunately for him, so did both appliances, for in that instance, the shaking stopped. Then the fan exploded magnificently, sending waves of fire and heat across the room and throughout the house, burning everything in its paths. Stickbob? More like Skeletonbob. In those final moments, the fan saw it. It saw it in the eyes of the Stickbob. It saw it in his clenching muscles. It saw it in his determined face. The fan saw that Stickbob had chosen the air conditioner, and he paid for it.