Chapter 1 - The Undiggening

Bottle paced. From an observational perspective it probably looked more like he was constantly remembering to go get something he forgot in a different direction, but we'll go with pacing. "I need therapy," he said out loud to no one in particular. 

Finally, after a couple more false starts, he wound his way over to Skip's office. He got as far as "Shave and a hair" before he saw the crayon scribbled note on the door. 

"Not here. Gone fishing. Skip, the Editor." 

"Didn't know we had a lake around here," Bottle said to the door. "Sandra! You up there?!" 

"If you have to ask, then no," came the distant reply. 

"Fair enough. I guess it's back to the bakery to cook up a batch of imaginary minions to do all the heavy lifting." 

Several hours of crashes, disturbingly gloopy sounds, and the occasional half-hearted swear word later, there came the tiniest of meeps. Then another. Then a few more. Like a kettle full of popcorn, the cacophany rose and fell, until Bottle finally addressed the mostly unsinged crowd around him. 

"Hello, friends. I need a favor. Somewhere around here is a cave obscured by boulders. Would you please unobscure said cave?" 

Meep? 

"What's in it for you? Did i mistakenly use tablespoons instead of teaspoons for the sassafras? Stuff. Move the boulders then go forth and meep yourselves silly. One rule though. You hear me snapping, you have a choice to make. Help me with whatever ridiculous thing needs shaked and baked, or i'm likely to forget to keep reimagining this universe in the morning. Your choice, i'm good either way, but you might not be here to find out. Sound fair?" 

Meep meep. 

"I'll take that as a yes. Run along, i can fix my own typos and brow beat the words i shouldn't have said myself, but not without a soundtrack. I need the Compmeister, stat. Now, skedaddle." 

And skedaddle they did. I'll leave it to you dear reader to imagine a plague of locusts, or whatever metaphor you prefer, just some bunch of things running all higgly piggly and throwing the cards out of the card catalogue like in the prologue to Ghostbusters. While you're at it, just imagine they found Compy and expect a new batch of records for Bottle to bemusedly banter about. 

Sorry, i'm not exactly omniscient here. The hole in the floorboards only allows so much of a view, you know? Plus, there's a lot of heavy mail lately, and Bottle isn't exactly handing out raises 'round here, so you get what i'm giving. Bridbrad out.

Chapter 2