Bonky isn’t like you or me. He’s a Stormer, product code 313, manufactured by a company called Karma. He has a bar code that he might show you if you ask nicely. He looks a bit like how a tall, muscly person with a horse’s head might look if they had had all their skin taken off. Some people think this means Bonky isn’t a proper person. This makes Bonky a little sad, sometimes. But mostly Bonky is happy. He works for a company called SLA Industries, sorting out problems and helping people. When there’s something that needs fixing, Bonky’s boss calls him up and asks Bonky and his friends to go out and fix it. Bonky likes his job, mostly. It gets him out and about and lets him meet new people. Albeit, in most cases, briefly.

Today, Bonky has a little headache. He left his stereo on last night before he went to bed, and his stereo doesn’t have a volume control. Bonky groans slightly at the sound of “Thrash Choon Bang” which has been on repeat for the last eight hours. The floor trembles slightly every time the bass drum plays. He slaps the stereo to turn it off and the music stops. A little puff of smoke comes out from the back of the CD player, and it makes a sad noise, like ‘pffft’. Bonky sighs. He’ll get Jen to look at it again. She can always fix things when Bonky breaks them.

Jen lives just down the hall from Bonky. She works at a local restaurant, although Bonky knows what she really likes doing is taking things apart and seeing how they work. Jen is always interested when Bonky has broken something new, and usually she can fix it so it works again. She helps Bonky do sums as well, when Bonky’s boss and bank manager phone him and tell him he needs more money. Jen is Bonky’s friend, and although he has lots of friends, Jen is his best friend of all. Soemtimes Bonky has a funny feeling in his tummy when he sees her, but often thats when he goes to see her at work, and it usually goes away when he has a chili-extra-burger-with-no-lettuce-or-gherkins-thankyou.

At the moment, however, Bonky’s first priority is getting Properly Woken Up. He tries some physical jerks, jumping up and down and getting warmed up for the day to come. Bits of plaster rain down from the ceiling above him and tickle his nose a little. Bonky sneezes several times and stops jumping. He ’ s quite warm now, thankyou-very-much. Besides, that thumping noise from the floor below seems to have come back again. Perhaps he’ll stop by Mr. Carstairs’ office on the way out and report it again. Mr Carstairs is the janitor for the building, and has a small office in the basement, next to a humming power plant that provides all the electricity for the building. Mr Carstairs only has one eye as DarkNight took the other, and Mr Carstairs can ’t afford a new one. Bonky has offered to buy him a new one lots of times but whenever he mentions it to Blake the financier Blake just smiles in that funny way and goes on to show Bonky that it really isn’t the right time at the moment, but after the next job it might be the right time.

Still, Mr. Carstairs can be fun sometimes, and he often gives Bonky a cup of tea. Sometimes he will tell Bonky a story, too, about life on New Novgorod, a place far away where Mr. Carstairs once lived. Although the stories can be long sometimes, and Bonky will fall asleep. When he wakes up he will usually find Mr. Carstairs looking at him in that funny way that some people have, that sad-and-smiling-all-at-once look. Once Bonky thought Mr. Carstairs might have been crying. Bonky asked why and helped look for whatever it was that was stuck in Mr. Carstairs’ eye. He didn’t find anything, though.

A shrill, repeating tone jerks Bonky from this slight reverie, and he realises he is late for something. He checks his Chunk-O-Watch and sees that yes he is due to meet the other members of his team inside the Donut Hut in thirty minutes. Bonky sighs and turns the alarm off before its high pitched wailing threatens the remaining glasses in the kitchen. Pausing only to drink a cup of instant KO-fee, he pulls on some Kick Jeans and a Karmalite jacket and heads out of the door. Mel took him clothes shopping last week and he has yet to break, scuff, mark or dismember a single item they bought, a fact which brings endless pleasure to his friend. Bonky turns the light off before he leaves and heads out of his apartment block, taking the stairs three at a time. He would normally knock to see if Jen was awake but he’s in a hurry today and besides it is light outside so there is not much point. He isn’t afraid of anything very much but waking up Jen before she is ready is never high on his list of priorities. Bonky turns up the collar of his jacket and makes tracks.

NEXT

Comments to e l l i o t

More of elliot's stuff

Back to Pandora