Sidewalk Heroes

A Beyond Recognition Production

Forty sat, rocking back and forth impatiently on the sidewalk, turning his head every few seconds to watch a car pass. Reaching into the cargo pocket of the baggy cut-off camo shorts he was wearing, the gray-furred spotted hyena retrieved a green lighter and a pack of cigarettes. Wasting no time, he quickly stuffed one in his muzzle and lit it up. Taking a long drag off it, he looked over his shoulder as he heard someone approaching from behind. 

“Fuckin' A, Zip, it took you long enough. Where's my beer, duck face?” Forty said, as a brown-furred platypus in a black teeshirt and green plaid shorts sat down next to him on the sidewalk and set down a large brown paper bag. 

“What? I was gone like two seconds. Chill the fuck out.” Zip Tie reached into the brown bag and took a forty ounce bottle of malt liquor out and handed it to Forty, who immediately cracked it and took a long swig. Zip Tie laughed and took another bottle of malt liquor and a carton of eggs from the bag. He opened his beer and took a sip, setting the carton of eggs down on the ground between he and Forty. “So, anything exciting happen in the decades I've been gone?” the platypus asked.

“Fuck you, you were gone like 20 minutes.”

“Nice welcome back, considering I bought the beer and the eggs.”

Forty set his beer down and reached down and opened the carton of eggs. “Nah, nothing all that interesting. Today is boring.”

Zip Tie took another swig off his beer. “You're telling me, fag bait.”

Forty looked over at Zip Tie. “The fuck did you just call me?”

The platypus chuckled and reached over, taking Forty's pack of cigarettes out of the breast pocket of the white short sleeve button up shirt the hyena was wearing. “Nothing.”

Forty nodded and compulsively pulled his black knit cap down tighter over his head. “That's what I thought, paddle ass.”

Zip Tie took a cigarette from Forty's pack and lit it up, taking a deep drag before returning the pack to Forty's pocket. The platypus laughed. “So what if it's flat? At least I got a nice big tail I can be proud of. Not like you, hyena boy, with your little bottle brush tail.”

Forty's eye twitched as he slowly turned his head and stared at his friend. “That was low, dude...”

Zip Tie nodded and patted Forty on the back. “Okay, okay... I'm sorry.”

Forty flicked the remnants of his finished cigarette out into the street before turning his attention to his beer. After indulging in several long gulps, he looked over at the platypus sitting next to him. “Hey, Zip Tie?

The platypus rolled his head to the side; his large paddle tail thumped once against the sidewalk. “Yeah Forty?”

Forty took another deep swig off his beer and looked up at the blue early afternoon sky. “You think we do this over and over again? Or maybe when we die, our energy maintains our memories and being, but evolves into a higher level of consciousness?”

Zip Tie rubbed the underside of his bill with a webbed paw. “Hmm. It's a pretty deep question, Forty. The subject of what happens to us after we die is probably one of the oldest discussed topics since we first had free will and conscious thought. Definitely a subject that has been thoroughly mulled over and discussed by philosophers,  poets, and artists, a subject as old as known history itself. A concept intensely debated and frequently killed over by most world religions. It seems to be the one true enigma of our existence here as we know it.”

Zip Tie belched loudly.

Forty nodded sagely. “It really does seem to be the one great mystery of this cosmic roller coaster we call life. I do find myself frequently pondering this question. Could it be possible for one of the many religions we have to be, in fact, correct? Or, once our body ceases to be, is our existence just the first step in a cosmic metamorphosis, becoming part of something larger than ourselves? Like a universal collective consciousness so to speak... I hate to think of the other possibility: of an empty void and nothingness awaiting us upon our demise. I do agree with you however, that it does seem to be that question that we won't have an answer to until we make that final transition from this existence to the next, or lack of one, if that be the case.”

Zip Tie lifted his beer to his bill and took a long swig. Suddenly, his eyes went wide as he spit his beer out and started pointing with his free paw. “Ooo Forty! There! Prius! Prius!!”

Forty and Zip Tie quickly set down their beers and grabbed several eggs from the open carton. Standing quickly, they began hurling the eggs at a light blue Toyota Prius that was driving down the road. “Suck eggs, hippie!!” Zip Tie yelled as a half dozen eggs found their mark on the small hybrid car, splattering egg shells, slime and yolk all over it. As the car screeched to a halt, Forty and Zip Tie looked at each other momentarily and gave each other a fist bump before snatching their beers off the ground. They took off running as fast as they could, laughing hysterically.

Bastards.