June 2026 - Vol. 23, Issue 3

The butt got closer to me.

Then closer.

Even closer, getting bigger as it got nearer to me.

So big now.

I couldn’t see anything else.

Well, I couldn’t see, or hear, but I could sense it.

Oh wait, something under it. The butt was sliding at me on something.

Then a fart. Not a problem, I can’t smell, either. But somehow I knew it happened.

As it neared, I could see the fabric of the black pants. Some kind of fancy polyester, I think. Stretchy stuff.  Maybe. I don’t pretend to be an expert.

“Almost there,” a voice said woodenly, mostly because it came from something made of wood. Again, I can’t hear, but I could feel the voice.

“Coming in for a landing,” I joked, even though I was the landing area.

Another fart.

Then, one of the legs leading up to the butt started shaking uncontrollably. I think they call them spasms.

“Uh-oh, turbulence,” I said.

“It’s okay” the voice said again. “We’re nearing landing now.”

Then there was a surge and the butt suddenly landed right on top of me.

I cushioned the landing and settled as the butt shifted for the best position.

The thing it slid on, which was something called a wooden sliding board, did its thing and was pulled out, sliding with a varnish until just the butt was on me.

“Later, dude,” I said to the board as it went off to do nothing until needed again.

“Yeah, time for me to meditate about when I was a tree,” it responded.

Meanwhile, the butt settled in.

An arm reached back and a hand grabbed my arm-rest, which had been lifted to give room to slide onto me from the side. It was swung back into position and snapped into place. The butt creature was safe now from falling off me to that side. The other arm-rest was still in position.

Hands reached down and grabbed both of my wheels. For some reason my rider grabs the whole wheel, not the really cool hand bars that are attached. I think his hands don’t function as they should, but how would I know? I’m a wheelchair.

We wheeled on my magnificent wheels forward, and he grabbed the footrests that he had stored onto the bar of a commode for the night.

“Ah, glad to get those off me,” the commode said.

“You can carry the whole weight of one of these live creatures, but just holding my very light, streamlined and beautifully colored light footrests overnight are a problem?” I said sarcastically.

“Yeah, well, maybe …” the commode stammered.

My occupant heard none of this. He, or it, whatever, can’t hear us inanimate objects communicate, same as we can’t hear them, assuming they do. For all I know, they don’t. I also suspect other live entities, like plants, can speak to each other, but I have no way to prove it. And I guess I didn’t really care. For all I know, the stars talk to each other. But I’m not going to space, so, shrug. Well, a wheelchair shrug.

The owner of the butt pulled his legs up on my awesome footrests, and the feet settled down against the strap that kept them from sliding off.

The closet was nearby, and I could feel the headrest that was made to be part of me sitting in on a shelf inside. My rider didn’t need the headrest. It felt sort of weird to be detached from it.

My thoughts were interrupted when there was a push forward with one of my wheels combined with a push back with the other and we expertly turned to face the doorway. We wheeled forward, and the door said, “Enter.” It said the same thing if we were going from the room to the hallway, or going from the hallway to the room. It all hinges on its knobby perspective. But it has a boring existence, so it didn’t matter to me and my butt rider heard none of it.

When we moved into the hallway, there was a shriek.

It happened every time, so it didn’t bother me.

“Relax,” I said to the hallway wall. “We aren’t going to scrape you.”

“But you scraped me before,” it cried. “Look.”

Indeed there were some deep cuts near its bottom, at exactly the height as the sharp edges of my footrests.

“That’s true,” I said calmly. “But we haven’t scraped you again in a long time. It doesn’t happen anymore.”

“Mine hasn’t healed yet,” the trim around the bathroom door moaned.

“Mine either,” the trim of the bedroom door said.

This was true. All around the house, there were places my footrests had scraped. The lower kitchen cabinets, the bottom of the refrigerator, the legs of the dining room table. All of them had gashes.

“C’mon everyone. We have this conversation every day. I’m sure butt-owner feels horrible about it. But he doesn’t do it anymore. That all happened when we first came home from the hospital and he was learning how to get around.”

They kept griping, but I ignored them as usual, and soon we were moving into the dining room where one of the four-legged live things came out and sniffed at me, and got pet from butt-owner. I’m sure it was jealous of how I could smoothly roll on my beautiful tires. Well, my beautiful tires which were starting to run down the rubber part some. But otherwise, beautiful.

Then we pulled near the cabinets and there were some gasps of fear from the scrapes at their bottoms. But we missed them due to the increased ability of my rider and he got something he called ‘food.’ Food, what a strange concept. They would put things in one part of their body and disgorge it in a different form from another part of their bodies later. I didn’t see the sense of it. If you don’t put anything in, nothing will come out.

But that was their problem. I didn’t mind a few things like a nice wipe, a squirt of lubricant maybe, but I didn’t need it to survive while it seemed as if they did.

We moved under the dining room table and part of me slid under it.

“Don’t scratch me.” The table hissed. I could see where it had a gash on one of its legs. I didn’t understand its legs. It couldn’t walk. But neither could my butt rider.

“Don’t worry about it,” I replied calmly.

It didn’t answer, but I could sense its discomfort.

After my butt rider finished the strange task of putting things in the small opening on the ball that rested on his body, he pulled us back from the table, which gave a sigh, well, not a sigh, for it couldn’t breathe, but a feeling of relief.

“See, told you,” I said.

But somehow, my rider did mess up, and my footrest brushed up gently against one of the table’s non-walking legs, causing no damage.

“Aaaaagh!!!!” it cried, not making a real noise a live creature could hear, though my butt rider’s four-legged pet-thing cocked a head at us.

“Relax,” I said to the table soothingly. “We barely touched you.”

“My leg!” it shrieked again.

I could hear other scraped victims, the cabinets, walls, doorways, all whining in sympathy.

“Let’s just table this for later,” I said with a smile embedded in the tone of our method of communicating. The bed had nothing to do with it.

That shut the table’s whining. “Funny … not,” it snarled.

“I’m floored by all of this,” the floor sniped.

Fortunately, we rolled away from the crying and whining, and went to the sliding glass door leading out of the building. The building itself could communicate with us, weird in that the walls and floors and doors were all components of it, but I chose not to consider the strangeness of it, mostly because I didn’t care. But the house ignored small objects like me. I think it was a pride thing. It chose to speak to other houses and buildings, though it would deign to speak with a vehicle once in a while. I felt some commonality with vehicles, because we all had wheels and transported butts around. Some of these vehicles would actually be opened for me to enter and ride in.

But not today.

We rolled onto a short rubber ramp and my rider opened the glass door. The door was quiet because my footrests had never hurt it. Then we went over the slider and onto a longer metal ramp on the outside. It had some tape on it that provided me with grip, so I didn’t slide. Butt rider stopped partially down the deck, put on my awesome brakes, and reached back to close the door, paw-sing, er pausing to let its four-legged pet skip happily outside and go into the grass to probably rid itself of things it had ingested internally.

Then he released my brakes, and as we went down, my butt rider didn’t have as firm a grip as normal on his left hand to brake our descent, and it slipped, causing us to roll to the right and my front small tire banged onto the guide that ran down the sides of the ramp to protect against this very thing.

“Careful!” the ramp called out.

Butt rider tightened his grip and we swung to the left, just missing the protective guide on the other side. Then we were straightened out, and we made it the rest of the way without further mishap, landing on the wood deck with a small bump. Then I was rolling more freely.

We stopped on the deck, and just sat there. I was glad we didn’t go into the yard because that would get dirt and mud in my tires.

I don’t have much concept of time, but I know we were there for longer than normal. Just not moving. I didn’t care one way or another. Occasionally the four-legged live creature would go by, taking a sniff of my tires or sometimes smelling the feet of my butt rider.

And we sat there.

And sat there.

Again, it wasn’t something that made me feel one way or another, but even I could sense it was different than previous times.

We sat there more, my butt rider not moving.

I didn’t care.

Until a water drop hit me.

I don’t like water. I know what rust is. It was explained to me by the metal swing in the yard. Water is not good for metal, and I am metal.

I had been hit by water before, so I wasn’t concerned yet, but drops kept coming down.

Then they multiplied and came with greater force. The four-legged live creature whimpered and retreated to a dry spot under the roof eaves.

But my butt-owner did nothing.

I could not move on my own, and now I could sense that the water was increasing. The padding on top of my armrests were worn out some and the foam was exposed. The water began to fall into and soak the padding.

But we remained still.

Water slid off the legs of my butt creature and streamed onto my cushion. I could feel the water spreading into and through the cushion.

But my butt-owner did nothing.

And I did nothing. Water came down, came down some more, filled and saturated anything made of cloth. Drops slid down my other parts, exploring everything they could.

“Sorry, wish I could help you,” a voice said.

I realized it was the house speaking. It had never done that before. It just let its parts talk, ceilings, floors, doors. It made me wonder if perhaps the house was connected with its parts more than I was with my parts.

“Thanks,” I replied. I didn’t know what else to say.

I just sat there with my butt rider, his four-legged creature sitting uncomfortably nearby.

I don’t know how much time went by, but time went by, I’m sure.

I don’t know daylight from nighttime, other than when my butt-owner goes onto his bed, and then at a later time returns to me.

But time went by.

The rain finally stopped. At one point, I asked the water if it could communicate, like the table, the wall and me, but it remained silent.

I don’t know if it was deliberate or it wasn’t capable.

Then the four-legged live creature started moving excitedly. Again, I do not know if it communicated, but then the door opened, and the four-legged creature was moving more.

Another butt creature was then next to me, its hands briefly touching my armrests.

Then it went behind me and grabbed the handles. Now I recognized it. It was a creature that came on a regular basis before butt-owner went to bed for reasons I did not know.  It was moving quicker than normal, and propelled me up the ramp and into the house.

Inside, we stopped. My butt-owner was still non-moving.

Other creatures appeared and my butt-owner was lifted off me and put onto another rider that was like me, but also like the bed. It had wheels, like me, but butt rider could lay down. Then butt rider was taken out the door.

I was left sitting next to the table.

“You okay?” the table said without its usual snark.

“Yes. But I’m wet,” I replied.

“I get it. I get wet all the time,” it said.

Time went by. My butt-rider did not return.

Later, another similar creature moved me, but not into my normal room. I was put into another room that also had a bookcase and a bed, but was almost never occupied.

I was moved next to another wheelchair. It was the one that was electronic, but not used as often. We met on occasion when my butt rider was moved from me to the other wheelchair.

But that was not the case now.

Neither of us were being used. We just sat there, like many other items, like the shelves and the bed. But it was normal for them, not us. I noticed books on the shelves, and tried to see if they would talk, but they were non-responsive. I’m sure they had some great stories to tell.

Time went by, I think.

Then more.

I did nothing, and nothing was done to me.

It’s okay, I am not something that needs action, but I think in a way I missed my butt. Or maybe I thought I did. I did not think I was a creature that wonders, but to my surprise, I did. What happened to my butt-rider?

I never saw his butt again.

Time went by.

Eventually a butt creature came into the room, and took my handles. I did not recognize the hands. It took me out of the room, and then it removed both of my armrests. Then, to my surprise, new armrests were attached to me. Fresh wheels. The padding on top was new and undamaged. I was thoroughly wiped. After I was cleaned, my seat cushion was also replaced. Then I was folded, and put into a larger device with wheels.

At some point, the device with wheels stopped and I was taken out, and unfolded and my footrests were put back on. I was clean and new with new armrests and seat cushion.

A butt creature wheeled me into a building I did not know. I didn’t attempt to communicate with the building because I knew how buildings felt about speaking to non-buildings.

Finally I was brought into a room. My brakes were applied, and a wooden object slid onto me from a bed.

Then a butt started approaching me.

The butt got closer to me.

Then closer.

Even closer, getting bigger as it got nearer to me.

So big now.

Different than the butt I had known.

I couldn’t see anything else.

It farted.