By Ed Staskus

   Shelly’s Lego Man started off small, less than an inch tall, when she started building him. He didn’t stay small for long. Every day Shelly made him bigger. By the end of the month he was as big as her, which was just shy of five foot tall. Less than a month later he was eight feet tall and wouldn’t fit in the house anymore. She moved him outside behind the garage, under an eave so he wouldn’t get wet.

   One day she noticed her supply of Lego plates, tiles, and bricks, the basic building blocks, was running low. She scratched her head in bewilderment. She hadn’t been working on anything lately. Where were all the pieces going?

   She found out where they were going on a Saturday. It was a fine sunny day. She and Amelia, a friend of hers, had gone for a walk along the railroad tracks as far as Lane Rd., went back on S. Ridge Rd. and cut through Canterbury Crossing to return to their housing development.

   “Do you want to see my Lego Man?” Shelly asked Amelia.

   “That would be fun.”

    When they got to where Lego Man was supposed to be behind the garage, he wasn’t there.

   “What happened to him?”

   “He couldn’t have just walked away,” Amelia said.

   They heard a car horn on Park Rd, tires screeching, and then another car horn. They ran down Trotter Ln. to Park Rd. and saw Lego Man tramping past the Cedar Glen Condominiums. He was nineteen feet tall.

   How did he get so big, Shelly wondered, and in a flash realized he had raided all her Lego building blocks. He was building himself. What she didn’t realize was that Lego Man had tapped into AI and was teaching himself how to make his way in the world. Might Makes Right is what he had learned so far. After he found that out he decided it was all he needed to know. He shut off the modem that connected him to the internet.

   When Lego Man crossed Welch Rd. and got to the railroad tracks the gates were closing. He ignored them, lumbering through them like they were matchsticks. When the train got to the crossing it stopped, the engineer took one look at Lego Man, and turned the train around.

   Lego Man saw 1922 Coffee and Brew on the corner and stopped there for a take-out coffee. He ordered three gallons with lots of sugar. He had a sweet tooth. When it came time to pay for it he realized he didn’t have any money. He stomped the building flat.

   A Dollar General store was across the street. He needed more Lego building blocks if he was going to get bigger. When he found out Dollar General didn’t have any, he flattened that building, too. He was learning to love Might Makes Right.

   He tramped down Madison Ave., watching cars swerve in all directions. Sirens sounded in the distance. The sirens didn’t bother him overmuch, but he knew he needed to get bigger. He thought five hundred feet tall would be about right. When he got bigger no sirens were going to stop him.

   Nothing was going to stop him. Might Makes Right. He loved the sound of it. He thought he might get a red tie so everyone would know who he was. They would see the red tie and know he was the Great Lego Man. He went back to Dollar General and pawed through the rubble. He found a red tie. He also found an orangey blond wig in the style of a comb-over. He didn’t know what a comb-over was, but he knew what he liked. He slapped it on top of his head. He took a selfie and checked himself out. He thought he looked great. He felt great. He was great, no doubts about it.

   He plodded down S. Ridge Rd. He had grown so fast his balance was bad. He definitely didn’t want to fall down. If he did he would break apart into a million Lego pieces and his greatness would be all gone. He tightened the knot of his tie he had to get bigger. He had to get so big that he would never fall.

   Lego Man slowed down when he saw the blockade ahead of him. It was the National Guard. They had taken a break from chasing immigrants. They were chasing him. He looked to his right. There was a forest. He wasn’t big enough yet to walk over the trees. He looked to his left. He saw a small church. It was the Church of Jesus Christ. Maybe if he knelt  down in front of the church and pretended to be saying his prayers they would leave him alone. 

   He put his hands together and signaled to the National Guard that he was going to church. They sprayed him with a water cannon, taking him by surprise and almost knocking him over. Lego Man didn’t like that. He stomped over to the water cannon truck and flattened it. 

   The National Guard sent for reinforcements, including flame throwers. Lego Man didn’t like flame throwers. Although he was made of ABS, a durable plastic that had clutch power, and up-to-date SEBS, plastic was still plastic. It and flame throwers didn’t mix. He would melt in a flash.

   He retreated to the Church of Jesus Christ, but since he didn’t believe in the Ten Commandments, or anything like that. he flattened it instead of stopping and repenting for the warpath he was on. Repentance was for suckers, anyway.

   He thought he might lose himself in the thick twelve foot high cattails behind the Canterbury Crossing condominium community if he crouched down. He was doing just that when he saw the one hundred and twenty foot cell tower at the far end of the cattail field. Why was the cell tower so much bigger than him? He lumbered over to it, pushed it with all his might, and toppled it. When he did the internet went out all over the neighborhood, including Oliver and Emma’s house, whose back patio faced the flattened Church of Jesus Christ.

   Oliver and his sister Emma were the Monster Hunters of Lake County. The Lego Man didn’t know anything about them. He was going to have face the consequences.

   “What happened?” their father asked coming down from his home office on the second floor. “Did you kids do something to the internet?”

   Oliver and Emma had been having lunch, hashing out their plans for the rest of the day.

   “It wasn’t us. Maybe something happened to the tower.”

   The cell tower had been erected three years earlier, and although it was an eyesore, it made the internet reliable. Oliver looked out the sliding glass back door.

   “There’s some kind of gigantic Lego thing out there mashing the tower,” he said.

   “Oh, that’s just great. I’m in the middle of a project. Ollie, can you go out there and make him stop. In the meantime I’ll have to hotspot off my phone.”

   “OK, dad.”

   Oliver and Emma went outside. Lego Man was still on the warpath, throwing galvanized steel pieces of the ex-tower all over the place.

   “Who does he think is going to clean that up?” Emma asked.

   “And what’s with the weird hair?” Oliver asked. “We can’t let him do whatever he wants, like wrecking things.”

   “What can we do?”

   “Oh, that’s easy” Oliver said.

   Emma followed her brother as they approached Lego Man, who was breathing heavy. He didn’t notice them. Oliver snuck up to him and pulled one Lego brick from the back of his right heel. When he did Lego Man begam to wobble. He swayed back and forth. His right foot disintegrated, Lego bricks littering the ground. When his foot was completely gone he completely lost his balance. He fell over and fell apart, Lego bricks spilling all over the place. Lego Man was no more. It took the National Guard the rest of the day to pick up all the pieces.

   “Why do you think he was wearing a red tie?” Oliver asked as they walked back to their  house.

   Emma was two years older than him. She was his right hand man. She knew almost everything.

   “Red is supposed to stand for power and authority,” she said. “Maybe he though he didn’t have enough of it, so he wore a red tie to make himself believe he was powerful. It’s the kind of thing grown-ups do.”

   “Oh, right,” Oliver said. “What about the hair?”

   “I’m in the dark about that. Anyway, I don’t know that I want to know.”

Illustration by Everett Schaser.