Bonnie Gets Fired

When Bonnie woke up, it was to the sound of frogs croaking and insects buzzing. He was laying on something lumpy, and when he raised himself to a seated position he created a cascade of empty cans and bottles. The animatronic looked around, completely and utterly mystified. None of the usual landmarks were present around him. The checkered tiles he was used to were replaced by a carpet of junk, and the only ceiling he could see was a black blanket covered in twinkling lights.

In short, Bonnie had the feeling that he was lost.

High atop an aluminum promontory, Bonnie unsteadily stood up. It was slow going due to the shifting piles of cheap metal beneath his feet, but his massive weight flattened them enough to create a somewhat stable platform. Bonnie surveyed the land around him. Ridges of rubbish stretched between stacks of scrap and mountains of muck. A crane towered over the surrounding, a behemoth of steel which seemed to touch the sky. A stray cat had mounted another on top of a dirty rag.

Unblinking eyes gazed at the landscape, taking everything in. It certainly wasn’t much to look at, but Bonnie looked regardless. His mechanical eyes slowly panned across everything he could see as he tried to make sense of it all.

He was in a landfill, Bonnie was certain of that much. Normally he didn’t have a problem with landfills. In fact, normally he didn’t even think of them at all. This landfill, however, he did have a problem with. A major one, even.

It wasn’t his restaurant.

Therein laid the dilemma which Bonnie was facing. Why was he here? Bonnie was an animatronic, a mechanical children’s entertainer powered by hydraulics and machine code. A landfill was no place for an animatronic. Bonnie scanned the environment to be sure and found that there were, in fact, no children present. So why?

Clambering down from the heap of garbage required some tricky maneuvering. Nothing was stable, no footing solid, and Bonnie had never been agile, or coordinated, or even clumsy. Bonnie was a bit of a disaster, all thumbs and two left feet, so it was something of a miracle that he was making his way to the ground without an accident occurring. So, of course, one did.

Bonnie was in the middle of gingerly testing his weight on a foothold when the tectonics of the trash mountain shifted and everything came apart. He slid and bounced and flailed on his way to the ground, which he collided against with great force. The stray cats startled and yowled before springing apart and vanishing into a washing machine.

All was quiet for a short while. The trash mountain settled, an old refrigerator precariously perched on its precipice and seeming poised to pitch past the point of no return. Bonnie shook the static out of his head, rose to his feet, and wisely got out of the way just in time for it to come tumbling down next to him.

This place was no place for him, Bonnie decided. It was filthy, and dangerous, and there were only a handful of pizzas to be found.

A glow on the horizon grabbed Bonnie’s attention. It was a cool orange against the night sky, an obvious sign of city lights. Unable to come up with anything better, Bonnie face towards it and began to walk.



Landfills were home to all sorts of discarded things. That was their main purpose, in fact. It was still surprising – impressive, even – to see the variety of refuse on display. A small part of Bonnie couldn’t help but admire it. Landfills had a purpose, and this one fulfilled its marvelously.

Perhaps not everything in a landfill was discarded, however. Perhaps some things were simply misplaced. Bonnie was here, after all, and he was certain that there was no reason to discard him. Although, looking down at his costume and seeing several rips which had opened in it during his tumble, if he didn’t get back home soon then there would be.

Home. It was strange for Bonnie to think of Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza as home, but here he was. Several years spent in resentment, and at some point sentimentality had crept in. It had been home at one time, too, so long ago that it was hard for Bonnie to remember. There were only flashes of a house, and the cloying scent of cigarettes, and yelling, and a sense of wonder when he first saw the animatronics.

But then Freddy’s stopped being a home and started being a prison, and like most prisoners Bonnie’s thoughts were full of freedom. Yet here the animatronic was, walking, looking for Freddy’s, wanting nothing more than to get back. He and the others were the face of family fun, after all, and it was hard to be that without being a family, too.

A thunderous bark brought Bonnie’s attention to the outside world once more. A massive dog, covered in scars and chained to its house, was glaring at him with venom in its eyes. Its lips were pulled back in a snarl, teeth bared, and Bonnie had the faint idea that it didn’t like him. What a shame, Bonnie thought to himself. He liked dogs.

The dog proved its dislike with a lunge. Bonnie scrambled backwards, tripping over his own feet in his haste. As the dog descended on Bonnie, the animatronic revised his earlier thoughts. Perhaps he only liked dogs that liked him.

Of course, Bonnie was a robot. There was nothing that the dog could do to truly hurt him. Instead, it ripped away some more of his costume – Bonnie cringed internally – and gnawed on his metal endoskeleton. Evidently, the dog didn’t like its newly sore teeth and backed off. Or perhaps it was due to Bonnie standing up with ease to loom over it, eyes glowing and chest rumbling ominously. One of the two.

The way out of the landfill was right around the corner after that. Actually, there wasn’t a way out at first, just a long stretch of chain-link fencing and an endless expanse of trees, but Bonnie pulled apart the flimsy metal and confidently strode into the woods beyond. Surely civilization, actual civilization with pizza and music and games, was right around the corner.



An hour later Bonnie lumbered out of the tree line, staggered over to the highway going back into town, and stuck out a thumb. He was promptly hit by a truck.

The impact sent Bonnie spinning through the air. The animatronic supposed he could be considered lucky that he hadn’t been hit head on – his extended arm had taken the brunt of the impact – but getting hit by a truck wasn’t lucky at all, so he felt justified in feeling that they cancelled each other out.

The truck screeched to a halt. All was quiet for a moment. Then, the driver stepped out.  “Aw, hell,” he muttered. Then he saw Bonnie, laying on the asphalt and missing an arm. The driver took off his cap and wrung it worriedly in his hands. “Aw, hell.”

The driver paced back and forth, jaw set and mind racing. He was so distracted – and distressed, and disturbed as well – that he failed to notice Bonnie roll over onto his belly. The animatronic rabbit tucked his legs beneath him, braced his hand against the asphalt, and pushed. He promptly toppled over – partially due to his still-scrambled sensors but primarily due to the fact that he was unexpectedly missing a limb.

The second try and standing up went better than the first, and Bonnie took a moment to look over himself. He grimaced. There were more holes in his suit than ever now. Why, he was barely in any condition to entertain children now!

Of course, someone was at fault for his present condition, and so Bonnie marched over to that someone and give them a piece of his mind. He clapped the driver – who was still pacing nervously, and whose hat was twisted into an unrecognizable shape – on the shoulder, spun him around, and prepared himself to unleash a barrage of complaints the likes of which he had only witnessed from the most overzealous of mothers.

Then the driver’s face lit up and he wrapped his arms around Bonnie in a tight hug, and the wind left Bonnie’s sails.

“Shit, man, I thought I’d damn killed you!” The driver released Bonnie from his bear hug and patted some imaginary dust off of him. “You alright? You feeling okay?”

Bonnie mutely nodded.

The driver threw his hands up. “Great!” Then he threw an arm over Bonnie’s shoulder and somewhat forcibly directed him to his truck. “I saw you was thumbing right before I hit ya. You heading anywhere in particular?”

“… Just into town,” Bonnie said quietly.

“That’s what I’m talking about, man. Listen, normally I try to git some payment from hitchhikers; cash, grass, or- well, you git it. But for you? Free of charge.” The driver gave a painfully wide smile. “Consider it an apology.”

The two hopped into the truck, and soon they were on the road. The driver bent down and blindly groped for something, cursing as he went and weaving around on the road as he did so, and Bonnie was suddenly both very concerned for his wellbeing and not at all sure of his decision to hitchhike.

The driver popped back up with a half-eaten cheeseburger, brushed it off, and took a massive bite. Then he turned his radio on – some late-night station with callers calling in to talk about getting abducted by aliens or some such nonsense – and nudged Bonnie with his elbow.

“It’s a ways into town. You wanna lie down in the back? I got a bed back there. Might be some stains from the last lot lizard I picked up, but it’s still good.”

Bonnie shook his head and pressed it against the cold glass window. The animatronic hadn’t thought that machines could get headaches, but then again, he also hadn’t thought that he would ever share a cabin with a trucker, or wander lost through a forest chased by wildlife, or wake up in a landfill. In that regard, tonight had been a night of firsts.

Bonnie had only been in the truck a few minutes and he already regretted everything, up to an including not letting the fridge land on him. A few minutes wasn’t a long time usually, but it was a long time when it had to be spent trapped with someone who was now complaining about their ex-wife and his kids and how she’d “poisoned their damn minds” and made them not want to be around him anymore. That in mind, Bonnie settled in and tried to ignore his more violent urges.

“So, you one a them “funny animal” enthusiasts?”



An indeterminate amount of time later – Bonnie didn’t know how much and honestly didn’t care – the truck drove into town and parked behind a large grocery store. Freedom within his grasp, Bonnie deliriously grappled with the door handle and tumbled out of the vehicle. He face-planted on the cigarette-strewn asphalt, clumsily pushed to his feet, and scrammed.

Street lamps and the moon were the only sources of light by which Bonnie could navigate. The cameras making up his eyes were well adapted to darkness, however – mostly due to wandering an unlit restaurant every night – and so he only occasionally stumbled over cracks in the sidewalk, curbs, and his own feet.

Bonnie supposed it could be considered a lucky break that the grocery store he got dropped off at was one he was familiar with. It had been a while and he could barely remember those days, but the sight of the store made him twinge with nostalgia at hazy, slightly happier memories. Regardless, he could puzzle out the route to Freddy Fazbear’s from there.

The moon was hanging low in the sky, the stars were beginning to fade, and the slightest tinge of orange was peeking over the horizon by the time Bonnie rounded the corner onto the street the restaurant was on. The sight nearly overwhelmed the animatronic; had he had tear ducts, he may have even cried. The feelings of relief almost bowled Bonnie over, and he took a moment to steady himself and stamp down the surprise at how happy he was to see the place.

A moment later the corporate loyalty subroutines in his head were deleted, and Bonnie went back to feeling disdain and grudging tolerance towards the building.

Freddy Fazbear’s was firmly and securely locked down. All doors were locked, all lights were turned off, and Bonnie was sure that the roof access would be shut if he could manage to reach it. So, the animatronic did the only logical thing. He ran.

Bonnie crashed through the front door headfirst. Glass shattered and flew through the air. Iron warped and buckled. Bonnie was unsteady and the best of times and these were anything but, and so it wasn’t surprising in the least when he slid face-first across the floor. In fact, he viewed it with a sort of clinical detachment.

Unfortunately, Bonnie’s face had undergone a lot of punishment over the past few hours, and when he got to his feet, he saw the front half of his face lying on the floor amidst glass.

Bonnie ignored it. He ignored the silent alarm that was no doubt blaring, as well – whoever was working the night shift could take care of it. He also ignored the puppet, who whispered a name that wasn’t his name as he passed. The replacements were also ignored, something Bonnie was quite skilled at.

Bonnie walked past all of this. Past the prize corner, past the carousel, past the other animatronics, past the guard whose panicked rushing left him running headfirst into the animatronic. Bonnie walked past everything, strolled into Parts and Service, and looked at his friends who stood there in shock. Chica’s arms had locked up again, he knew, otherwise she would have already rushed over to hug him.

Bonnie looked down at his missing arm, and at the holes in his suit, and felt for his missing face, and let out a weary sigh. “You guys would not believe the night I’ve had.”

As much as he disliked this place, and as much as he didn’t want to be here – the feeling was mutual, he was certain – Bonnie was finally home.