Courageous Companions: Jimmy Cruz's Animatronic Adventure

The year is 1795. Jimmy Cruz, a young adolescent fox, just celebrated his fifteenth birthday and is on the precipice of a big life change. He’s desperate to make something of himself, even if he hasn’t quite figured out what that is yet. Feeling edgy, Jimmy decides to blow his pocket money on something extravagant and forbidden, a pair of the newest and chicest sneakers imported from the Orient. This was probably not the wisest use of funds, but he felt like the shoes made a statement My life has only just begun.

Considering how few sparks Jimmy had left in his pouch, he eagerly took the chance to hop onto an old retrofitted ice cream truck for love of the open road as it took off rolling along the cobblestoned streets of America. The burning molasses underneath the wheels brought forth memories of a simpler, life-at-pace time of rhymes and times and lessons learnt from the bold and bright wonders of the world outside.

But as the truck puttered out of town, the gears that kept rolling under its hood changed along with the atmosphere, the mood of the journey, the sights he beheld in the side-of-the-road landscapes, the carousel rides without music, and the mannequins that flanked the silent amusement park. With every turn, it seemed they drew closer and closer to an ominous display of lights blinking a warning of a pending adventure.

And to Jimmy’s surprise, an adventure appeared most unexpectedly in the form of wizened robots. Anthropomorphic animatronic figures reveal themselves to Jimmy behind the steel of the ice cream truck and swear they can grant him aid, a way out if he listens. But in order to understand and connect with the need of their mission - rescuing a misaligned society - Jimmy must first free himself of his own inner struggles associated with adolescence social acceptance, belonging, identity, unrequited love, and etcetera.

Unable to ever turn his nose up at good companionship – of varieties robot, mammalian, ant and infusoria alike - Jimmy lets the stories pour forth from their lips and finds that the pain and awkwardness of teenage life can be found in many different worlds and in many different forms. Together, their task is to resurrect the balance of freedom, expression and beauty that originally unified multiple species of folks from their utopia gone wrong.

But these boys and girls on an ice cream truck mission (his heart a chime echoing rhythm to cause) find no escape knob fit to trickle down the main antagonist threatening perpetual tyranny upon all metacommunities; No button in sight to substitute current conditions of despair and yearning into order and striving, no quick fix for the justice this journey knows it seeks. It takes real bravery, a wit that ventures even in nostalgia and the fortitude of several strong souls for Jimmy to achieve what he must not just for the place and its people, but also for his own inner growth over its course.

Some days after following winding caves, channels, rivers and highways, Jimmy and his brave cohort return seemingly victorious. The adventure is over, but the scars a dues to be paid. It is time for everyone involved in the strife to take their longer step back and notice the numerous albeit positive changes brought by their actions - art blossoming, hospitality flows or emergent leadership springing up at every given turn.

At last, gathering accomplishments well earned, Jimmy climbs off the ice cream truck ready to make his mark on the world while carrying a newfound flame of nerve, standing on the toes of sneakers which provided the edge his story most needed. For a chance. As always. But this time, he recognizes fully well that he can himself trigger sparks from his life that can last much longer with the courageous story he just lent his small portion of life to.

Jimmy takes a step forward and sets off ready for the unknown future and everything it will bring for him. An open road is lying ahead and infinite possibilities of plenty of action and bonfires, with no doubt more lessons to be learnt and old friendships and scars to swell up forever.

With a spring in his step, Jimmy brings with him stories of a life, a summer full of intense lessons, a true friendship and a path of growth, affirmation, and indomitableness. Retracing back home and saving communities through his own coming of age made Jimmy the hero of his day that fueled the fire within and pointed his journey onwards and upwards, a belief that now and ever onwards that perseverance in the seeking despite a pocket empty of funds, that he, Jimmy Cruz, really had the power all along to do the extraordinary then and there, alone with his ice cream and sneakers.