(Trigger warning for gun violence)

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BRAINY SMURF: Dopey found it. You know Dopey. You’d send him to fetch a book or a mirror or a whisk, and he’d come back with just absolutely anything but. We’d gamed it out long ago, or I had, rather. Done the math and landed on the notion that inessential errands would keep him from being underfoot, which, good, but never send him out for something necessary.

HEFTY SMURF: It was funny. Send Dopey out and see what he comes back with. We were laughing with him, you know? We’re not bad Smurfs. We love Dopey.

SCAREDY SMURF: All kinds of stuff out there. We’re not scavengers. But we find things sometimes from Gargamel’s world. Accidentally. But you know what’s out there in Gargamel’s world? Gargamel. So yeah. No way I’m going out there. You know what they should call me? “Sensible Smurf.”

BRAINY SMURF: I thought I was so smart. You know what I sent him out for? Oh, how clever of me, how very very brainy indeed. I sent him out for a breath of fresh air. For me? For him? For both of us, if I’m being honest. I never thought he’d come back with — with… that. I! I never thought. All I do is think! And I never ever thought… (breaks down crying)

NOSEY SMURF: I just wanted to know what the smurf it was. We all did. We’d never seen anything like it.

HANDY SMURF: It looked like a tool to me. It was clearly something from the age of giants. You can tell that sort of thing by the size. It was about four apples long, two apples high. We didn’t know it then, but it had been smurfed in the smurfs of hell.

SMURFETTE: It was Vanity’s idea. He’d be the first to tell you, I’m sure.

(Vanity Smurf declined to be interviewed)

HANDY SMURF: It was, yeah, it was Vanity’s idea to bring it to Gargamel. It felt like an important human thing to have gotten lost. Vanity thought maybe this offering could create peace with Gargamel. Vanity didn’t like living in fear. I mean, none of us did, but Vanity couldn’t take it anymore.

BRAINY SMURF: Yes, I have problems with Vanity in general, and the idea of appeasement in smurfcific, but my ideas weren’t working. There was a general consensus that we should try something new.

JOKEY SMURF: It was my idea that Clumsy should hold the handle. I thought something hilarious was bound to happen. That… that wasn’t the case.

GROUCHY SMURF: Hefty thought he could carry it alone. He couldn’t, so some of us went up there. Me, Brainy, Handy, Smurfette. Maybe 10 of us altogether.

SMURFETTE: We push his door open and Gargamel was like, “The Smurfs! I’ve got you now!” and then he saw what we were carrying and went white. Ashen. I’d never seen him scared before. And that scared me. “What is this thing?” I thought. And Gargamel went to answer my question. He whispered, “Jesus Christ. The Smurfs have a—” He never finished the sentence. I never found out what it is. I still don’t know. And if I’m honest, I’m glad I don’t. I never want to.

CLUMSY SMURF: Now I was holding on to a part of the thing, and it just went off. Nine times out of ten, that’s my fault. That’s on me. But I don’t know if this one was my fault. I can usually feel it all slip away from me. And nothing slipped. Not til after it went off. How did it go off. You’d have to ask Papa.

PAPA SMURF: Don’t ask me. Clumsy was holding it. Just like everyone else, I didn’t even know what it was.

SMURFETTE: It went off. It was the loudest smurf I ever smurfed.

HEFTY SMURF: And Gargamel spun. Like. Spun around. At first, I thought he was as surprised by the smurf of it as we were, but… no.

HANDY SMURF: And the red just keeps smurfing out of him, just smurf after smurf of it. You could have filled a smurfing pool with it all. But nobody was in the mood for a swim.

HEFTY SMURF: Azrael ran out of there fast. Can you blame him? That’s how we felt. That’s how we all felt.

BRAINY SMURF: Not all of us. Not Papa. Papa went up to the old man.

HEFTY SMURF: To see if he could help him, I think.

CLUMSY SMURF: I don’t know if that’s why.

PAPA SMURF: Of course it was to see if I could help.

CLUMSY SMURF: It looked like he whispered something, Papa Smurf. It looked like Papa whispered something in Gargamel’s ear.

HEFTY SMURF: They’ve known each other a long time. I wonder what Papa said.

PAPA SMURF: I’m not answering any more of your smurfing questions.

CLUMSY SMURF: I thought Hefty was strong, but seeing this thing smurf its smurfly business? Powerful.

HEFTY SMURF: That isn’t strength.

SMURFETTE: Papa has changed. We all have. Vanity threw out his mirror.

JOKEY SMURF: Nothing is funny.

BRAINY SMURF: I thought I was so smart. But the only thing I know for sure anymore is that I don’t know anything. Just smurfing nothing.

SCAREDY SMURF: I don’t know. I kind of like that we still have the thing. It makes me feel like a big Smurf.