Even the miniscule gravitational pull of, say, a paperclip retards cosmic expansion by a slight amount.

Scientific American, Volume 12, Number 2, 2002

The universe was expanding too quickly, to begin with. So it was that the great philosopher, Xanxy the Maker from the Triangulum Galaxy, decided to take matter into his own hands. God, it seems, was asleep at the switch again. Admittedly, the last few interventions by Xanxy hadn’t worked out so well, but those supernovae in Centaurus and Cassiopeia and Lupus could have happened to anyone. This time was different. The universe was coming apart at the seams, and someone had to slow it down – or else. That much was clear.

Xanxy had a Plan: 1) find the slowest part of the universe; 2) find out what makes it slow, and; 3) then do lots more of it. Supremely satisfied with himself, Xanxy dispatched the Belamoooz twins in a neat, little Star Seed 7 cruiser to the furthest corners of the universe (speaking euphemistically, since the universe is round or parabolic or ribbon-shaped or inside-out, depending on your point of view), to find the one place in space that was slowing the universe’s expansion more than any other.

The search went on across countless light-years; one or two crew mutinies; a number of inter-stellar romances; a time warp to a period when Chicago-like gangsters ruled entire star systems; and encounters with lots of buxom space babes and muscular space dudes in scanty, glistening outfits. Just when the Belamoooz twins were ready to call it a galactic day, they ran into Earth.

They didn’t physically run into Earth in a crash-your-spaceship kind of way. No, they were cruising along the edge of CM Tauri in the Milky Way Galaxy, when the needle on the Drag-O-Meter shot into the red zone. This was noteworthy. The only other time the Drag-O-Meter had gone into the red zone was that visit to the Red Dwarf Pawn Shop in M42 when they had picked-up an incredible, hand-woven Persean rug for a song. That rug was now sitting on the floor of the ship’s bridge, adding much-needed color, but not wearing as well as expected.

This time, the Drag-O-Meter guided them to an orbit around the third planet out from a G-class star. The Belamoooz twins speculated that, in this cheery-looking blue and green planet, they may have finally found what they were looking for. Those onboard who breathed for a living, were breathless. In anticipation of Xanxy’s coronation as the BoM (Best of Makers), the Twins began preparations to measure the Universe’s expansion around this planet which the crew, in anticipation, labeled DED-W8. With a great deal of care, the Twins rolled out the Universal Radar Speed Trap on the starboard side of the ship. While the apparatus was being calibrated, a second team was busy stuffing coffee beans into the business end of the Trap. The crew had discovered sometime earlier that the pressure created by the Trap was also capable of producing an excellent cup of espresso. The test might disappoint, but the coffee never did.

At precisely 1200 hours Zaphod Mean Time, the twins threw the big, red switch on the master console and the Speed Trap hummed to life, causing the entire ship to vibrate like a cheap motel bed. The crew had already learned that speaking during the test was pointless, so everyone was humming, because humming and vibrating were… well, you know. A large numeric read-out over the console told the story that everyone was dying to know: how fast was the universe expanding around DED-W8? Unfortunately, measuring the universe’s speed was a galactically slow process. It took 58,401 orbits around DED-W8 with no talking and far too much humming for most everyone’s taste to get a final reading. When the final measure was in, two things were confirmed: 1) Xanxy was the BoM; and 2) DED-W8 was a bag of rocks tied to the ankle of the universe.

All that was left to do was to find out what was causing DED-W8 to slow the universe’s expansion so monumentally. With that, the Star Seed 7 crew decided to lower the Big Green Eye. To those on the receiving end of the Big Green Eye, the Big Green Eye could be a little unnerving. It was an organic extension of the ship, bound to the ship by a very long, very flexible, and very resilient organic tether. Through it, those above could watch those below in tremendous detail. To those below, there was a general sense of always being watched, which would quite often turn out less well if the Big Green Eye were ever glimpsed peering out from behind a cloud, a mountain, a building, or from under a bed.

Carmella was an unusual girl. By unusual, one might think of a girl with green hair and perhaps a tattoo of a tiger on her forehead. That was not our Carmella. She did not have green hair. And the tattoo on her forehead was only a birthmark that looked like three tiger stripes. No, our Carmella was not unusual because of the way she looked. She was unusual because she was not afraid of anything in a world where most people are afraid of everything. As an infant, she had survived abandonment beneath a dart board at Sweaty Nell’s Harmonic Taphouse. Maybe that was why she was unafraid. As a grade-school student, she had survived the jeers and taunts that her tiger-like stripes had inspired among children who were consumed by social standing, as many children must be. Maybe that was why. Maybe it was just because she survived her name, Carmella Dellabella, written in heavy marker on green painter’s tape, and stuck to the arm she was waving beneath the dart board where she was found.

Young Carmella Dellabella, maybe Italian, maybe Australian, showed outward signs of both. She had Mediterranean coloring: dark eyes shaped like candle flames; dark, deep hair that reflected the colors of earth metals; smooth, olive-colored skin that resisted sunburn, minor abrasions, and the calumny of catty teenage girls. She had the temperament of an outback crocodile hunter: impatient, fiery, brave, irrepressible.

Carmella Maybe Dellabella. Her three tiger stripes were heavier in their middles, tapered towards their ends. The first two stripes started from almost the same point on her right temple and followed the curve above her eyebrow, slowly parting ways as they drifted from right to left – like the opening mouth of a tiger. The third stripe started midway within the first two and extended about an inch beyond them, as though the tiger were sticking out its tongue (which self-respecting tigers would not do). With some, the tattoo evoked empathy. Among others, disdain. For most, it shouted: just try me. The Big Green Eye seemed to trip, unwittingly, into the latter camp. And to this, we will return in a moment.

First, you must meet Trusty (Jonathan) Boylan, who was to play a vital role in Carmella’s unexpected adventure. Everything that Carmella was, Trusty wasn’t. Carmella was the passion; Trusty was the reason. Trusty was average height; Carmella was above average height with two additional years of having added to it. Trusty’s appearance was average (trim, brown hair, standard brown eyes, comparatively pale skin, nondescript nose, fullish lips, but not overly so), and he wore round, wire-framed spectacles. But what Trusty had all to himself was how he interacted with the world through his keyboard. Trusty could tease the algorithm out of a search engine in an afternoon, just for fun, while soaking up YouTube videos on time, space, dark matter, and quantum anything ‒ his all-time favorite subjects. Despite the stereotype which his abilities usually implied, Trusty could have an engaging conversation with pretty much anyone. He was a normal guy who just happened to possess the skills to bend the universe to his will – that is to say, a handy guy to have around, as you shall see.

Our team is now nearly complete, but we need to introduce you to one more member who was important to the telling of this story and who was the reason that Carmella and Trusty had met a few years earlier. This character is a dog who looked a like a wolf, except that his mostly white coloring and black button eyes sometimes gave him the appearance of being a baby polar bear. Context would determine which he was, when. The large notch on his pointed right ear gave him the further appearance of being a dog who had many tales to tell, if only you had time to listen, and he were able to talk.

The day the sometime wolf, sometime polar bear, sometime dog wandered out of a field and into their town, Trusty and Carmella happened to be walking on opposite sides of the same street. This was the street that Yogi, his name not yet given, chose to walk down the middle of, oblivious to the cars which had to slow and go around him. No one honked at Yogi, despite his navigational impertinence. They just made way for him. Perhaps that was because he was a sorry picture of gray-matted fur with a pronounced limp in his front leg. Or maybe it was because Yogi looked like he was smiling despite his circumstances. Whatever the reason, both Trusty and Carmella found themselves running out into the street at the same time, and together coaxing Yogi to the improved safety of the sidewalk. There, Yogi sat down, opened his very large mouth into a surprising enlargement of his existing smile, and let his long, eraser-pink tongue drape out over his imposing canines in an easy pant.

I could tell you the story of how the teenagers brought Yogi to the animal shelter down the street, second light on the right; how they helped wash him and, after three tubfuls of water, that he changed colors; how nobody wanted to adopt Yogi because his growing wolf dog reputation limited the inquiries on his suitability as a companion for baby; and how Carmella’s adoptive family finally took him into their home because, even though they had a houseful of cats, it turned out that Yogi liked cats, and you never really know how cats feel about anything, so that was good enough.

But I won’t. Instead, I will tell you how Carmella Dellabella, Trusty Boylan, and Yogi the Wolf Dog set out to save the world.

Merde de chat!” screamed Carmella at sixteen years old. She didn’t exactly sound like a smoke detector, but you might be forgiven if the thought crossed your mind. It crossed her adoptive father Frank’s mind, as he sat in the living room below, reading the sports scores on his tablet. Frank Jones of Boston, though he preferred to point out that he was from Cambridge, ever the gentleman bank employee, was today at rest. Frank adjusted his black, horn-rimmed glasses, and look up at the ceiling where Carmella’s bedroom was, and he listened.

Quiet now.

He smiled, then looked back at his tablet and frowned because he had inadvertently tapped or swiped or something, because the page he was on was no longer there. Before he could start his very limited tablet diagnostics, the front door swung open, slammed shut, and Trusty Boylan went shooting by him, cell phone in hand.

“Hello Mr. Jones,” Trusty tossed out like a water balloon from a moving car.

“She’s in her room,” Frank offered rhetorically as Trusty ran up the stairs, two steps at a time.

Carmella Maybe Dellabella Jones was standing on her bed in her red pajamas, hair wild, cell phone in one hand, tennis racquet in the other. Yogi the Wolf Dog was next to her, lying on the bed, ears up, paws curled over the edge, and his snout sniffing something below. Carmella mouthed something indistinct to Trusty and was gesturing frantically beneath her bed with the tennis racquet.

“I got your text,” Trusty said, realizing that he was being obvious.

Carmella quickly tapped her phone screen with one thumb and Trusty’s phone buzzed in his hand: “we hv sumthg trapd under bed,” the text said.

“want me 2 get help?” he texted back, going with the silence for the moment.

Buzz: “no help catch it”

Buzz: “ideas?”

Buzz: “you lure it we jump it”

Buzz: “gd plan,” knowing better than to argue.

Trusty looked at the tennis racquet in motion above Carmella’s head and Yogi’s round, black, amused eyes watching him wholly. He approached the bed and slowly got down on his hands and knees to peer beneath it. Then, chaos erupted. A slippery-looking, green tendril shot out from under the bed, wrapped itself under Trusty’s arms and around his shoulders, and before the racquet could swing or a bark could bark, Trusty was pulled beneath the bed, his feet disappearing from sight.

“Trou du cul de tortue!” Carmella cried out as she and Yogi jumped off the bed and scrambled to look beneath it… grabbing, reaching. But there was nothing there.

Nothing.

“Oops,” she whispered.

Yogi tilted his head and added: “mrruh,” where the “uh” part lilted up, as though he were asking a question.

Kir Kozlov stared out over his snow-covered acres of Siberian tundra, stretching endlessly from below the balcony on which he stood. The wolf moon was hunting the sky, but warily, hiding behind the expanse of cloud that had burdened the day since early morning. It was very late, but he could not sleep. The tension – no, it was anger that had been his companion this week – had urged him seek the cold as solace. It wasn’t working. Now he was just angry and cold.

It’s always cold in this damned place, he thought.

He went back through the French doors that had tempted him with vague promises only moments before, and closed them behind him. The room was warmer by comparison, but never warm enough. Even though they had invented the radiator, Russians could never perfect it, stubbornly sticking with steel while the Americans had forged ahead with cast iron which simply worked better. Crick, crick, crick, crick went the steel radiator at the base of the far wall, newly inspired.

“Bah,” he called out in frustration to the room, empty but for a few sticks of furniture. The walls, however, were covered by scores of diamond-encrusted picture frames, each a masterpiece of Russian folk art immortalizing his family’s long and glorious history. And there it was: the raw nerve that the cold had no hope of salving. Diamonds! His diamond mine – the only reason anyone would live in this pit of endless, nine-month winters – was drying up as quickly as his fortune and influence were. Yes, there were new, deeper excavations but, to date, no new diamonds. Over half the population had moved away from his diamond mining town, but the cold… the cold had not gone anywhere. A very poor trade-off in Kir Kozlov’s thin book.

He sat down at his writing desk along the wall and buried his face in his hands. He had been over and over this, but could see no way out. He reluctantly turned his head to the right and let out a sob as he gazed once more at the bare wooden plaque bearing his family crest, sitting askew on the graying, cracked plaster wall. The crest was red and shaped like a shield, onto which was a hand-painted image of a white goat, sitting on a throne, staring out at the horizon. In Russia, family crests were very important, and Kir was hell-bent on overcoming his. But maybe, he thought, that was never going to happen.

Now, as Kir Kozlov was sitting in his study, late at night, feeling badly about his family goat, a government flunky named Sergei Kerensky was sleeping like a baby, miles away in his bed in the town of Polyarny, whose official population was zero. This was an odd statistic, since Sergei himself lived there, as did his wife and two children. There were also three other families in the town, all of whom, like Sergei Kerensky’s family, were on the payroll of the administrative center in Udachny, six miles away. And there was a church. An Orthodox church with a priest. Surely, whoever was in charge of the census would at least count the priest among the living. On the other hand, the good citizens of Polyarny were never bothered by such things as property taxes, so their absence from the government’s rolls did come with welcome benefits. The fifteen townspeople and one priest happily did nothing to disturb the sign at the edge of town which read: Население 0.

Sergei Kerensky owed his continued employment to the oligarch (albeit, the minor oligarch), Kir Kozlov, and it was just yesterday in Udachny, on business for Kir Kozlov, that Sergei Kerensky met the man who would change all of their lives: Jesus Mohammed Marx. What a meeting it had been! Jesus Mohammed Marx spoke Russian like a saint (even though he was clearly from someplace else) and had a name that made one pay attention. He was tall and thin and dark, and wrapped a black cape around himself like it was the Russian flag. He wore a black top hat under which his black, penetrating eyes peered out like rifle sights. But what captivated everyone in the office in Udachny that afternoon was his bright, white smile that destroyed the image of darkness he otherwise projected. He had swept into the small meeting room off the front lobby with a Russian Wolfhound at his side and said through his smile:

“I am Jesus Mohammed Marx,” then laid down a bright, white business card with the words: “JESUS MOHAMMED MARX, Patron,” printed in the center of it in black.

Sergei Kerensky had found it a little odd that when JMM spoke, the lips of the Russian Wolfhound seemed to move, but it was a small thing and surely must be explained by the two of them having spent too much time together.

“This is Mumu,” said JMM, gesturing to the Russian Wolfhound who was now sitting with his head above the small, rectangular meeting table. Mumu’s lips moved in time.

JMM unfurled his great cape revealing a black, leather portfolio he had been carrying, which he now placed on the table. He then sat down and took off his top hat which he laid next to his portfolio. One hand absently went up to make sure his longish, black, oily hair was still at the top of his head where he had left it. Then he slowly looked at each person now sitting across the table from him, each patiently waiting for something to happen. With a slight clearing of his throat, JMM informed Sergei Kerensky and his three female assistants that he was on a special mission to bring prosperity to all the inhabitants of the Mirninsky District. All that was required of them, he explained, was that they follow his directions to the letter. Sergei Kerensky wondered briefly at such a promise, but slowly developed the theory that this must be some kind of special program run by the Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation to help important people like Kir Kozlov in their hour of need. Or else this was the FSB (still better known by the locals as the KGB) on some unfathomable mission. In either case, it was best not to question what was going on.

“We will do everything in our power to do exactly as you instruct,” Sergei Kerensky said to the dark, happy man and his lippy dog. Sergei Kerensky’s three assistants all nodded in unison.

“How do we begin?” asked Sergei Kerensky.

JMM opened his portfolio and pulled out a single piece of yellow paper which he pushed across the table to Sergei Kerensky.

“On this piece of paper,” JMM said through his bright smile, “you will find complete instructions on how to convert your employer’s diamond mine into something infinitely more useful. It is all straightforward.”

Sergei Kerensky stared at the piece of paper which held three, single-lined bullet points.

“In exchange for what we are asking you to produce, we will give you gold.”

With that, JMM withdrew a small cloth bag which had three ruble signs stenciled in black on its side (like this: ₽₽₽) and tossed it across the table. It landed in front of Sergei Kerensky with a thud worthy of the world’s most overrated metal. Sergei Kerensky undid the drawstrings of the bag and shook out three, shiny, unevenly shaped gold nuggets which were certainly worth, he thought, half a million rubles or more.

“Gold, we have much of,” said the man in black. “It is for you, my friend Sergei Kerensky, for your boss, for these three fine ladies, and for anyone else you care to favor. Just produce what we ask of you.”

Sergei Kerensky stared at the thin, darkish man sitting across from him; at the head of the Russian Wolfhound named Mumu, resting on the table; and at the white business card in front of both of them.

“Of course, we will do this for you,” Sergei Kerensky said, used to doing things that were often loosely glued to reality.

“It is not for us that you do this, Sergei Kerensky,” JMM replied mysteriously, but it was Mumu’s eyebrows which arched at the saying. “Begin tomorrow, and we will see you again in a week.”

“Very well,” said Sergei Kerensky, standing and offering his hand to the stranger across the table. JMM just looked at the hand hanging in space and tilted his head back and forth as though he were guiding a set of steel balls through the maze of his mind. Mumu nudged the tall man with his long, dark snout.

“Very well,” JMM said, ignoring the hand. He then stood, picked up his portfolio, placed his hat atop his head, re-wrapped himself in his cape with a flourish, and turned to leave the room. Mumu the Russian Wolfhound led the way.

Sergei Kerensky lowered his hand, the strange relationship left unconsummated. He watched the receding figures of Jesus Mohammed Marx and Mumu. Best not to look at the teeth of a horse you have been given, he thought. Such a smile.

But that was all yesterday. Today, or rather, right now while it was still dark and wintry, Sergei Kerensky slept in his bed.

Dong… dong… dong….

The old bell, high in the church tower, rolled back and forth like a fishing trawler in an arctic swell, welcoming the three o’clock hour. Sergei Kerensky stirred, and became aware that the tip of his nose was cold.

Rut tat tat tat.

The bedroom window valiantly gripped its frame, resisting the moaning, Siberian winter wind which was determined to find a way in.

Crick, crick, crick, crick.

The radiator fought heroically against its steel handicap.

Beside him, Sergei Kerensky could hear the slow, even breathing of his wife. The warmth of her body drew him closer to her.

All our problems are solved, he thought hazily. Tomorrow will be a wonderful day.

His boss’ smiling face spontaneously bloomed across the canopy of his mind, and Sergei Kerensky tumbled back to sleep, the cold tip of his nose no longer a conscious concern.

Time to get to work,” the tiny fish (who we’ll name Maybe-One) shared with the really large fish (who we’ll name Maybe-Naught). These were not fish in the usual Earthbound definition of fish but, if pressed, calling them fish would do. Maybe-One was red but sometimes yellow. Maybe-Naught was blue but sometimes green. Their fins billowed so wispily that you might think them imagined. Their eyes were shaped like teardrops, their pupils like black holes drawing on the gravity of their white backdrops.

Neither Maybe-One nor Maybe-Naught knew who employed them. To their understanding, they had always just been here, in this pink, gelatinous ocean of goo through which they swam effortlessly. Not so for many of the critters that were trapped here, suspended by the goo. Maybe-One and Maybe-Naught never knew why, but these forms couldn’t move about as they themselves could, even though some of the critters seemed to have propulsion systems of their own. Instead, for all their efforts at flailing and rocking, these critters stayed in place, not going anywhere. Being able to swim through the goo, where nothing else could, made Maybe-One and Maybe-Naught feel useful.

And so, they went about their job.

Swim swim swim.

The next object they stopped in front of was rectangular and featureless, except for the angry bird face on its front. You would recognize this object as a mailbox belonging to the United States Postal Service, but Maybe-One and Maybe-Naught had no knowledge of the United States or its postal service. Neither, really, did they know about angry birds, but this narrative is for you, not them. To Maybe-One and Maybe-Naught, the mailbox was next in a long line of objects to be dealt with. This one was assigned Object Number 0110-11110100001001000000.

Thwak!

A thin, pink tentacle exploded from Maybe-One’s mouth and attached itself to the surface of the mailbox. The tentacle slowly contemplated the smooth metal and then, with a decisiveness bigger than the fish itself, violently jabbed through the metal to the innards of the mailbox where, we are guessing, there was little to be found. Further probing ensued during which Maybe-One’s tiny face looked like it was reacting to eating a box of strontium ions – that is to say, its tiny face was all screwed-up. After a moment – pop! – a set of glowing bars flickered into the space above the mailbox, like a neon sign coming to life over a dark karaoke bar. The tiny fish, its job now done, retracted its tentacle and darted out of the way with something resembling relief on its face.

All the while, the larger Maybe-Naught had kept back a distance, rocking in place, as though waiting its turn to join the rope skip. Now, Maybe-Naught swam up to the newly crowned mailbox and examined the glowing barcode, tilting its fish head back and forth several times. Satisfied, Maybe-Naught backed up a few lengths, then hurled itself with surprising speed, nose-first, at the side of the mailbox wherein the mailbox lurched backwards through the goo until it collided with an unseen membrane that one would be left to assume was the outer limit of the pink universe, stretching it out… out… out… until – boom! –  the mailbox and barcode completely disappeared from existence. Gone, as though they never were.

Maybe-Naught admired its handiwork for a moment, then swam over to join Maybe-One at Object Number 0110-11110100001001000001. Maybe-One was just finishing with this new Object such that the barcode had flickered into existence above the Object’s head. Object Number 0110-11110100001001000001 had a head and, by Earth standards, would be recognized as a housecat. While you may think that Maybe-Naught would have been tempted to head-butt the cat into the next universe due to the longstanding grievances between the species (as Saturday morning cartoons have long verified), Maybe-Naught did not. Maybe-Naught tilted its head back and forth, inspecting the luminous barcode, and then swam away, leaving the slightly perforated and very terrified cat running on the spot in the pink goo.

Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 was particularly uninteresting. Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 was long and limby, possessing trim, brown hair, standard brown eyes, comparatively pale skin, a nondescript nose, fullish lips, but not overly so, and was still wearing round, wire-framed spectacles. Maybe-One had seen several of these critters recently, and knew in advance what the outcome would be. Nonetheless, Maybe-One wound up and plunged its tentacle into the insides of Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 and rooted around a while. Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 yelped even louder than the cat, but there was little Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002, or any of the objects, could ever do. A few strontium ion-inspired faces later, Maybe-One produced the expected barcode for its friend, the big fish, to peruse.

Then something unusual happened, quite unknown in the known history of the pink goo universe.

Maybe-One swam away, and Maybe-Naught swam up to scan the newly produced barcode. But, instead of leaving Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 to float in the pink goo for further processing, Maybe-Naught head-butted Object Number 0110-11110100001001000002 out of the pink goo universe with a boom! The small fish hesitated on its way to the next object, looking back at the empty space that Object Number 0110- 11110100001001000002 and its barcode had occupied. Something was wrong. That shouldn’t have happened. Maybe-One could see, as Maybe-Naught approached, that Maybe-Naught knew it too. For the first time ever, both paused their work, pondering the logic of the universe and their purpose within it.

Trusty Boylan was falling through space.

Space, in this case, was humid and dark, with hints of pink fluorescence in the air. It was also, Trusty realized, rushing by rather quickly.

And then it wasn’t.

With a dull plop, Trusty’s trip ended as a warm, soft, textured surface – tongue-like flashed through his mind – broke his fall and absorbed any deflection that physics had scheduled. He lay there for a moment, cell phone still in his hand, abdomen still smarting, slightly fogged spectacles still in place, looking up at the sky-spanning, translucent, pink intestine from which he had just been ejected.

His brain replayed his gambit of quickly tapping together a barcode using his phone app, and then holding it up over his head. It had worked! He had confused the sorting fish. They had kicked him out of what was, he was almost certain, some kind of meal preparation. But if that was the frying pan, where was he now?

He lifted his head into the heavy air and sensed new motion.

Huh?

The tongue-like surface was moving with conveyor belt intent. Struggling to his knees, he could see debris covering the surface of the tongue in front of and behind him. Behind, he could make out a few TV remote controls and sets of keys. Maybe some socks. In front was the unmistakable form of an upside-down mailbox, eagle descendant. Further ahead, the organic conveyor belt disappeared into a wall that more resembled strawberry ice cream than wall. On either side of where the tongue met ice cream, the crystalline wall held two window-like openings which looked fluid, as though they were sagging containers of water inspired by that melty Spanish painter. Through each window were more stars than Trusty had ever dared hope to see in person. The stars shimmered as the windows’ currents meandered and eddied along the lines of some unseen gravity. That’s when it occurred to him that he was in space. No, not just in space, in an alien spaceship in space! Trusty smiled a blue ribbon-worthy smile which, to those less familiar with the storied history of blue ribbons, was an excellent smile.

His mood darkened when he noticed the ice cream wall closing in quickly and, more importantly, that loose clouds of objects were floating outside the drippy windows. What was floating out there probably used to be in here. It was time for another venue change.

He peered over the left and right edges of the moving tongue. Below was a darkness that yawned deeply and lazily with only a vague suggestion of bottom.

He spied an escape route!

With only seconds left before he became space junk, Trusty shoved his phone into his back pocket and leapt through the warm air towards some piping that ran down the wall beside the conveyor belt.

He got it!

His body swung around and collided with the soft wall. Squish. It was like hitting a wet sponge and his body settled immediately. Luckily, the pipe was as grippy as a damp football, so he was able to hang on. To the casual observer, it looked like Trusty had been leaping through alien spaceships all his life. The dusky pink piping beneath his fingers was warm and it pulsed, and Trusty began to suspect that it might be alive. With that, his first instinct was to let go, but the darkness below told him not to. He chose to slowly slide down the pipe-that-might-be-entrails, which worked well because the pipe-entrails secreted a slightly oily substance whenever he relaxed his grip. Down, down, down he slid.

Honk. Honnnk.

A strange honking sound drifted up from below, but what Trusty heard wasn’t a honk. What he heard, in the Queen’s own English, was: more glue.

More glue?

Trusty slowed his decent and two shapes down below began to take form in the dim light. They were aliens. Trusty was seeing aliens. Both stood in front of a large fishbowl monitor that was displaying video of a beagle in the process of losing its mind. The beagle was enraged, but its mighty beagle bark was foiled by the seeming absence of audio in this place.

Deciding that the aliens looked sufficiently distracted, Trusty allowed himself to creep down a few more feet. Then he froze. These aliens, standing ten feet tall, had big, round, yellow heads that were encircled by bulbous eyeballs. Twelve eyeballs between the two aliens stared out in every direction, including Trusty’s.

He waited.

If they were aware of him, they weren’t showing it. With five more feet to cover before reaching the ground, Trusty decided that hanging here wasn’t an option and, while there wasn’t much cover below, there was an area to his right that looked fairly drenched in shadow. That’s where he would head.

With agonizing care, he reached the bottom, keeping one of his paltry two eyes on the aliens’ twelve. The action on the fishbowl took on new vigor and Trusty used that moment to steal his way into the shadows. He crouched down low and held his breath. He seemed to have made it! Twenty feet away, the aliens were still attending to their… prey?

From here, Trusty could see that the aliens’ heads each had four or five slender antennae extending straight up from their tops, and several, stringy, green, strands hanging down like a beard from the bottoms. The strands were long enough that they used them like hands to manage the fishbowl controls. Their big, yellow heads sat on narrow necks which looked like the trunks of palm trees, but flexible, and their bodies were a simple cone shape, wide end down, with the texture and coloring of an oak tree. As they moved back and forth in front of the monitor, harassing the beagle, they left a trail of shiny, astral slime on the ground.

But none of that was the best part.

The best part was the lobster claws and the bicycle horns. The aliens each had a pair of arms that were flailing about, with red lobster claws at their ends, snapping at the air in time with the struggles of the dog who they were now wrapping up in green tendrils, the likes of which Trusty remembered all too well.

Each alien also sported a long tail, similar in thickness and texture to their necks, but tapered towards the end where a cluster of three bright, red bicycle horns were set. With no discernable mouth on their yellow, beach ball heads, Trusty figured those honks must have come from those horns. Within seconds, Trusty’s hunch was confirmed.

Honk. Honnnnnk… a little more insistently this time.

But again, Trusty heard: more glue.

His brow puckered. How was he hearing a simultaneous translation of the honk language? Granted, the honk dictionary didn’t appear very deep, but still.

A full screen of the beagle’s eyes registering “uh-oh” regained Trusty’s attention. Somewhere between the “uh” and the “oh,” the dog was sucked-up into the Big Green Eye, like a hairball to a vacuum nozzle. The screen went dark but for a pink dot.

Trusty shivered.

Then…. Something was wrong.

He looked up to his left. Above him towered a brand new, ten-foot alien with three of six eyes trained on his face and four beard tendrils reaching out to wrap him up.

Before he blacked out, Trusty heard, as though from far away:

More glue.

Trusty willed his eyes open, hoping that the pain behind them would release out into the… Pink! He was surrounded by pink goo again. Head aching and eyes grudgingly admitting light, he spied two shifting-color fish, one smaller and one larger, approaching him with very determined looks on their fish-like faces.