The crab walked up to the basin & took off her gloves to reveal pulsating lumps throbbing with pink boils oozing with thick green juices. She wrapped them round each other & twisted them together tightly like washcloths, causing bubbling gray liquid to drip from them into the basin.

After 10 minutes o’ nonstop twisting, the crab stopped & held her claws to the side, panting heavily.

“¿Is that good ‘nough?” she said breathlessly.

The light shined o’er the hidden figure’s glasses—the only part that could be seen o’ the figure.

“Yes. Thank you.”

“Thank you. ¿You truly think this’ll work?” asked the crab.

“No question.”

But what the crab hadn’t asked—what she hadn’t thought o’ in her relief—was for what the figure planned to use her gray cancer juices.

Velia was chattering her teeth, & ’twas not just ’cause she was hungry…

Madame Macadamia walked slowly toward her, her roof-tile tail thwapping the ground @ every even step. Macadamia’s paw held out a white cedar branch. Her tie loomed ‘bove Velia like a noose.

“This is from Worcestershire Woods, ¿correct?”

Velia gulped. “I-I’ve ne’er seen it before.”

“Right. & you know nothing ’bout it, ¿right? You were just found in our neck ’cause you were taking a li’l stroll, ¿true?”

Velia took a deep breath, but said nothing.

But then she shuddered when she saw Macadamia pull out a li’l pocket knife.

“Perhaps this’ll rejog your memory…”

It only took an hour after the fridge fell in their district in the molten core o’ Mercury that Parliament decided to convene.

@ that conference, nobody said a word. Nobody e’er said a word @ conferences. There was no need for discussion. ‘Stead, everyone wrote up her own law—which may include repelling already-enacted laws—& they would combine all o’ these to create 1 megalaw.

¿Why were they doing this? They always created laws for any interesting event that happened in their district. & the arrival o’ a giant sealed container o’ lava poison that could be unleashed on the public with just the yank o’ a handle was sure interesting…

When they caught him, he told them he was breaking into the cathedral to deface it, e’en though the only thing they found in his bag was an empty bottle & a scalpel. Some members o’ the congregation assumes he was going to cut himself & smear his blood, & then smash the bottle & spread its glass shards round, too, in some Satanic ritual—though why he didn’t just use the broken glass to cut himself, the congregation could ne’er puzzle out.

He preferred that to them knowing the truth: that he was planning to chisel their stained-glass windows o’ their scrumptious bear beads—beads with just the right sucrose to make the tastiest syrup in the world. ‘Twas a secret only he knew, & a secret he’d take to his grave.

“¿Authorization to dig here?”

“Authorization granted.”

“Hey, I’m trying to eat here, ¿OK?”

“Authorization granted.”

“Augh.” The mess hall eater rose & stormed out, only to be blocked by 2 guards in checkered uniforms.

“Authorization not granted.”

They grabbed him & escorted him back to the lasagna floor where Cap’n Emery was still digging into volcanic tomato paste & sat him back down to his fork & knife.

“Now, we’re all going to have a good family meal, ¿OK?” said the omniscient voice sternly.

Both Emery & her brother looked downward & said, “Yes, Commander.”

Yes, she spent most o’ her time collecting olive-scaled jackets. ¿So what?

&, yes, they could only be found on the also-scaly roofs spread ‘long lefttown. ¿So?

She knew she had a good reason, e’en as she was skidding toward the edge o’ a 80-story skyscraper roof crusty with summer frost—an ice 10 times mo’ dangerous than winter ice.

For she knew that within each jacket dwelled the magic fabric that could be used to sew a life…

& by this point, she had already collected 16 lives.

‘Twas not funny this time.
1 night the scale tips 1 way, the next it tips the same.
But then it tips the other.
The corruption.
‘Twas not funny this time, & ’twas ne’er funny.
The flip-flops on the other foot this time.
¿Why so much change?
Much as every turtle whithers,
change only leads to exchange.
Jarring.
That’s why we need to put a lid on it on a dime—
so it’ll be funny on time.

“That was exactly what the earth wanted—that was exactly what it wanted.”

“Indeed.”

“It knew what kind o’ radiation would be released from that bomb, & it knew the strength o’ that radiation.”

But then 1 o’ the Jupiterians fell onto the floor & began sputtering swear words that, to earthling ears, would sound like fluffy melodies.

But then the voice got louder. It leaned closer to the other Jupiterian. “You gave the earth what it wanted, didn’t you.”

But then the voice held its hand out & lifted the other Jupiterian up.

“If you don’t know ’bout the tavern, then it is time.”

‘Twas a slight slip, but 1 bad ‘nough to bomb the whole lawn.

Debbie laughed. She shouldn’t have. That’s why they dropped the bomb.

Ambassador Howland mistranslated a single Jupiterian word so that a serious question regarding the loss o’ a Jupiterian ship while flying through the Milky Way was mistaken for a silly pun ’bout chocolate chip cereal & milk feces.

“& that, children,” said the professor,—a mutated cockroach, the only species that could survive the centuries-long radiation from the Jupiterians’ Ununoctium bomb—“is why it’s vital that you get a 100% on this next test.” A student yawned as it played on its phone.

There wasn’t much time left.

He ran into his room, yanked open his top drawer, & pulled out the check—the most important check. Then he ran out the back door & into A floresta de feijão, & then to O mar de morangos, whence he sailed to A terra de torta, where he kept his $ billion check fore’er.

‘Twas only an hour later that Le Voleur Gai devoured his manor in 1 gulp.