Chapter 41 - Magenta Pudding

*a minute (pronounced my-newt) is a metric unit of time, there are 1,000 minutes in a day

Florg Stunt Cow 2 arrived at the identity adoption center, a dreary place that collected discarded and unwanted identities that had been abandoned or lost by their owners. Upon walking in Florg Stunt Cow 2 was greeted by a person who looked like multiple people. “Hello sir, welcome to the identity adoption center. I will be with you just as soon as I file these new arrivals.” At this the clerk opened up some file cabinets and rummaged around. As time passed the clerk started to look like a smaller and smaller crowd until the clerk closed the drawers and turned back to Florg Stunt Cow 2 now looking like just one person. “Sorry about that, someone just abandoned a pile of identities and they had to be safely filed away lest someone steals them. Identity theft is a major problem out here. Now then how can I help you?” “I came here to adopt an identity, my current one has been corrupted made much much better. What I mean is my current identity has gotten replaced with a much less more favorable one. I mean I need one to replace this terrible one for a costume party” “Well you should know that adopting an identity requires lots of work most people don’t realize how much extra work it can be. However I think we have just what you need, we just got an identity in last week that won’t have a permanent home until next week, you can take it and try it out to see what it’s like and if you still think you can handle the extra responsibility then we can work out a permanent solution. Plus this is a great identity to have for a costume party, everyone will recognize the new you!” The clerk walked into the back room and shortly afterwards a mountainous thing looking vaguely like the clerk rumbled in. Before Florg Stunt Cow 2 could react the thing lunged out towards Florg Stunt Cow 2 knocking him out.

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Chernobyl and Joe trekked onwards in the tunnel. It was slow going as the tunnel was a steep climb and it was too small for Joe to do anything but crawl. Chernobyl also liked to stop every few minutes* to eat the “delicious looking dirt” which caused significant delay. As they journeyed on the pace picked up thanks to the tunnel becoming larger and less steep and the dirt looking much less appetizing. With every bend they rounded Joe hoped it would be the end of this long and boring tunnel, but he also hopped that they would be more tunnel for he did not want to face whatever was ahead that had scared his radioactive traveling companion. Thus with every corner they went around Joe a mix of relief and despair, it was like having a wave of relief wash over you only to realize it was actually water intent on making your socks soggy. The constant feelings of suspense followed by happiness and grief was too much for Joe to take and thus he decided to stop paying attention to anything that was currently happening and figured he would tune back into reality when something finally did happen. Joe’s mind started to wander to much more interesting and happy things such as his collection of pocket lint. It was Joe’s favorite collection, so much more varied than a collection of paperclips, more exciting than a collection of mops and so very much safer than a collection of ninjas. His collection had started out with humble beginnings as a pile of lint he was too busy to throw out, but form there it grew into the third largest collection in the local municipality. Joe was about to check his pockets to see if there was anything he could add to his collection and perhaps even bump him up to number two when he suddenly realized they had traveled out of the tunnel. Chernobyl and Joe were now high up on the mountain close to the summit. Before them the path was blocked by a large blob of very diabolical nefarious looking magenta colored pudding. The magenta pudding started to move on it own towards Joe who was paralyzed with the thought that he most certainly did not want to know what flavor this magenta pudding would be. Chernobyl did not suffer the same paralyzing thoughts, the moment he saw the pudding he was excited as to what this new brightly colored pudding would taste like. With the pudding focused on Joe Chernobyl was able to sneak up behind it and grab a handful of the enticing looking goo. “Wow, this stuff is good it tastes just like…” exclaimed Chernobyl before he was interrupted by a shriek from the magenta pudding. “None may know the flavor of the pudding, should anyone dare speak it they risk total annihilation of this and many other worlds!” The pudding then fled down the mountain in a squishy flash of almost pink. Joe stood on the trail entirely bewildered as to what just happened, he had no idea how or why knowledge of pudding flavor was tied to destruction of multiple worlds but he figured he should stop thinking about it lest he throw off the apparently delicate balance that seemed to be in place. Chernobyl, eager to continue on the now clear path, grabbed Joe and started up the trail, hopping to soon reach the magic-8 ball of close-but-not-quite-correct-answers or perhaps some more exotic colored pudding.