*See Appendix ε to see the finished tapestry

Now that that strange stunt cow 2 had gone and taken most of his repeated words the rest of the generically named flies were free to finish their tapestry of fly history*. Fly Knitter 1 created the first part, showing the days before the flies were radioactive. There were images of flies lazily buzzing about, flies landing in coffee mugs for a swim subsequently followed by flies flying about wildly, flies tickling people with their little wings and then trying to avoid the inevitable fly swatter assault. Fly Weaver 3 took on the task of showing the series of events that lead to the flies becoming radioactive. It showed the squirrel Chernobyl who graciously shared his radioactivity to the flies making them bigger, stronger, and more glow-in-the-dark than ever thought possible. This then transitioned into flies discovering themselves to be indestructible which lead to them discovering a great pickle recipe. The chronicles of the pickle manufacturing empire rise and fall was done by Fly Baker 56 who had been conscripted into helping. The next section of the tapestry contained images depicting flies rediscovering the power of the tickle and their plans for taking over the world. The bottom of the tapestry was reserved for the flies final conquest and rule of the universe and at the very bottom it clearly stated that the flies were done with the following:

The tsetse flies grew bored. They hadn’t had any ineffective hero’s come by for a visit in many weeks, and their diversionary research into tickilling had been finished resulting in nothing for them to do to occupy their time. The only thing they could think of doing was knitting themselves socks to be used in sock ball fights, but they were down to the last ball of yarn and it was a most undesirable color of green. As the flies milled about idly throwing sock balls at each other one of them came up with a great idea to ward off the boredom, they would use their last ball of yarn to knit a massive tapestry (it was a rather large ball) detailing the grand and majestic history of the giant radioactive tsetse flies, from their initial exposure to their subsequent oppression and hardships at the hand of the paranoid populous and the lack of retribution of such actions. “Wait a second!” cried an angry fly, throwing down his knitting needles. “The flies have been oppressed too much! We must take a stand against this great injustice!” “But what can we do?” responded another fly “we don’t even have names. If we were in a movie we would be listed at the end of the credits as Angry Fly 1 and Stunt Cow 2” “Moooo!” retorted Angry Fly 1 “Just because my name sounds like a generic title doesn’t mean it is, I just happened to have a generic sounding name, in fact I think it’s..” “Wait a second!” interrupted a rather annoyed Stunt Cow 2 “My name isn’t Stunt Cow 2, how come you get called by your real (albeit fake sounding) name and I get this terribly dumb fake one. My actual name is Florg Stunt Cow 2, not stunt cow 2, HEY!” at this Florg Stunt Cow 2 got rather annoyed at the editing correction of his speaking and decided to find the one responsible so he could make them pay brownies. Unfortunately Stunt Cow 2 had no idea where to look ingredients and thus would have to consult the magic 8-ball of correct-but-mostly-useless-answers go to the store. And thus with the decision apparently made stunt cow 2 set down his knitting needles and went off to fix his name the store.

*not to be confused with a Ted the unit of work. **Stabbing is the fundamental cause of harm, all other sources of injury or death are a subset of stabbing.

With the search for a hero over it was just a matter of time until the entire world was destroyed. The tsetse flies had no one to stand in their way, and it would only be a matter of time before they decided they were not content to just tickle people to death! (or a really bad side ache) but that they wanted to rule the universe! (or the local neighborhood). With no constant stream of hero’s distracting them with cabbage and colors the flies would soon realize their immense power, being indestructible and all that, and use it to their advantage (as opposed to how they currently used it to their amusement). A full on war with the flies would result in devastating casualties. The flies had perfected the art of tickling people to death! (or a really bad side ache) which they called tickilling, which despite the name could not actually be used to cause the demise of a tick due to their incredibly surly nature. Mankind had spent literally a few hours trying to devise a way to defend against the tickill but to no avail, man would be powerless to stop the flies when they attacked. Meanwhile in an entirely different location in both space and time, a Ted* was preparing his dinner. It was a simple meal, a little bit of chicken with a small roll and an assortment of steamed vegetables. However, despite it’s benign appearances the meal was hiding something devious, the vegetables contained a unusually high amount of cabbage, cabbage that happened to be very explosive. Unknowingly eating explosive vegetables carried the risk of tooth damage and exploding stomach syndrome. Elsewhere more trouble was brewing. A large abandon warehouse was slowly filling with water. The sprinkler system had sprung a leak and started gushing water into the rooms. This warehouse had been used to store hazardous materials and thus was fairly well sealed, giving the water no place to go but up, and up it rose. As the water level increased the stress on the wall grew. Soon the force would be too much and the walls would give way sending a devastating wall of water through the city, washing it all out to sea leaving naught but soggy ruins in its wake. In yet another poorly maintained and unsupervised part of town a man in a trench coat covering all but his ears had just acquired a lucky piece of oxygen. This was the final ingredient in his nefarious plot which would soon go into motion, which when completed would make him entirely immune to stabbing, and thus by extension invulnerable and immortal*. This power would be used gain complete control of the Universe (and the candy store) which he would then sell for massive profits only to repeat the process all over again. The constant cycle of new management and hostile takeovers would surely cause too much strain and the Universe (and the candy store) would implode. Despite the dangers the man planned to continue with the plan he had planned, as he had planned into the plan a plan for what to do if the plan did not go as planned. With all that planning behind him the man set out to carry out his nefarious scheme.

The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) was distraught, all the heroes so far had not only failed to stop the plague of tickle happy tsetse flies, but they also failed to increase sales at the candy store. The scourge of the flies had forced people into hiding, only to come out when in desperate need of supplies and despite their sugary flavor and great taste the treats at the candy store were not in high demand. It had gotten so bad that The Universe (and the candy store) was out of money in their budget to further fund the search for another hero to save The Universe (and the candy store). In fact money was tight all around, the only place with any spare cash was the well funded retirement account for The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner), a source most unacceptable. News of the ended search spread like butter over bread, and after people sufficiently de-greased themselves they all responded with the same reaction, apathy. At least that’s the reaction averaged from the few people surveyed and extrapolated out. In retrospect it would have been better to survey more than 3 people and a chair and they should have been awake at the time, but those were the people randomly selected and shaping the selection to fit the preconceived notions of how the results should look is downright unscientific. The Ruler of The Universe (and the candy store owner) used this study to convince the populous that the will of the people was in fact to not find a new hero and that anyone who disagreed was obviously in the incorrect minority that composed of only them. This stance was easy to convince people of as due to the fly oppression people rarely had a chance to talk to other people and when one has a rare opportunity to talk to someone one does not was it on a boring topic like politics. With the populous convinced there was no demand for a hero, hoards of prospective heroes desiring to rid the land of the flies trudged back to their homes to accept the fate they apparently wanted.

*Happiness cannot be bought, but long term lease options are available

Fortunately for Gorloth the door to the tsetse flies’s stronghold had dried out since the last attempt to evict the flies and thus the knocking did in fact result in an audible sound. Sadly today was acoustic burger night and thus the flies heard the knock but thought it was coming from the basement. This resulted in a mass exodus flies to outside as they were scared of the creepy knocking sound from under them. The flies poured out of the house like ketchup from a glass bottle, which is to say not really at all until Gorloth looked right at the door, and then they surged over him like a tidal wave. “Help!” cried Gorloth, who had a wave of sea green sailor hydrophobia wash over him “I’m drowning in flies and all the aquatic words that keep surfacing!” The tsetse flies heard the cries for help and splashed over, however they were all under the influence of acoustic burgers and thus ended up randomly bobbing around the yard in search of the imperiled person. They darted back and forth, up and down but no matter where they looked they heard cries of help in a different direction. Suddenly one of the flies was struck with a brilliant plan, he started to listen where he wasn’t looking and sure enough that happened to be to source of the noise to which the fly went. “Ahoy! What ails you multicolored sir?” queried the fly as he landed atop Gorloth’s inexplicable briefcase. “Are you in need of some assistance? Perhaps you would like a fresh acoustic burger, it was made with highest quality probably foods.” Gorloth staggered to his feet, overcome by this fly’s generosity he knew he could no longer use these flies as a dumping ground for unwanted emotions. These flies were people too (for a loose definition of people) with their own feelings and emotions, using them as a way to dispose of unwanted emotions would be such a waste of these flies when they could be used as a source of desired emotions. If people were willing to pay top dollar to get rid of unwanted emotions just imagine what they would pay to be able to buy wanted emotions, such as contentment, generosity, excitement and happiness*. Gorloth quickly whipped out his proposal presentation and made the necessary modifications to convince the flies that right now was an all time high for the price of positive emotions, and that by selling now they could buy back later for a fraction of the cost thus netting them copious amounts of money that they could use to relocate themselves to a much nicer neighborhood in parallel dimension perpendicular to this one. Unfortunately all the racket of papers shuffling and presentation rehearsing sounded like and oncoming train to the acoustically impaired flies and as flies hate trains that come on they fled back into their stronghold and locked the door leaving poor Gorloth stranded outside in the waning light with only his black fear of darkness to comfort him.

With the imprisonment of Aaron The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) was getting nervous, two heroes had failed to rid the land of the tsetse fly menace and it was soon time for annual performance reviews. The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) put all available resources (except the ones for the candy store) into finding a hero that would actually save the world and not just look good for the advertisements. The new hero had to be brave, dedicated, strong and most of all have a catchy name, after all why bother getting the world saved if nobody can remember the name of the person who did the saving? Thus a catchy name committee was created to catch any characters with catchy names. Unfortunately the committee could only catch one catchyly named character before the word catchy was used enough times to render it a non-word and thus they had to go with Gorloth the Green, the mighty warrior from a place with a much less catchy name. Despite the name, Gorloth was infact Green, Green with the envy of a thousand burning suns! But Gorloth was also Blue, Blue with the sadness of hundreds of happy children, and Red, Red with the fury of tiny little tweezers. Gorloth happened to be many colors with the emotions of many people and things, for Gorloth the Green was in the business of displaced emotion. He would adopt your emotion for a nominal fee and leave you free from the burdens of having to deal with it, resulting in the betterment of everyone (except that time he bought all the Golden happiness of all his neighbors). Gorloth the Green had a simple plan to not only save the world from the tsetse fly threat but also substantially increase his business capacity. He would trick the flies into becoming partners in his business and then he could unload all the Brown laziness of beavers and Deep blue sleepiness of insomniacs onto the flies thus rendering them too tired and lethargic to continue their rein of terror. Suddenly the Mauve paranoia of cacti coupled with the Silver greed of philanthropy overcame him. What if the flies were better than he was? What if they took all his business? What if they stole his customers right out from under him and shifted full-time to their new stolen jobs, thus simultaneously ending the rein of terror and taking the credit for it while gaining a monopoly in a high demand market!? This was too much thinking for Gorloth’s puce ignorance of scientists and thus he stopped and continued on his quest. Gorloth neared the flies’s stronghold and with the yellow fear of a warrior he knocked on the door.

*Cheesey poofs available for $58.95 wherever cheesey poofs are sold

Aaron set forth to accomplish his goal of stopping the tsetse flies nefarious acts, but first he had to develop a plan, a plan that would rid the world of the flies as well as end the suffering caused by his not very full stomach. In order to solve the latter (and possible the former) problem Aaron went forth for a quest of food. His journey took him far and wide (about 10 feet actually) until he stumbled upon an unusual structure, it was a small pyramid of sticks and other miscellaneous debris with a bright orange triangular chip balanced atop it. Immediately recognizing the chip as belonging to one of the major food groups of tasty (the others being not tasty and dirt) Aaron proceeded to abscond with the chip and commenced devouring it. “How dare you?” squealed a high pitched little voice “that chip was a sacrifice to the grand chip, the sender of all things that crunch and turn one’s fingers orange!” “Egads!” cried Aaron “your poorly developed religious view and ill-mannered retort have left me sounding much more eloquent and well spoken than I am usually portrayed!” Aaron decided that he had had enough of this bizarre persona being thrust upon him and proceeded to kidney “punch” the small Dorito altar into an even more disorganized pile of rubble and the “kidney” punched the small chip worshiper’s most vulnerable spot, his bag of sacrificial snack chips. “Aaahh!” screamed the chipist “those chips still had two weeks before the ‘sacrifice for best freshness’ date! You have made a foolish mistake today, for you have incurred the wrath of the most powerful snack food industry” at this he pulled out his automatic snack summoner and pressed the button.

The chosen hero couldn’t come to save the universe because he was busy laundering his cat. He did however send in a nice exploding cabbage “fruit” basket in apology. The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) has the basket carefully carried in (lest it inadvertently explode). As it was being carried in it started to violently shake, threatening to explode. Everyone braced themselves for the inevitable explosion but instead of a large “BOOM!” a small “hee hee, ho hoo hap!” was heard as Aaron (yes that Aaron) popped out of the basket and “kidney” punched on of the carriers in the chest and tripped the other with a well placed “kidney” punch to his leg. “Halt!” commanded The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) “Under normal circumstances you would be imprisoned for cabbage impersonation, however your impressive display has impressed the impression that you would be a suitable replacement for the hero, what is your name potential hero?” “Me Tarzan! Yo fat!” cried Aaron holding aloft a strange head shaped blob of clay impaled upon a stick. “Although not wise to insult The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) your dedication is impressive, go forth and stop the menace of the flies!”

Project exploding cabbage was a complete failure, even sales of excess exploding cabbage “fruit” baskets had slowed to a standstill and the tickling of the flies was as strong as ever. The ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) needed to find a new hero to save the world (and boost sales at the candy store) and thus the candy store (and it’s owner) ran a contest to select the next to take the task of saving the world from the flies (and sell more candy). Prospective heroes from the farthest reaches of the universe were brought in (actually the search only went out 30 feet in each direction) to compete in an epic show of heroic feats such as the jaw crusher competition (who can eat the most jawbreakers), the trial of decay (who has the least cavities after eating a bunch of candy) and the test of strength (who can carry the most candy). Sadly all the contestants succumbed to the stresses and rigors of the trials (they didn’t buy enough candy). The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) devised a new better contest, one so great and so sure of succeeding that it was guaranteed to get the job done (or it costs double). A massive board was brought in containing the names of anyone deemed suitable to be the next hero (the main requirement was that their names were easy to spell). To select from the wide array of well qualified potential heroes a sophisticated selection device was brought in. The device was a small cylinder with a sharp point on one end and fin-like projections on the other end. In the layman’s eye it may have appeared to be a dart but it was obviously as much more complex device. The “dart” was launched with high velocity, utilizing its unique aerodynamic properties it homed in on the best hero contained on the board (or at least that is what its box claimed). The device struck the board landing right in the middle of one of the hero’s name. The Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) sent to bring in the chosen hero.

The plan devised by the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) was set into action. The cabbages were grown in a secret facility three houses down fro m the flies stronghold (while the facility would be more secretive in a more remote location tsetse flies are notorious for being unobservant and close proximity greatly reduces the transportation costs) meanwhile a team of top scientists were devising a device to place the cabbages in that would look like a fruit basket to the untrained eye (while fruit baskets were available for comparison purposes they could not be used in the final design as it is a fruit basket and cabbages are not fruits) Despite minor setbacks the project was progressing well, until disaster struck, due to rising cost of ingredients the tsetse flies stopped having optic soup except on special holidays. The plan seemed destined for failure until the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) devised an even more brilliant plan than originally devised: the Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) could declare next Snerzo to be “Tsetse fly appreciation day (not a diabolical plot to evict the flies from this universe)”. Due to the flies’ generally trusting nature (and inability to read parenthetical statements) they would suspect nothing. With this new amended plan the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker)prepared for “Tsetse fly appreciation day”. The basket was created and carefully filled with nitroglycerin cabbages and then cleverly disguised as a fruit basket by placing a rotting banana peel on top. The Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) took the “fruit” basket to the door of the flies’ stronghold and rand the door bell. Ding-Dong Splat! The door fell open like a wet sponge and a tsetse fly wandered into the doorway. “Ahoit!” greeted the fly “Are you interested in buying this fine encyclopedia set? It’s made of 110% chocolate and in the shape of a vacuum cleaner, every dollar you spend profits us two!” “Uh” stammered the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) “How about you take this delicious looking fruit basket instead of trying to sell such silly stuff?” “But today is ‘tsetse fly appreciation day’ how could giving us free first be an act of appreciation? It seems more like some sort of diabolical plot to ruin us!” “Uh this can’t be a diabolical plot because this fruit basket is 100% non-cabbage, just look at the label” said the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) pointing out the “No cabbage guarantee or the food fights on us” tag. “Well if it’s on a tag it must be true” conceded the fly as he reached for the basket, unfortunately his recent intake of optic soup had left him with such impaired vision that when he attempted to pick up the basket he instead grabbed a fistful of leaves form the nearby bush, thanked the basket and slammed the soggy door with enough force to cause the “fruit” basket to explode. The resulting explosion knocked the Hero of the Universe (and the candy store worker) unconscious resulting in missing 5 shifts at the candy store which the Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner) declared to be not good enough thus the world was not saved.

The creation of the giant radioactive tsetse flies and the recent slew of typos spoke to the current disarray of the universe. Even the communist force of gravity had not been resisted. The poor management of the universe seemed to have a negative impact on all aspects of life. The speed of light had fallen 5.8% in this quarter alone, the kilogram has dropped to just under 930 grams, the lowest point in 40 years (65 if adjusting for the inflation of time, which has been quite rampant recently) , and the universal mass deficit is at an all time high. All industries had felt the effects of this universal chaos, except for one that is. The candy store (and its owner) had not only experienced no ill effects but were actually doing so well they were looking to expand and branch out into new fields, however the candy store (and its owner) were doing so well and the rest of the universe’s economy was in such disarray that everything else seemed small and insignificant in comparison. The revenues from the candy store (and its owner) were so vast that the entire universe could be purchased, and that is precisely what was done. The economy swiftly recovered thanks to the expert management from the new Ruler of the Universe (and the candy store owner). Constants across the board were up to all time highs, typos had been eliminated in all but the most remote areas. The only issue that still remained was the scourge of the radioactive tsetse flies, but there was a plan in place, a grand Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) had been found to rid the land of the menace of the flies. The Hero of the Universe’s (and candy store worker’s) plan was a simple one; a special crop of cabbages would be grow, ones watered with not water but nitroglycerin, resulting in a very explosive vegetable. The modified cabbages would then be delivered in a fancy fruit basket to the flies’ stronghold on optic soup night. Upon seeing the massive fruit basket the flies would assume it to contain fruit and would thus save it for after their main course, upon finishing their meal the basket would be opened , and upon seeing cabbage and not fruit only one logical things could result, a massive food fight. Normally tsetse flies have rather good aim and thus the food fight would result in exploding cabbages exploding on indestructible radioactive flies which would not accomplish anything other than minor annoyances. However the basket would be delivered on optic soup night which would result in reduced hand-eye co-ordination of the flies, thus the cabbages would end up hitting everything but the invulnerable flies. Thus the food fight would result in the total destruction of the flies stronghold and because the flies’ insurance does not cover “destruction by exploding cabbages*” the flies would be forced to relocate to another universe with more affordable property and thus the universe would be saved. The only thing to stand in the way of Hero of the Universe’s (and candy store worker’s) plan was that time off from work (at the candy store) needed to be requested two weeks in advance, by the tsetse flies’ dinner menu was only posted one week in advance. No way to rectify the situation could be found, one couldn’t just shirk the responsibilities of working (at the candy store) just to save the entire universe. The plan would have to be scrapped and the tsetse flies would win. But then the Hero of the Universe (and candy store worker) had a brilliant idea: the basket of exploding cabbage could be delivered after work (at the candy store).

Appendix_Gamma