My Life as a Space-Time Traveler:, Albereez [readict .txt] 📗

She reveals to Hethro that they are used to dye her hair and he nods in contemplation.
"Are those edible, Princess?" I ask politely, my two stomachs rumbling.
"No, aside from the dye that one can extract from the lichen, they are also used as a fertilizer in the preparation of fungshoo: a bonzai cactus grown for recreational purposes." replies Petunia.
"Are there other people like you on this planet? Why are you the only one I see?"
"We are many," she replies, "but we live beyond the Hills of Darthow about 450 clicks levo-dost from here. I am out her on my own doing as you see me now." She folds in half to collect more lichen. "It's how I earn my keep in the city. Hey, why don't I take you there before we go on our great adventure? It would be educational for you!" Pentunia gives me a warm smile. I hesitate for I have a mission to accomplish. Nonetheless, the discovery of this human civilization may provide useful back on Earth, so I agree, leaving my time-teleportation tactics for a later time.
We then change our trajectory towards the distant hills of Darthow as our journey continues. After 35 minutes of uneventful walking, we approach a cluster of purple shrubbery containing miniature banana-like fruit. There is a babbling stream that bisects the bushes as it meanders out towards the hills. I am fascinated by what I see.
"Look at those wee yellow fruits!" I exclaim, "are they safe to eat?"
"Not unless you want swollen lymph-nodes by the evening. Those are terracox tasties. We let our livestock graze on them, but they are not particularly digestible to us."
Despite her warnings, I reach out and snatch a few, then scarf them down. They taste like sweetened meatloaf. "Yum yum! These are quite delicious! Perhaps my digestive organs differ from yours, me princess."
"I don't know..." she voices in concern.
I was hungry. Nothing would stop me from consuming more. Not even common sense, which wasn't in great abundance these days anyhow. I reach for more, but then it hits me. Like two trombones tooting in discord to one another, my mandibula begins to vibrate uncontrollably. "vvvvwhaat, theee heezwaaaarts!" I bark out! "heeeelp!" Petunia, reaches out with both hands and clasps my chin and noses in a vice-like grasp until the vibrations disappear.
"Are you alright?" she trembles in fear.
"I think so. That hurt! But I was so hungry that I couldn't resist." I guffaw. "Let's continue shall we?" She nods and we resume our motions forward leaving behind the purple shrubbery. We follow along the stream and it gradually grows as we approach the looming hills.
Minutes later, we arrive at a brightly-lit and narrow passage-way tunneled directly into the hills. The sky still shimmers with the light of many white dwarf stars ejecting their plasma, but now the once aquamarine canvas of the heavens has turned a dark navy green. On the walled entrance to the passage, there are numerous glyphs and other curious artworks etched in. There is a sign that says: 'walk your shmoos here'
"What are 'shmoos'?" I ask.
"Oh, those are our pets slash transportation devices. You'll see them once we enter the city." A cold breeze siphoned itself through my axillary ear and I registered the off-key notes of A-minor.
The walk through the tunnel lasted a good seven minutes. On exit, we were greeted by the sounds of hundreds of congo drums and savory smells of nutmeg and lemon-balm. There were strobe lights flashing from every adobe edifice that I could see. Amongst the noise, the smells, and the sounds, I saw strange orangutan-elephant hybrids romping here and there through the pink-tiled streets. My senses were overwhelmed. I once again fainted much to the dismay of Petunia.

Chapter 4

In the city that seldom sleeps, a most unusual unrest would develop for its citizens on the arrival of this midget and his futuristic paraphernalia. No one had ever really expected to encounter an extraterrestrial in this rather pleasant lifetime. This was a shock to the system creating both turmoil and conflict to currently held beliefs. For most, the idea that life could derive elsewhere in the universe was a contradiction to common-sense. But now their faces would be rubbed in the evidence on sight of this midget of a man. Princess Petunia, as she was endearingly called by Hethro, was not one of those disbelievers, however. She was a dreamer of the highest standard. It was merely 15 rotations of the planet around the seth, that she envisioned giant whales singing out in space. At 37 rotations, she had deliberated on the deep future of her people. How would they survive when their seth supernovaed? Surely they would all be mercilessly evaporated in the hot plasma spewed off the seth. Perhaps a strange race of human with carbonized scales would come to their rescue and assist in an evacuation plan before it was too late, she had once thought.
Now her contemplations were of the immediate future with her new found midget pal. Would she get to explore the Triangulum Emission Garren Nebula, NGC 604 or perhaps the Eagle or Orion nebulae? Dust clouds of particulate matter in the heavens have always sparked her imagination. Looking into the sky with the 2.8 meter refraction telescope her great-great grand uncle, Pluto, had given her, she would often thirstily 'sip' down visions of massive interstellar battles amongst the ort clouds. Maybe with Hethro she would experience first-hand the greater universe. She would go nowhere, however, with Hethro splayed out on the alabaster tiles as he was now.
"Hey you! Help me drag my buddy to my abode will you?" Petunia yelled out to the first passerby that came across them. This happened to be a stout green-haired 'brother' wearing an emerald tunic and beige spotted underpants. He rides on one of the lovable shmoos Hethro happened to look upon before fainting.
"Who the Gnoozle is that, sister?!" he barks out in bafflement.
"This is our brother from a distant mother. He's here for the preliminary planning of planetary evacuation come Seth's aural ejaculations." she replied back to him. "Help me please."
Still in a state of confusion, the man asks: "How far is your hut? What number? We can hoist him on my shmoo."
"I reside in hut # 458, raycliff cul-de-sac. Will you help us?"
Being one of the more friendly denizens of Darthow, he promptly agrees. The man picks up Hethro like a sack of potatoes along with Hethro's funky electronic pallet-shaped apparatus (the Redline conversion board) and throws them into the deep and cozy pile of thick frizzy orange fur of the lovable shmoo. Hethro is still out for the count when they arrive at a hexagonal-shaped building made of reinforced Styrofoam and clay with # 458 engraved on the triangular door. These adobe huts are ideal for habituation as they allow for the balanced transfer of oxygen and sodium carbonate gas through its minute elastine pores while maintaining the temperature at a cozy 130 degrees kelvin. (There is no such thing as weather in the hills of Darthrow as the city is situated in a unique ecological enclave of stagnant air). Petunia thrusts her head into the door's 'head button' and it slides longitudinally into a recess in the wall.
The stout man removes Hethro from his nest, carries him into the hut and then hurls him into a small swimming pool of yellow jello located in the center of the room. As this is revival goop, Hethro immediately and violently awakens struggling to remain afloat. "How could you be so rough with him!" Petunia scolds at the man. "You didn't even consider how the dravidya might cause him to react based on his neural circuitry. Now look at him!" She grabs hold of Hethro's arm and quickly pulls him out of the jelly and onto her shmoo-hair rug.
"Where the Jane Doe am I??" I pique out as I sit upright."
"Sorry about the rough handling, I gotta go" says the stout man as he rushes out the door after propping up the conversion board against the Styrofoam wall. I am bewildered
"My apologies for that bungle of a man. You fainted on entry into the city. It could have been because of the smells emanating from the 87 bakeries we have throughout the city, or perhaps the strobe lights got to you. I'm not sure exactly. Anyhow, you are in my bungalow now. Would you like something to eat. You must be starving based on the way you scarfed down those terracox tasties out in the wilderness."
"Yes, please, and something to wash down whatever you are going to serve me. Thanks." I say. Petunia leaves the room through a curtain of stringed chameleon lichen into the kitchen and then returns five seconds later with a tray of delightful morsels of various color and texture. There are crackleclop pieces arranged in a small liquid-filled dish of glass. She hands the dish to Hethro and instructs him on how to eat the snack.
"Here you go. place your mouth over the opening to the plate and let the zyuu juice flow into your mouth as the cracklepops gently roll into your gaping crevice. Don't be shy now. Eat up!" I do as she tells me to, allowing everything to just slide down my gullet thereby appeasing my two complaining stomachs. My third arm wistfully scratches the stubble on my forehead as I do so.
"This tastes like archanoid balm -- a delicacy in my country. Very fantastic."
"What is country?"
"Never mind, me princess. I am feeling splendid now. How about you take me on a tour of your city and then head off to the ocean?" I ask in all eagerness.
"It's late, and we've had a long quaz. Let me put you to hibernate and tomorrow, bright and early, I will share a bit of my life with you."
Feeling somewhat drugged, I nod in agreement. Petunia directs me through a barren hole in the wall to a tall vertical cylinder delineated by more shmoo-like material. "There you go, Hethro. Have a nice zauq. I'll see you in the quaz." she says.
Having never slept standing up before, I smile and think to myself 'why not'. I say 'goodzauq' to Petunia, having picked up the lengua franca, enter my cylinder and I'm out cold for the third time today.

Chapter 5

I dream a dream of shmoo
Orange fluffy hair
Not knowing where I am
Whether I'm