SpaceSnail (part one)

Patient is stuck on a spaceship. Well, maybe 'stuck' makes it sound like she doesn't want to be on the spaceship. She wants to be on the spaceship, but spaceships are very uncomfortable. Have you ever been on a spaceship? So. Tiny. So tiny that Patient can only use one of her eyestalks at a time. So tiny that she has to clean up her slime and jettison it into space every five minutes. So tiny that she can't ever stretch out and yawn.

So tiny!

But Patient is happy because she is going to see her spacegrandmother. Spacegrandmothers are a lot like regular grandmothers except they eat nothing but spinach shakes and they make you feed their spacepuppies. Which sounds cute and fun and nice, and maybe it is, but spacepuppies are very messy eaters and spacegrandmothers make you clean up their spacepuppies' messes which can be as big as seventeen spacebanana farms.

Patient's spacegrandmother lives a long long ways away and so Patient is going to be stuck on her tiny spaceship where for six weeks.

Six weeks!

Six weeks is a very very very very very long time.


WEEK ONE

Patient's tiny space ship has one tiny window with just enough space for one eyestalk to look through it at a time. But Patient has four eyestalks. One window for four eyestalks means three eyestalks are stuck being not stretched out and not looking ALL THE TIME.

So Patient lets Eyestalk Number One look out the window then Eyestalk Number Two gets to look out the window then Eyestalk Number Three then Eyestalk Number Four then Eyestalk Number One then Eyestalk Number Twot hen Eyestalk Number Three then Eyestalk Number Four then Eyestalk Number One again.

But sometimes Eyestalk Number Three gets a cramp and so it wants to look out the window when it's Eyestalk Number One's Turn and then Eyestalk Number Two tries to sneak in line which leaves Eyestalk Number Four crying slimy snail tears. But Patient decided that if two eyes napped while two eyes took turns looking at the stars fly by then those two eyes napped while the other eyes watched the stars, then maybe they would get along better.

And it worked.




WEEK TWO

One reason Patient has to be so careful to keep her spaceship clean and to jettison her extra slime every five minutes is because she doesn't want to mess up the food in her basket.

Patient always brings food to her spacegrandmother. This time she's bringing all the favorites: Spaceraisincakes and spacecelery and spacepeanutbutter. She's bringing spacecupcakes and spacespaghetti. And, best of all, she is bringing a big pitcher filled with spacelemonade.

Of course, since spacegrandmothers only drink spinach shakes, she'll just be throwing these presents into the blender, but what spacegrandmother wouldn't enjoy a spinachspaceraisincakes shake? Or a spinachspacecelery shake? Spacegrandmothers love spinachspacepeanutbutter shakes and spinachspacecupcakeshakes and spinachspacespaghettishakes! And, most of all, they really really love spinachspacelemonade shakes.

And so, even though she can hardly move in her tiny tiny spaceship, Patient is very very careful to keep the basket clean and her spaceship clean. Because she loves her spacegrandmother. And spinachspacelemonade shakes.


WEEK THREE

If you know anything about stories, then you must know that if you have a story about a little girl --- even if she's a snail --- with a basket of food for her grandmother --- even if it's a spacegrandmother --- then you must know that the story will have a Big Bad Wolf --- or a Big Bad Spacewolfmonkeyfish.

Big Bad Spacewolfmonkeyfishes are big and bad and they live in space and they like to eat little girls like a wolf and make loud noises like a monkey and open their mouths into giant Os like a fish.

This story's Big Bad Spacewolfmonkeyfish is named Stanley Beebee and he is the biggest and baddest space-living, little girl-eating, loud noise-making, O-mouthed monster in the whole universe. And, to make things worse, his other favorite food (besides little girls) is spacespaghetti.

Stanley was swimming through space with nothing to eat but asteroids and trace amounts of hydrogen when he smelled something delicious. Something delectable. Something scruptuous and lucious and tastifying.

Spacespaghetti.

With a hint of little girl.

And, meanwhile, Patient is cleaning her tiny spaceship while Eyestalk Number Two looks out the window, in the opposite direction of Stanley Beebee the Big Bad Spacemonkeywolfish who is coming, howling, right at her.

(to be continued. . .)

story by Theric Jepson