The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the subject of the Three Moons of Traloo…
Traloo is the fourth planet in the solar system of Wivitz. Traloo has three moons made entirely of marble: Zyt, Jef, and Felmun. The moons orbit the planet Traloo at the same altitude and are equidistant each other in a perfect equilateral triangle.
In the 1300s, by the Traloonan calendar, an artist by the name of Yark the Unbathed, sculpted his likeness into each moon using a laser etcher attached to the nose cone of his shuttle. Upon completing the third carving, he rotated the moons towards the planet's surface using an AxelSphere RotoMotivator.
The native Traloonans, a race who had never before had a concept of "god", suddenly had three of disembodied heads constantly staring at them from above. This made the Traloonans feel very self conscious, even though they neither did anything seriously wrong, nor did anything of much importance to need constant supervision.
Yark arrived on the planet to see how the natives appreciated his work. When he stepped out of his shuttle, a crowd of Traloonans captured Yark. They figured three floating heads were enough, and a surprise visit was in excess, so they blinded Yark, gave him a nice warm bath, and sent him away.
Centuries later, Lex Dexter defaced the three Yark-faced Moons of Traloo. High above the lunar surfaces, Lex blasted blue laserpaint at each of the moons. Zyt received an eyepatch and scar, Jef received glasses and freckles, and Felmun received a twirly mustache and evil eyebrows. Lex was arrested and found guilty of all three counts of grand vandalism. Since the Traloonans thought the vandalism was an improvement, he was sentenced to one year for each moon. Lex figured three years was plenty of time.
Life had always maneuvered itself in the way of Lex fulfilling his dream of completing the novel he always wanted to write. Sleep was a necessary distraction. Work was a constant distraction. He wasn't married, but his family was yet another distraction. Where could a man go to work on his masterpiece novel in peace without all the distractions of life? Prison, of course, but only if you knew how to work the system.
For defacing the Moons of Traloo, Lex was sentenced to three years in Umdraff Prison, one of the toughest prisons in the galaxy. The guards were trained in cruelty. Once they learned a prisoner's deepest fear, they made sure that fear came true.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy mentions Umdraff Prison…
Umdraff prison is one of the most accommodating resorts in the galaxy. Get yourself arrested to make a reservation. Although the guards of Umdraff Prison are ruthless and cruel, they are not entirely bright. As long as you learn to play the system right and can tolerate their yelling, the guards will make sure you have everything you deserve. A word of warning…if you happen to interfere with another inmate's luxuries, the system can also be played to your disadvantage.
From the time Lex had thought up his master plan to be thrown into Umdraff Prison, he had practiced the love-hate reversal. He complained about all the things he loved, and gushed about all the things he hated. By the time he arrived, he had become quite familiar with how to play the game.
"Ugh! Does the cell have to be so quiet? Can't you take me to a louder cell block? I need to be around people," Lex grumbled.
"Shut up, you! Get used to your new home," the guard said, shoving him into the jail cell.
"But, it's so quiet here. How do you expect me to live this way?" Lex pleaded.
"Silence," the guard growled. He closed and locked the door to Lex's cell.
Lex sighed and looked around the cell block. Other prisoners on the block were reading books, practicing yoga, or working on various quiet projects. A quiet room to himself. A bed that was comfortable enough. Three meals a day. This was going to work…He hoped.
"Not bad, fish," said the inmate in the cell beside him.
"We'll see," Lex said.
"No talking to the newbie!" the guard barked from down the block.
"Not bad at all," Lex's neighbor whispered.
Lex laid down on the bed to think about the next part of his plan.
Over the first several weeks in Umdraff, Lex endured manual labor. It gave him time to think about the adventures of Qona and Anop, twins who were bluegrass singers by day, intergalactic thieves by night (not that day or night meant much, intergalactically speaking). When he had a mental outline of the novel and was ready to start writing it, that's when he executed the next step of his plan.
"You know," Lex said, shoveling more dirt onto the national park trail, "This job isn't that bad."
"What are you talking about?" asked the inmate marking the edges of the trail with large rocks.
"Shoveling dirt? Placing rocks? It reminds me of the good times I had with my granny working in her garden."
"Are you serious? What could be more backbreaking than trail building in the hot sun?" the inmate asked.
"You think this is back breaking? You should try data entry. Hunched over a computer all day entering monotonous data into a computer? Now that is tedious, backbreaking work."
With his mind running a little faster than the Umdraff guards, the inmate placed another rock and finally caught a ride on Lex's train of thought. "Now that I think about it, woodworking is worse than this. All the heavy lumber and the sawdust kicked up into the air. I don't think I could stand woodworking for a minute!"
"Yeah, woodworking is pretty rough, but at least you're getting exercise, just like this job. Data entry is too stationary work. I'd probably die of a heart attack just sitting there," Lex said.
"Wood working isn't as good as this exercise as you might think. It's just pushing wood across an electric saw. That's what I hate most about woodworking. All those dangerous, fast-moving, sharp tools."
The guards overheard their argument and quickly reassigned them to do woodworking and data entry, while the slower inmates who actually committed real crimes continued to work on the national park trails.
One of Lex's first real jobs was data entry. There was some truth in his complaining about it, but it was a job he was familiar with that didn't take a lot mental strain. More importantly, it gave him access to a computer where he could finally start typing his story.
He targeted the lower end of the data entry spectrum—the typical amount a newbie would enter in a day. It was well below the amount he could enter, but they guards didn't need to know that. Lex entered his minimum amount interspersed with a page or two of his novel.
After several months, with his target only slightly increasing each day, the guards demanded more output from Lex. He executed the contingency for this part of the plan. He whined that he was typing as fast as he could, and begged them not to make him take a typing tutorial. Of course, that is exactly what they did.
Now, whenever the guards caught Lex working on the exciting adventures of Qona and Anop, he grumbled about how creative writing was one of the assignments for the typing tutorial. The guards insisted he "shut up and finish his homework", so he could get back to entering more data.
His plan worked for a long time. He nearly finished the first draft when Warden Snells called Lex into his office. Warden Snells sat behind his oversized wooden desk (strenuously made recently by the newest member of the woodworking crew). Snells was bald. His eyes were close together over his bulbous nose. He had a thin mustache and a pointy goatee. But, the one feature that stood out the most were the crooked eyebrows on Snells's face. Lex thought he had painted straighter eyebrows on Felmun.
Lex stood between two guards before the desk of Warden Snells.
"Alexandar Turnip Dexter?" the warden asked without looking up from Lex's file.
"Yes, sir," Lex said.
"Please take a seat," Snells instructed, pointing to a wooden chair (another punishment compliments of the woodworking department).
Lex took a seat. For a wooden chair, it was very comfortable, which is why Lex pretended to squirm to find a more comfortable sitting position. The guards stood on either side of him, poked him, and demanded he stop fidgeting.
"Your file says you are here on three charges of grand vandalism, and you are currently performing data entry in the computer lab?" Snells asked.
"Yes, sir," Lex said, and for good measure added, "Please don't make me go back to the computer lab. I can't stand all that data entry."
Warden Snells stared at Lex. This time, Lex didn't need to pretend to fidget under the warden's gaze.
"Will you two excuse us while I have a chat with Mr. Dexter?" Snells asked the guards.
The guards chuckled and poked Lex some more on their way out of the room. One of them added, "You're in for it now."
After the door closed behind the guards, Snells asked, "Do you think I'm an idiot?"
"No, sir," Lex said.
"Do you think I don't know about all the riffraff playing the system and mooching from my prison?" Snells asked.
Lex gulped and said, "I suppose you do know, sir."
"Yes, I do know. And, I've adjusted the rules of the game and have found lucrative ways around all the tedious tasks our inmates 'hate'," he said, adding air quotes around the last word. "I even know about the novel you are writing. How is that coming along, anyway?"
Lex thought he was clever, but apparently not clever enough. He didn't like where the warden's line of questions was leading.
"The novel is coming along well. I'm nearly finished with the first draft."
"Nearly finished with the first draft. That's quite the accomplishment, Mr. Dexter."
"Yes, sir."
"I would hate for your almost complete first draft to be accidentally deleted from the prison's network. Perhaps we can strike a little deal."
Sure, Lex cheated a little, but he put a lot of work into his novel. He gave up communication with the outside world so he could concentrate on the elements of his pretend world. If the warden deleted his work, he would need to type it all over again. At least, being this far into the writing process, he was familiar enough with the characters, setting, and plot lines that he could type it all over again, and with possible improvements.
"What kind of deal?" Lex asked.
The warden slid a flat device across the surface of his monstrous desk. He asked, "Have you ever seen one of these?"
"The Hitchhiker's Guide? Of course. A buddy of mine on the outside has one. Why?"
"The same publishing company that produces the Guide is willing to publish your novel in exchange for helping them."
"What's the catch?"
"Look up 'Lady Henrietta Vanderschnork'," the Warden instructed.
Lex needed a little assistance with the spelling of her last name, but managed to look up the entry. The Guide had this to say about Lady Henrietta Vanderschork…
Party trap.
"What do you make of that entry?" Warden Snells asked.
Lex shrugged. "It's a palindrome?"
The warden looked at the entry and nodded. "Yes, it is. But, do you have any idea what it means?"
Party trap? What did that mean? How could a party be a trap? Was it a party you could never leave? Was it the greatest party ever that you would never want to leave? Was it something that started as a party and turned into a time-share presentation? It could be a lot of things.
Lex shook his head. "I don't know."
"The Guide's publishers are a little concerned about this entry. They've sent eleven reporters to embellish the entry on Ms. Vanderschnork, and not one of them has returned. The first reporter posted that entry. The other ten have made no updates and have not reported back. As I said, they are willing to publish your novel, but they want you to investigate."
"What happens if I disappear into this party trap and am never heard from again?" Lex asked.
"Then the Guide will know it is a trap and update the entry with a warning label, but a friendly warning label so as not to panic the reader."
"And what if I choose to run away from this deal and go out on the lam?"
"You may not think so, but I do care about your safe return. You will be fitted with a DarkStar brand ankle monitor before your departure. I know where Lady Vanderschnork resides and will monitor you from here. You try to flee and the monitor will go off."
Lex had heard rumors of prisoners tinkering with DarkStar monitors that involved people being crushed into a singularity from the ankle up. Not a pleasant way to go.
The Warden continued, "The monitor will keep you from wandering off. However, the ankle monitor will also track your vitals, so if there is anything sinister about Ms. Vanderschnork, I will also know about that as well. However, if you choose not to help, you won't be finishing your novel in my prison. I'll make sure the guards don't give you as much as a scrap of paper and a broken stub of pencil to write with for the rest of your stay. Am I understood?"
"Yes, sir."
How could he refuse? If he stays, his novel is history. If he goes or tries to run away, he could be history. What kind of party is a trap? Would it be so bad to be stuck at a party?
"Do we have a deal, Mr. Dexter?"
"Yes, sir. We do," Lex said, and extended his hand to the Warden to shake on their deal.
Warden Snells looked down at Lex's hand and said, "I don't shake hands. Too much of a possibility of germs and shivs."
Warden Snells called the guards back into the office to attach the ankle monitor to Lex's left leg. With a couple clicks and the beeping of the monitor's activation, the deal was sealed.
One of the Umdraff Prison transports delivered Lex to the doorstep of Lady Henrietta Vanderschork. She had in a large, rustic cabin in the foothills of the Fruaguart Mountains of the Planet Zanfootz.
With a name beginning with "Lady", Lex expected a woman of wealth and excellence dressed in a ballgown with heels and sparkles. Instead, she wore a plain, navy blue dress with deck shoes. It was the kind of comfortable outfit a woman might wear for guests of a casual get together, and not the outfit of a killer living in solitude in her cabin in the woods. Lex was allowed to change from his prison uniform back into the comfortable shirt and pants he wore at the time of his arrest. He was relieved to know he should fit right in if this was a casual party.
Asuuming there was a party, Lex could not hear it. All he heard were the birds squawking in the trees of the nearby forest and the wind blowing through the swaying tree branches.
"Hello," Lady Vanderschnork said, "You must be Mr. Dexter. Welcome!"
She pulled him into a quick hug. It had not been much more than a year since he was sent to Umdraff, but he missed the touch and scent of a woman. She released him, placed her hands tenderly on either side of his head, and pulled it down to place a simple kiss on his forehead.
"Oh. Thank you, Ms. Vanderschnork," Lex said at the unexpected welcome.
"Please, call me Henrietta."
"You can call me Lex."
"Lex Dexter. What a quaint name. Please, allow me to show you inside."
She took his hand in one of hers, and gave a friendly wave to the prison transport as it took off into the sky, leaving Lex at the "party trap". Lex thought if this was a trap, he wouldn't mind sicking around for the party.
Henrietta opened the front door and escorted Lex inside. The inside of the house was more elaborate than the rustic outside. The foyer was tiled with blue and beige squares, and the walls were painted to match the creme color of the lighter tiles. To one side, there was an umbrella stand next to a single door. Lex guessed it was probably a closet. Across from the cabin's front door stood two massive double doors that slid into the walls on either side of the doorway.
Once inside Henrietta's place, he could hear the familiar sounds of a party from the direction of the double doors. It wasn't the deafening sound of blasting rock music of a frat party, but the more subdued piano music and mild chatter of a cocktail party.
Stepping into the trap, Lex thought.
Indeed it was a cocktail party. Everyone had a drink in hand and stood or sat in small groups talking with one another. Along the right wall was a wet bar. One of the guests, a man with four arms, took it upon himself to play the role of bartender and served drinks to the other guests. A couple of women sat on stools at the bar and flirted with him.
An upright biano occupied the far corner of the room across from the double doors and the bar. The biano was two pianos adjoined at a right angle, like a letter L. The curved, black bodies of each piano ran up the wall like a a silhouette of a hilly landscape. A young woman played one half of the biano and begged other people passing by to accompany her.
An assortment of humanoids played some kind of gambling game on the coffee table in the center of the room. Lex couldn't make heads or tails of what game they played. At times he thought it was a poker variant. At other times he thought it might be Gold Mine or Hide the Baby, neither game he had played since he was in school.
Lex ordered a rum and soda. He watched the self-proclaimed barman carefully to make sure nothing extra slipped into his drink, because that would be the first place someone could spring a trap at a party. He didn't see anything suspicious. The four-armed man was too busy flirting with the women to even attempt to distract Lex with mild conversation. Lex tasted his drink and it tasted fine. He thanked the man for the drink and mingled his way around the room.
Lex stood behind the sofa and nursed his drink as he watched the people play their game. It seemed as if every time he started catching on to how to play, the rules changed. He tried asking a people how to play it. They would spout out some basic game mechanic, trail off, and end with, "It's a lot of fun. You should try it."
He looked up from the game and watched the other guests. Across the room, he spied an attractive woman with a streak of rainbow color in her long, blonde hair. He tilted his head side to side, but could not see her face, only her long blonde and rainbow colored hair.
Lex looked around the room and realized someone was missing. Where was their lovely hostess, Lady… What was her name?
"Excuse me?" Lex said, and tapped the shoulder of a man seated on the sofa in front of him.
"Yes?" the man said looking up.
"Have you seen…I can't remember her name. The hostess," Lex said.
"No, I haven't, but then I've been too busy playing," the man said.
"What's her name?" Lex asked.
"Ms. Harriet VanHousen? No, I haven't seen her," the man said.
"Yeah, that's her. Or, is it?" Lex said. The man was no longer listening; he had returned to the game.
Lex returned to the bar to drop off his glass. Without asking, the man working the bar refilled his drink.
"Have you seen Ms. VanHousen?" Lex asked the man at the bar.
"You mean the hostess? Madame Vanderbar?" the bar man asked.
Is that right? Lex thought, before he heard himself say, "Yeah, that's her."
"Sorry, bud. I've been too busy managing the drinks," he said.
Lex tried to remember the hostess's name, but couldn't concentrate on it. He looked around the room for her. He was sure if he spotted her, he could remember her name.
The woman with the blonde-rainbow hair stood by the young woman sitting at the biano. He still couldn't see her face, only the back of her head.
He meandered his way from the bar to the biano. He glanced down at the game on the coffee table. Apparently, the cards were now replaced with dice and tiddlywinks. Lex shook his head and looked in the direction of the biano. The blonde woman was no longer there. He glanced around and noticed she stood at the bar, again with her back to Lex. He had only glanced at the game for a moment, he didn't remember her passing him. Either she did and he hadn't realized it, or she moved incredibly fast going the long way around.
"Would you care to play with me?" the young woman asked Lex as he strode up to the biano.
"Um. Sure," Lex said, and joined her on the L-shaped bench.
"Finally," she said. "I prefer to play the banjo, but this biano will do. Do you know New Moon, Bright Stars?"
Lex remembered the old song, but he wasn't sure he could play it. He wasn't even sure if he could play a biano, but said, "Sure." He set down his drink on the bench beside him and began playing it anyway. The young woman joined right in with the counter-melody.
"So, how do you know Mrs. Vanderbilt?" Lex asked.
"I don't, but my brother does. He's over there, playing Mad Cow," she said, indicating the game behind them at the coffee table.
Lex shook his head and smirked. Of course the game was Mad Cow. How could it be anything else? He couldn't think of the rules, but was certain the young woman was correct.
"My name's Lex. Do you have a name?"
The young woman giggled and said, "Of course I do. It's Qona."
Lex stopped playing and turned to face the young woman beside him. She did look familiar to him. He asked, "Your name one more time, please?"
She continued playing, and said, "It's Qona. Anop is playing Mad Cow."
"Anop?" Lex said. He swiveled around on the bench, knocking the rest of his drink onto the hard floor. No one at the party seemed to notice the glass shattering on the floor.
Lex looked between Qona and Anop. Of course they looked familiar to him. He had imagined them both for months. They were the twins from his novel. But, how could they be with him at a party? Unless…
He looked around the party, again. The dice and tiddlywinks of Mad Cow were once again replaced, only this time it was colored squares, like paint swatches, and bits of string. The woman with the blonde-rainbow hair was across the room and still had her back to him. What did it mean?
Two words popped into Lex's mind: Party trap!
Unable to remember the hostess's real name…Unable to see the blonde woman's face…The characters from his book…It all made strange sense. He was in some kind of dream or hallucination. Maybe the barman did spike his drink.
He looked down at where his drink had shattered on the floor. The glass, ice, and mixed drink were no longer there as if nothing had happened.
The party in itself was too perfect. It was the kind of laid back party he preferred. He looked across the room, and realized the double doors were no longer there. He couldn't leave this party the way he came in.
There's only one way to leave this party, Lex thought, Ludo's Detox.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the subject of Ludo's Detox…
In the middle asteroid belt of Glapdon-Seven, at the Monstary for the Brotherhood of Spoon, a young monk by the name of Ludo Zanth created a meditation technique to pure the body of toxins, including the effects of recreational drugs.
While other monks made wine, the monks of the Brotherhood of Spoon made pudding which had a side effect of causing certain lifeforms to shape-change their body. When testing the potency of their puddings, the brothers sometimes needed to wait until their bodies returned to normal before storing a good batch of pudding into barrels. They found it difficult to work with the vats when their bodies changed into ostriches or deck chairs. The pudding process became much more efficient when Brother Ludo developed his detoxification technique.
It is believed that many people could benefit from Ludo's Detox technique in order to avoid various drunken situations. It is the same many people who also believe, "I paid good money for these damn drinks, and I damn well intend to enjoy them, damn it!"
The eight steps for Ludo's Detox technique are as follows…
Lex completed all eight steps of Ludo's Detox as quickly as he could, forcing the toxins into his left arm. By the time he was done, he realized four things. First, even though he was accompanied by other humanoids, he was in the cargo hold of a ship and not at a cocktail party. Second, nobody spiked his drink, because there were no drinks. Third, he and the others in the cargo hold were under the influence of a strong hallucinogen. It appeared his left arm, the one with the toxins, returned to playing the biano, while the others in the hold were also miming various actions. And fourth, he could clearly remember the name of the hostess was Lady Henrietta Vanderschnork.
Lex located the access to the cargo hold's sliding double doors. The foyer of Ms. Vanderschnork's "house" was actually an airlock, which led back to the hostess sitting in a chair on the mock front porch. She leapt from her chair.
"Mr. Dexter! How did you resist the effects of my lipstick?" she asked.
"You!" Lex said, and threatened her with a hand that continued playing an invisible biano.
"Ah," she said with a smiled, "I see you know the ways of Ludo's Detox."
"Yes. It's helped me survive several bad batches of prison wine," he said, "Why are you trapping people like this?"
Ms. Vanderschnork pouted and said, "Because people taste so much better when they die peacefully. And, what's more peaceful than dying while partying? It's a pity. I'll have to kill you anyway to prevent my secret from getting out."
"You kill and eat people?" Lex asked, appalled.
"No, you silly man. I drug people and the butchers buy and kill them. And the butchers work for my restaurant where the patrons eat without knowing what, or rather who, they are eating," she said. She pulled a gun that resembled a small hairdryer from her pocket and set it to a label that clearly stated "Kill".
Lex threw his hand in the air while the other mimed moving a drink to his lips. He pleaded, "Please, I don't want to be on the menu. I just want to finish my novel."
She lowered the gun and asked, "You're a writer?"
Lex his one hand high in the air and said, "Yes. I put myself in prison so I could write my novel uninterrupted by life's constant disturbances. The publishers for the Guide sent me here to fix your entry. Here."
He slowly lowered his hand into his pocket and pulled out the Guide. Fumbling with the one hand, because the other one was not yet cooperating, he pulled up Ms. Vanderschnork's entry to show her.
"Party trap? That's it? Accurate and to the point, I suppose, but not very flattering to a lady," she said. She raised the gun again and aimed it at his chest.
"I can update your entry. I can write it more flattering. Just, please, don't kill me," he said.
"Tempting, but no. It's a secret I've kept for decades. Aren't you dying to know how I did it?"
"No, I'm good."
"I see you have an ankle monitor. I don't even have to kill you. I could make it look like you are running away and that little anklet will handle the dirty work for me."
"I'm definitely good. Besides, why draw that much attention to yourself. They'll wonder what I ran away from?" Lex said.
"Or, towards. Like…your freedom?"
"Listen, what if I throw in a review for the restaurant?"
She cocked an eyebrow and lowered her gun.
Lex sat at a table for four in Henrietta's kitchen of her actual house beyond the far side of the mock rustic cabin. He slowly regained control of his other hand. With some of the gestures and motions it had made, he felt a little jealous at missing the rest of the party, but not jealous enough to become the daily special.
Lex noticed how quiet her house was, and asked, "Do you live out here alone?"
"At one time there was a Mr. Vanderschnork," she said, as she prepared two plates of something that smelled mouthwatering.
"Did he like to go to parties?" Lex asked.
"If you are asking me if he ended up on the menu, the answer is 'no'. At least not yet. You see, he ran off with another woman who turned out to be the wife of one of the chefs at the restaurant. That's how I became involved with this venture. The chef and I became good friends, nothing more. He taught me how to cook this particular tasty dish," she said, and placed two plates of food on the table.
The meal reminded him of stroganoff with its creamy, brown sauce poured over chunks of meat, noodles, and assorted vegetables. Lex wasn't sure what the dish was, but he held off trying some until he saw Henrietta take a bite first. She did so without hesitation. He had an idea of what the meal consisted of and didn't want to taste it. But, it smelled so good.
"I know what you're thinking Mr. Dexter. I can assure you it's not the same species as either of us," she said.
Lex speared a sliver of meat with a couple of noodles and a slice of purple, Margladon carrot. Normally, he didn't think twice about any of the beasts he had eaten, but under the current circumstances, he was hyperaware of the situation and considered going vegetarian.
"I'm not poisoning you, Lex. It's really good. And, if you are going to write a fair review, I would think you would want a taste of what you will be writing about," she said.
Lex held his breath and placed the forkful into his mouth. It was the best thing he had ever tasted. The creamy, buttery sauce was so savory. It seeped into the crevices of the meat and noodles, binding all the flavors together. And, the meat tasted…familiar? He wondered if he had ever eaten this kind of meat before.
"Some people think it tastes like chicken. I think it tastes more like Gary," she said, and popped another heaping bite into her mouth.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy on the subject of the Taste of Chicken…
There is a strange phenomena throughout the universe about why so many types of meat taste like chicken. In one of the rare instances that science and religion collaborated, they arrived at the following theory…
In the beginning, God created two flavors: curry and chicken. God worked on curry first, which is why nothing else tastes like a curry. Because He started with His masterpiece, by the time He decided other foods needed to start with a milder flavor, He created the flavor of chicken. On the seventh through fifteenth days, He slacked off and didn't add much variety, which is why most things that are not curries taste like chicken.
Another speculation is that chicken is the base of all flavors, the blank canvas in which all other flavors evolved.
Whether people believe that most things taste like chicken because the flavor was created or evolved, one of the few things both parties can agree on is that nothing else tastes like a curry.
Lex felt conflicted. On the one hand, the flavor was delicious and made him realize how hungry he was. On the other hand, he was nauseated to think he was eating a creature that was sentient enough to seek out Lady Henrietta Vanderschnork's "party". He didn't know if he should vomit or snarf down the rest. He decided on the latter, and if he felt guilty enough about it later, he would ask for directions to the restroom.
"What did you think?" she asked, watching Lex scrape up the last bit of sauce.
"I think I'm ready to start writing and try not think about Gary," he said.
Henrietta wanted Lex to start with the review since sending an updated entry to the Guide would release him from his ankle monitor.
Lex asked about the ambiance of the restaurant, since he had never actually stepped into the place, and still was unaware of its name. He had no problem describing the meal since it was still on his taste buds—and mind. No where in the review did he mention the source of the meat, nor did he mention the meat's name was possibly "Gary".
As for the updated entry, the Guide now had this to say about Lady Henrietta Vanderschork…
The home of Lady Henrietta Vanderschnork is less of a place to party and more of a place for the weary traveller to have a brief stay. This hostess is very gracious and greets everyone with open arms and a simple kiss before escorting guests to the party. During this reporter's stay, I met people I could have only imagined meeting. The previous entry called it a "party trap", because the previous writer was dying to leave. Others have found their stay to be a truly mind-blowing experience. While not for everyone, it is a once in a lifetime opportunity that will leave you forever changed from the person you once were.
"I appreciate your kind words, especially after all we have shared. I hope you promise to keep this secret between ourselves," she said.
"Oh, I will. But, I don't think I'll ever be able to stomach the name Gary, again."
She smiled and sent the updated entry to the Guide before handing it back to Lex. They walked from the house to the porch of the "rustic party cabin".
"While we wait for my ride, why don't you fill me in on the details of your operation, from greet to eat? That is, if you don't mind me using it for one of my stories," Lex said.
"Why not? Who would believe the words of a fiction writer? It all starts with a simple kiss [THIS PORTION OF STORY HAS BEEN REDACTED BY THE ANTARIAN RESTAURANT COMPANY AS A VIOLATION OF TRADE SECRETS. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE THIS MAY CAUSE. LIVE IN PEACE!] garnish and serve. Pretty simple, really."
They chatted for a while longer. He told her about his book, which she said she couldn't wait to read. He promised to send her a copy. She told him about how she met her ex-husband. Then, she tried to convince Lex that eating a person of another species was not cannibalism, and he protested that they are thinking creatures, to which she countered that all animals with brains are thinking creatures. They finally agreed to disagree. Although he was technically a criminal and she was an accomplice to a restaurant involved with mass murder, the two really weren't too different and promised to keep in touch with one another.
The shuttle from Umdraff Prison landed in the yard. Out stepped Warden Snells accompanied by two guards.
"I guess this is my ride," Lex said.
"I hope you keep your promise, and please do keep in touch," she said and gave him a hug.
Lex understood what she said as two different promises, both of which he intended to keep.
"Mr. Dexter," Warden Snells said striding across the lawn, "The Guide appreciates your work. They said you can keep the Guide and hope you will continue to contribute."
As if on cue, the ankle monitor beeped and clicked. It popped off his leg and clattered to the ground.
"Your a free man, Mr. Dexter. The guards will escort you back to Umdraff where you can collect your possessions we had placed in storage upon your arrest," Snells said.
"And, my novel?" Lex asked.
Warden Snells cocked his head to the side and said, "Yeah. About that. Unfortunately, it was destroyed, possibly during the riot."
"What riot, sir?" asked one of the guards.
Warden Snells winced briefly, and then forced a cold smile at Lex. "It needed a lot of work, anyway."
Anger bubbled through Lex's veins. All the chemicals pumping through his blood made him want to pounce on the warden and beat the smile off his face, regardless of the two guards standing by. Instead, he invoked Ludo's Detox a second time, smiled, and said, "That's a shame. Oh well. I guess I'll head back to Umdraff to collect the rest of my stuff that wasn't destroyed in the riot. Henrietta, would you mind showing the warden to the party? He probably needs a drink. I hear those prison riots can get crazy."
"It'd be my pleasure," she said. She winked at Lex who smiled and waved back to her. Lex turned and boarded the shuttle with the two guards.
"Thank you for bringing Mr. Dexter to me, sir. I appreciate all he has done to help me," she said. Henrietta pulled Warden Snells into a hug and kissed him gently on the cheek.