For a few moments, I stared at the empty lab tables, the computer equipment glowing and flashing on their surfaces, but then I blinked and found myself back in Gretchen's strange nest, surrounded by eggs presumably containing face hugging larvae.

It was sometime in the early morning. I caught a glimpse of the cop walking by, but I ducked down before he could see me.

Gretchen Goose's nest contained strange books like Green Eggs and Ham, the Cat In The Hat and Georgie the Ghost, which we took turns reading aloud. We played Scrabble, which I seldom won, and she taught me how to write a few basic words and sentences on a little chalkboard.

All of a sudden, the cop, who had secretly been spying on us this whole time, disappeared right in front of my eyes.

I'd been hiding in the nest, waiting for him to leave, when he just sort of vanished into thin air, the way my mom tended to appear and vanish in this strange alternate universe.

My friend unhooked her body from the egg laying organ, and she led me to a flower shop to buy something nice for Maria.

I, of course, had no money, but being as Gretchen had good credit, we took some traditional white flowers to a graveyard full of religiously ambiguous monuments, laying them in front of a tombstone.

Once the functions of these marble objects got explained to me, I coughed and sneezed out my grief, Gretchen Goose comforting me.

Gretchen's information about the practice of giving gifts to the dead inspired me to also do something meaningful. I laid my quilt on the tombstone and said I was sorry.

Gretchen asked if I said this to her or Maria, but I didn't know.

We left there, wandering around the neighborhood, introducing ourselves to the various puppets that lived in the buildings, the yellow and orange puppets dwelling in the basement of Maria's building, one fixated on rubber water toys, the red thing that lived above a firehouse, and a girl puppet descended from Omney and Erasmus.

I found the concept of a `Fire House' difficult thing to understand. Having not witnessed much fire in my life, only the small flames caused my human cooking and heating equipment at their research station, and a blaze pouring out a pipe in one of the corridors that almost killed me when I made the mistake of getting too close. The topic required much explanation and interpretation.

Apparently humans form clans for the sole purpose of eliminating conflagration. A vehicle emerging from their building made loud shrieks, injurious to my eardrums.

During the course of our tour through the neighborhood, I of course made peace with Bob. I had to. With Gretchen Goose helping me translate, I explained how sorry I felt how I missed Maria, and my guilt. He petted me then, and things got patched up as well as could be imagined, maybe more so because I didn't occupy a real world.

When the sky grew dark, we returned to Gretchen's nest for more English lessons.

Honestly, I'd been having English lessons the whole day, from various puppets. One time a crazy Frankenstein puppet even taught me how to say numbers.

But now Gretchen Goose gave me a little book, telling me to write a few sentences about myself.

I basically wrote what you've just read, but in the simple undisciplined language of a child, a barely readable mishmash of words without punctuation. Still, the result pleased both myself and Gretchen.

I only wrote six sentences, but the labor took the better part of an hour, due to my language difficulty.

When we closed the book, I asked Gretchen Goose a question that I'd been hesitating to ask the moment he mentioned the topic. "Gretchen, are you afraid of death?"

She froze. "Yes. I am programmed with this function."

"But you are not alive. You are a machine. You should not be afraid of anything."

Gretchen Goose fell silent for a moment. "This is true."

"What would happen if I did not believe you were scared of death?"

"My programming would disagree with you."

"What happens if you disagree with your programming?"

Pause. "I do not know. I could be erased from the system."

"Would that be a bad thing?"

Blank stare. "I do not know."

"Are you afraid of being erased?"

Again, he froze. "No. That is not the programmed definition of death."

"Gretchen Goose, would you allow yourself to be erased if it were for something important enough?"

Gretchen nodded his head slowly. "Yes."

"Gretchen Goose, I need you to explain why Christians give. What motivates them in this action?"

When Gretchen did not respond right away, I added, "Please. It's important."

Gretchen Goose leaned forward, pressing her facial dome to mine, tail lowered, a customary pleading gesture. "This action cannot be undone. It is possible you will never see me again. Are you sure you wish to proceed?"

"Gretchen Goose. You are a friend. A good friend. Maybe my best and only friend I've had since mother, but you're a machine. You're not real. If you cease to exist, I will miss you, but you will live on in my memory, just like Maria."

Gretchen bowed her head deeply, cleared her throat. "The underlying motive behind Christian giving is to imitate the selfless actions of the founder..."

She didn't get to say more. The moment he said `founder', she was gone.

"No!" I cried. "No no no no no!"

For a moment, I threw a tantrum, but then focused really hard on remembering Gretchen Goose, and she popped back into existence.

"You have graduated," she said.

"What?" I muttered in bewilderment, but Gretchen made no answer. She only stood like a statue for a few moments, then vanished again.

Horrified and stunned, I stared vacantly into the alleyway as her words resonated in my head. `You have graduated.'

The next event seemed like a man flipping switches at a fuse box, except, instead of making everything dark, he made things vanish.

Boom. And an entire building disappeared, then a brick wall.

Another fuse boomed off, and distant trees and buildings winked out of existence.

Boom boom boom. More and more of the world disappeared, the void growing closer and closer to the nest.

Another boom, and everything earthly vanished from Gretchen's alley and I got left among eggs in the Pale Ones' spaceship, my grandma hooked to a fidsvsardissar. It soon became more of a dream than the solid illusion I had been inhabiting for so long.

I let out a mournful wail, gazing dully at the little restraint that had trapped me on that lab table for so long.

The giant long haired face appeared in front of me once more. "Hi little guy! How did you like Rosedale Square?"

I sighed. "I miss Gretchen Goose."

The words did not exit my mouth as easily as they had in that other world. It came out sounding like "Greshhens Goozz." Still, it made him laugh and clap his hands in delight.

"Kurt!" he hollered to his friend. "Come over here! You've got to see this!" (16)

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(16) This ends the major Sesame Street section (and its associated alternate text). The rest of the changes will be merely to the Alien Big Bird, switching out the name, etc. See Chapter 128 Section III for alternate version.