Greegs & Ladders - By Zack Mitchell and Danny Mendlow Read online

CHAPTER 2

  the Rebel Groolfh and the Planet Garbotron

  Only once was there a Greeg who did not dream of taking a schmold bath. His name was Groolfh, and he had the shockingly original revelation that one was much luckier for not taking a schmold bath, as to bathe in schmold is to make oneself filthier than the bottommost layers of Garbotron, an uninhabitable planet used only as a dump for countless millennia. Garbotron was well known as the worst smelling place in existence. I can attest to this fact, having seen Garbotron with my own eyes; that is to say, having seen the noxious green vapours surrounding Garbotron from 8 light years away. The planet itself is only visible while actually standing on the surface, yet to stand on the surface is to die within seconds. No mortal creature is exempt from this rule. Even if you’re a life-form that is biologically incapable of the sense of smell, your mind will instinctively know that you are standing in a place that smells too awful to comprehend, and not wanting to take the chance that through a miracle you suddenly acquire the ability to smell, will shut itself down in a manner best suited to the occasion.

  Another important fact about Garbotron is that one doesn't even need to go remotely near it to experience its danger. A dark day in Galactic history was the time an interstellar wind had the unfortunate timing to pass directly through Garbotron’s Diaper Mountain. The name Diaper Mountain is slightly deceiving. It isn’t really a mountain. More a sort of hemisphere. Defying the logic of space with its unstoppable stench, the forgotten memories of Diaper Mountain casually drifted across several light years before settling down on a peaceful, reddish planet. Sadly, this reddish planet was inhabited. All 9.7 billion resident creatures promptly suffered death when the logic-defying stench arrived. It is a good thing sound does not travel through space as well as aroma, for the screams of the dying creatures were so shrill they would have devastated beyond repair the nearby planet Glassvexx, thus sending millions of shards of apparently unbreakable Jardian mega-prisms hurtling through the cosmos for most of infinity.

  Groolfh, justifiably believing he’d made a discovery that would forever transform the history of the Greeg, went forth to one of the highest-up committees in charge of schmold distribution and attempted to explain the futility of bathing in schmold. He passionately argued that bathing in schmold makes you infinitely less clean. He was met with a unanimous vote of disdain and bewilderment. ‘Something as ridiculously expensive as schmold is clearly worth taking a bath in’ was all the committee said before sentencing Groolfh to death for daring to think otherwise. Groolfh was fired out of a cannon aimed directly at Garbotron VI. Luckily he was vaporized in the atmosphere, however the wind of the cannon fire had the unfortunate timing of passing directly through Diaper Mountain on its way to a peaceful reddish planet.

  If these particular Greegs were aware of life on other planets, and were able to notice the interconnectedness of life in the universe as well as I am, they might have adopted a motivational motto that went something like this: ‘To deny the usefulness of bathing in schmold is to cause 9.7 billion creatures to die horribly of Garbotron suffocation.’

  Such a revelation was not had.