Plysmorphis
Yum.
plysmorphis (pliz-mohr-fis)
Scort Muggins, Human year 3240:
I first arrived on Plysmorphis on a hot winter day. Humans can only visit this planet during the winter years because it gets too hot during the summer. Luckily, winter lasts five human years on this planet. I didn’t know it yet, but I would spend the largest portion of my journey on Plysmorphis.
Figure 3.1 - Plysmorphian
The intelligent beings on Plysmorphis are some of the kindest and happiest beings I’ve ever encountered, though quite fat. Plysmorphians can range from 3-5 tons, reaching a height of only ten feet, so most of their mass goes around their gelatin-like, orange torsos. I’m told they have legs, but I haven’t been able to see them as their fat goes down to the floor. (See Figure 3.1) Plysmorphians do have hands, but their traditional greeting is rubbing bellies. Their obesity makes perfect sense. It’s rumored that Plysmorphians have the best food in the universe. [Note: Second best is Mexican food.]
I needed to try that food.
Plysmorphians have an average IQ that is more than a step above humans, however, their large bodies are much harder to maneuver and have slowed their rate of progress with technology. Much like us, they’re an interplanetary species, have mastered interstellar travel, and receive all of their power from their closest star. Plysmorphians are also an extremely religious species, though, they don’t worship gods as we know them. Plysmorphians worship food. In fact, food is so important to them, that their leader is chosen by a food competition. Previous leaders judge each candidate’s ability to cook food and whomever is deemed the best cook becomes the leader of the planet. The competition is broadcast and quite entertaining.
I simply had to try the food.
As soon as I arrived at customs, a Plysmorphian officer checked my identity implant and led me to a host family. As a race, the Plysmorphians pride themselves on hospitality, and every visitor is given the full Plysmorphian household experience. We went to a separate room where I met my host family, greeting all three of them with the customary belly to belly rub. The largest of them was about as large as I had seen a Plysmorphian in my short time on the planet. The second largest was maybe one ton less and holding a much smaller Plysmorphian that I assumed to be their child, still weighing twenty times more than me. The largest was named Plysorp, the second largest was named Plyswomp, and the smallest was named Plysbarn. Most Plysmorphian names don’t begin with “Plys” but this family seemed to find it funny.
What wasn’t funny was how much I wanted to try their food.
We took an anti-gravity bubble, the usual intercity transport on Plysmorphis, to the family’s house, passing by massive buildings and millions of other anti-gravity bubbles transporting Plysmorphians from place to place. As you can imagine, the buildings and houses are much larger and wider than on Mars - less likely to knock things over.
All I was thinking about was trying their food.
When we arrived at the giant house, I was shown a giant bedroom where I would be staying and a massive water bed that I hoped wouldn’t envelop me in my sleep. My eyes were darting around the place to find the fridge, but all of the appliances were so foreign to me that I couldn’t figure out which one was the fridge. I set my baggage down in my room.
Super casually and nonchalantly, I said “I’m a little peckish from the long trip. Would you have anything I could snack on?”
Plyswomp giddily replied, “Of course, you look famished. There’s no meat on your bones. Let us make you something.”
Being the gracious hosts the Plysmorphians are, they immediately led me to the kitchen area and started cooking. I didn’t ask for anything in particular - I wouldn’t even know what to ask for. I trusted that any of their food would blow me away. Plysorp finished making… something… I couldn’t tell what it was, and then cut the tiniest piece off to put it on my plate. Plysorp then cut the tiniest piece of that piece off and put the rest of the piece back. Plysorp laid the plate before me and I was shocked. How could I be given such a small sample? This wasn’t even close to hospitable. My Plysmorphian host family could read my displeasure.
Plysorp explained, “Human can only digest the smallest amounts of Plysmorphian food, but it will satisfy you like an entire human meal. If you ate too much of our food, your body would be overwhelmed with euphoria. Your body could shut down for extremely long periods of time in order to digest all of the food.”
WHATEVER. I shoved the small bite in my mouth.
Holy
Flirk
[Note: Please excuse my crass language from here on out. I use the words only to be more authentic in my writings.]
My entire body erupted with pleasure, like I was tasting the food from my mouth to my toes. It was like cheating death, feeling invincible and fragile at the same time. Love was exploding out of me. I felt at one with each part of the universe. I had never tasted or experienced anything like it. I didn’t know if it was sweet or savory, maybe both. It didn’t matter. All I knew was that I had to have more. I chewed the piece for as long as I could before I swallowed. I opened my eyes and the Plysmorphians were gone. The lights in the kitchen were on and it seemed like it was dark outside. I must have been chewing that one crumb for hours. I quickly looked around for more of the food, but it had been put away. BUT now I knew where the fridge appliance was. I could easily grab some more food. Right when I was about to open the fridge, Plyswomp came into the kitchen.
“You shouldn’t eat any more Plysmorphian food until tomorrow,” Plyswomp warned.
“I’M FINE. I’M JUST GOING TO HAVE ONE MORE BITE,” I screamed, far louder than I meant to. I needed more!
“Not until tomorrow,” Plyswomp insisted.
Plyswomp led me back to my bedroom.
I needed more food.
I got ready to go to sleep and crawled to the middle of the giant water bed. I tried to sleep, but I couldn’t. I waited for all of the lights in the house to turn off and then I slowly got out of bed, making sure the slosh of the water underneath me wouldn’t wake anyone. I stealthily made my way back to the kitchen and opened the fridge.
Food.
I grabbed as much as my arms could handle and set it down on the table to feast. I tasted it all. Anything that looked like something I hadn’t already tried was in my mouth immediately. I couldn’t stop eating the magnificent food. Even if I wanted to stop, it would be like trying to stop your stream when you’re already peeing without having practiced any kegels. And I didn’t even want to stop. I just wanted to eat more and more and more, to taste this and that and those. It was like I had been eating dirt and starving my entire life and this was my first real meal.
I don’t know what happened after that.
I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew, I was in a cold, dark basement. Presumably, I was in the basement of my host family, but the restraints around my wrists and legs didn’t seem like the hospitable Plysmorphian family I knew. I looked around the room, but didn’t see any food anywhere. I also didn’t see anything to help me escape. I pulled at my restraints, knowing already that there was no chance of me getting loose. I was weak… and kind of fat. My body was not the same as it was before, but I couldn’t have possibly gained all of this weight with one meal. I shouted, but nothing came out the first time. It was like I had taken a vow of silence like the Earth apes I had read about. [Note: For thousands of years, Earth apes had taken a vow of silence and never revealed that they could understand and speak human language. That is, until The Great Ape Wars that were fought over diminishing habitat area due to deforestation and climate change. The apes lost… obviously.] I tried to keep shouting and something finally came out.
“Guurhhgghhhuhhgguh…” I barely got out, foaming from my mouth.
I was reminded of my mother.
Just then, a high-pitched “ding” went off across the room and a tiny light turned on. Doors slid open like an elevator, and the biggest Plysmorphian I had ever seen walked out of it, straight toward me. I was sure its size was a record on the planet. It could crush me in an instant, and it seemed like it might. I pulled at the restraints more and more. All I wanted was one more bite of their food before I died, but it was useless. I was going to be crushed.
“Welcome back,” the Plysmorphian said politely.
I recognized its voice. It was Plysbarn, the smallest Plysmorphian in the family, but good lord had it grown. It couldn’t have possibly gained the weight overnight, although, looking at my own stomach… maybe.
I tried to ask him what was going on. Why was I tied down? Why was I in the basement? But not much came out. Plysbarn simply explained that it was summer on Plysmorphis, and if I wasn’t underground in a dark basement, then I would be exposed to the heat and die. That was impossible. I had arrived to the planet at the beginning of winter, and winter and summer each last about five human years. Plysbarn told me not to worry because winter was just around the corner, and I’d be able to leave soon.
Ten years? How could I not worry when ten flirking years had passed? It couldn’t be true, but he explained that my human body was overwhelmed with euphoria and wasn’t able to digest the amount of Plysmorphian food I had eaten. My body shut down and slowly digested the food over ten human years.
That was when the beads of cold sweat began trickling down my neck. I started shaking. I was starving, and not in the hungry sense, in the starving sense. I had never experienced a hunger like this. It was like there was a black hole in my stomach. I started to dry heave. I needed food. I begged for food, but Plysbarn refused. The splitting headache hit me like a .7mm phaser through the back of my skull. I collapsed to the ground, holding my stomach that felt so ravenous it was eating me from the inside out. I needed more food or I was going to die.
I angrily shouted at Plysbarn, “I NEED FOOD YOU FAT FLIRK,” sprinkling in a couple of species slurs I had picked up on my travels.
Plysbarn just silently walked back to the end of the room and disappeared behind the elevator-like doors.
I rushed to my restraints and began gnawing on them. I wasn’t sure if I was trying to escape or trying to put absolutely anything in my stomach. My sweat had fully drenched my clothes, and the dry heaving had turned into projectile vomiting. Sweating. Puking. Sweating Puking. I was so disoriented that I wasn’t sure if I was puking sweat or sweating puke.
I passed out again.
While I was unconscious, I had a vision. I was a baby and my father was holding a spoonful of Plysmorphian food, pretending it was a rocket ship made to fly into my mouth. But before the glorious Plysmorphian food made the interstellar trek to my tastebuds, my father purposefully dropped the spoon, cackled, and walked away, flipping me the double bird and disappearing from my mind.
I awoke with a start. My clothes had been changed, and I was no longer drenched in sweat or vomit. I felt hungry, but only a normal amount. My entire host family was in the basement with me and handed me my luggage. It was obvious that I had overstayed my welcome, but the Plysmorphian hospitality is unmatched in the universe. They kept me safe for ten human years, and I couldn’t be more grateful. Had they not put me in the cold, dark basement, I wouldn’t have survived the surface heat. And I’m not sure how my digestive track processed the Plysmorphian food, but I assume they had to do some less-than-enjoyable clean-up over the years.
Plysbarn, Plysorp, and Plyswomp took me back to customs in the transportation anti-gravity bubble to see me off on the rest of my journey. Before we parted ways, Plysbarn - now the biggest of the family, having grown to full-size while I was incapacitated - gave me a box. There was no way to open this box from what I could see, but he told me that inside there was a small amount of Plysmorphian food. My heart skipped a beat. I couldn’t wait to mutilate the box and devour the food inside. I couldn’t help myself, and I dropped my luggage to pry the gift open. Plysbarn stopped me and told me that the box will only open once during a human sol and deliver the slightest crumb of Plysmorphian food. That would be the only portion given to me each day, and then the box would be locked again. I gathered myself together, realizing that my initial reaction to the present had been embarrassingly compulsive. I thanked my host family and rubbed bellies with them one last time. Now ten years older and pudgier, I got onto my spacecraft.
RATINGS
Hospitality — 10/10
Food — 18/10
Sights — N/A
Activities — N/A
Family Friendly — 8/10
Belly Rubs — 10/10