51 Planets to See Before the Universe Collapses

tenalp (teh-nahlp)

Scort Muggins, Human Year 3269:

IMPORTANT NOTE: This planet’s time moves backward. I didn’t realize it until days into my experience, and I can safely say that it was extremely confusing. 

We entered rear-first into a Tenalp port and walked backward into a restaurant nearby. Luskem, Pleeft, and I dined with three Tenalpenes that I had never met before. We paid the check and then gradually vomited up dessert and a large meal while spitting out our drinks into our cups. It was all surprisingly delicious and looked absolutely gorgeous on the plate. At one point, my waiter took my drink away from the table and a bus boy spread a bunch of glass and liquid on the floor next to me. Thankfully, the glass put itself back together and jumped onto the table to form another cup, filled to the brim (See Figure 30.1). We left the table and made our way to the bar where we continued to chat and finally learned their names. Then, Pleeft, Luskem, one of the Tenalpenes, and I said hello to the other two and left. I was starving by the time I entered the outdoors with the gang and the one Tenalpene that stayed with us. It’s name was Jorenu.  

Jorenu went with us to a luxurious resort on a beach on Tenalp. We checked out of the resort and went to our room. The room was a mess. Lights were broken, pictures were off the wall, and stains riddled the floors. I had never seen such a horribly kempt resort room, but I was so relaxed at the time that I didn’t care. We unpacked our belongings and placed them all over the floor. Then we all got right into bed, even though it was light out, and our alarm went off before we immediately fell asleep. 

I don’t fully remember waking up, but I gradually regained consciousness while it was still dark outside. My memory came in and out until it returned fully, but in quite a fuzzy state. I definitely remembered Luskem not looking so good, with cuts and blood all over their legs and head-body. But they didn’t seem to care.

I kept spitting out libations at a club in the resort. Jorenu and I were tearing it up with a couple of Tenalpenes. The Tenalpene anatomy consists mostly of a massive buttocks muscle that takes up a large badunkachunk of their bodies. [Note: It isn’t necessarily appealing to humans, but it does mean they make for great grinding partners.] Each Tenalpene always walked backwards, constantly shaking what their biological genitor(s) gave them. (See Figure 30.2)

Meanwhile, Luskem - always the wild one when it comes to drinking - started dancing with a Tenalpene, but it was different from any dance I had seen. The Tenalpene lifted it hind legs - which must have been powerful considering the size of the buttocks - off the floor and their feet forcefully pulled Luskem’s legs and head-body left and then right and then forward. It seemed like Luskem knew the dance because their head-body was going along with all the movements. The dance healed all of the cuts and bruises on Luskem as they faded from their body. Afterward, Luskem said something extremely offensive and derogatory to their healing dance partner. Something along the lines of… 

“Now that’s a flirkin’ THICC unit…”

Their words, not mine. But I agreed.

We danced the night away as I began to get less and less sweaty, far less intoxicated, and far more socially anxious. We exited the club and went back to our room to shower. I got out of the shower - covered in sand and sweaty salty once again - and we all went to the beach as the sun rose. 

The gang and I relaxed with Jorenu on the shore as the waves were sucked out to sea. We spit up drink after drink and the waiters took the full glasses away. I became more sober as the day went on and got more energy. Pleeft’s pot was already full of sand and we found a hole where she fit perfectly and pulled the sand over her roots. She stayed there until we pulled the sand off of her and placed her back in her pot of soil. Then we had to replace all of the sand with a shovel, which was really the hard part. Luskem and I started getting extremely wet all over our bodies and went to play in the waves. As soon as we got out of the ocean, we were instantly dry. I didn’t have to use the restroom, but I went anyway. When I was at the toilet, a stream of urine was sucked up from the toilet bowl and into my bladder. After I finished, I had to pee so bad, but the feeling slowly went away after I left the bathroom. 

I developed a worse and worse hangover as the day went on. We went back to the hotel and, again, climbed into our beds when the sun was still up. We repeated the partying-in-the-early-night-and-relaxing-the-rest-of-the-sol lifestyle for four more sols. On the fifth night, I told Jorenu that the being could stay with us for the rest of the trip, and that sol, Jorenu left us after introducing itself. I watched Jorenu party with some other Tenalpenes right after. The next day, Pleeft, Luskem, and I arrived back into space and were absolutely exhausted, needing a vacation. 

…

I paused for a moment outside of Tenalp, getting ready to visit the planet. Or had we already visited the planet? Or were we just about to visit the planet? We got so confused that Pleeft decided it wasn’t worth it, so we turned around and rocketed to our next destination. I was excited to experience Tenalp in the forward time direction that I was accustomed to, when the universe collapsed and reversed course like the AI supercomputer had told us. Then again, I’ll probably be too accustomed to the backwards direction of time when the universe collapses, that I’ll be equally as disoriented. 

RATINGS

Hospitality — 8/10
Food — 4/10 (good, but… vomit)
Sights — 7/10
Activities — 5/10 (a fun time, but constantly confused)
Family Friendly — 7/10
Tenalpene Butts — 12/10