Fire Fly.

Several of my readers have issued complaints about my recipe collection severely underestimating the intelligence of the reader. In response, I have begun work on a second first edition printing which will both include corrections for and introduce a few typographical errors, eliminate large portions of cooking instructions, and contain an additional section of photographs of food.

I found myself in darkness. It didn’t occur to me at the time, but it must have been the middle of the night. I raised the upper half of my body and look around, seeing only empty space, so I swung my legs around the edges of my resting place, searching for some sort of ledging to lower myself to ground level. It was a success and I began my descent, but about halfway down, a window caught my attention and I halted progress to take in my surroundings. The window was part of an undeterminable-colored house. So naturally, I climbed right in. I smelled some chomps, so I headed through a door to a room with a stairwell going down on one side and the other with a typical bedroom setup: dresser with mirror, desk, shelving unit with books and movies, bed with single shoe placed in center. I was drawn to the shelves, where I picked up a huge piece of strudel that must have been placed to cool and forgotten. I took a bite. Lovely berries flavor. So good. I have it preferred to forest apples. Some brownies on a plate were on the desk and I snagged those too for eating later. Next, I was getting thirsty, so I headed down the stairs and grabbed a half-gallon container of 2% milk sitting out on a table. I broke the seal with a butter knife, drank some of it, but couldn’t finish, so I fumbled around in my pockets for some silica gel but couldn’t find any. Seeing a cabinet door to my left, I open it up and find a tub of rice. I drop a handful of grains into the milk carton and leave it where I found it.

~I missed the Barley Chef today. Even though he’s my favorite, I’ve only seen a few episodes of his show. I have a fear that if I learn the secrets of barley this way, I may ultimately not have as great an overall appreciation for it as I might if I were to try on my own. But if I try to teach myself barley cooking, I won’t ever come close to the amount of barley-related knowledge as modern barley cooks.~

As I walked forward, the thought of the sandwich I ate occupied my mind. I don’t know how much time passed, but it was now night and I could make out something that left an impression to me as being an concrete loft cube at a dig site. I didn’t stop at it, and continued on, reaching a home. I really had to take a piss, so I headed inside, but there was a huge line for the washroom. After getting in, it was completely empty. Catching a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I had to use the water to fix up my hair a bit, but I was soon lost in thought. What am I doing here, and why did I get here? What does it look like when someone has a fire burning in their eyes? My eyes look black in the middle. Maybe robots have lights in their eyes. If my face were slightly more robotic, I might be a robot. Everyone kind of is a robot. After all, they pray to Robotsk—someone entered the door. This person had a sad look in the eyes, but I knew how to offer a cheering up. I reached into my cargo pocket and grabbed a handful of brownie. “Hey there, what’s wrong? Don’t worry.. sshhh.. sshhhh... just look at me, everything’s gonna be all right. Here, I brought you some of mother’s brownies.”