CHAPTER 38

  Being Immortal

  Beard of Broog in hand, I traipsed off in search of my lost immortal 'friends'. It wasn't difficult. I found them rummaging in bin #894391 – GRQAJ219%&11.FFQ

  “Hey, look, he finally evolved the ability to breathe and see and what not,” came the familiar mocking tone of Dr. Rip T. Brash The Third. “We thought you'd never stop wriggling and trifecta-ing about.”

  “Tri-what-ing?” I said.

  “The Trifecta.”

  “And what,” I sighed, “is a Trifecta?”

  “Crying,” said Rip.

  “Puking,” continued Wilx.

  “And Pissing in your pants,” they merrily exclaimed in unison. “At the same time!”

  They broke out into laughter. I didn't get it.

  “Yeah, whatever,” I dismissed. “So... you didn't have to suffer the same trials of adaptation as my body had to?”

  “Pffft!” laughed Wilx. “What, you think this is the first time we've been banished to a garbage planet to uncover some sort of lost, magical, voodoo-antiquity?”

  “You really have a lot to learn about being immortal,” said Rip.

  That pretty much summed up everything at that point.

  “I've got the beard,” I said defeated.

  “Course you do,” said Wilx. “Of course you do.”

  “Did you chat with that nutty little fruit fly?” Asked Rip. “I'm certain he gave us the wrong map.”

  “Yeah... can we get out of here now?” I said.

  “I suppose we ought to fashion some sort of escape vessel,” said Wilx. “Let's head over to the razor sharp ravines of pointy rocket ships.”

  We walked for a long time in silence.

  “Interesting fact,” said Wilx, punching numbers into a small, digital computation device. “When adjusted for relativity, that fruit fly is the oldest creature to ever exist.”

  “Ha! Told you so,” said Rip.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Wilx, handing a bag of dried up, dusty and filthy superfluous internal organs to Rip, who began rather grotesquely to ingest them and move them about his insides back into place with a pointed stick.

  And yes, if you must know, Milt is the only creature to match the meticulous attention to cleaning detail of The Quiggs. A strange being indeed.