and saw that I'd only taken one step through the door before freezing in amazement. I had the revelation that I wasn't just watching a scene in a movie. I was in the movie. I could go exploring. Except as much as I wanted to go exploring, I realized I was starving. I decided to save Mars for later and go locate something to eat.
I looked in some of the kitchens, but Leafhead was right when he said it was probably best to order out. Of the food I did find, it was impossible to differentiate between the items that were actually food and the items that were experimental pranks.
I made my way to the foyer, the only place where I had so far spotted a telephone. A small side table and a stool sat beside the front door. On the table was a telephone and a few notepads. As strange and exciting as things were in the foyer, I realized it was actually the forgettable image of a house-phone on a table that jumped out and caught the attention. Its normalcy was very out-of-place.
There were no phone-books on the table, but I did find one single take-out menu. It was for an interesting sounding restaurant called Obscurity Sandwich. I flipped through the pages. The names of nearly all the dishes were unknown to me. There was a complete lack of description of what exactly one would be eating, so I just dialed the number.
"Hello," said the simultaneously friendly and creepy voice on the other end of the phone. "Thank you for calling Obscurity Sandwich, bringing you the worlds rarest food since 1980."
"Hi," I replied. "I want to order something for delivery, but I have no idea what anything is. Could you explain some of the dishes to me?"
"Of course. Where to start?"
"What is Sannakji?" I asked.
"Ah, excellent eye. Sannakji is a dish consisting of live baby octopus tentacles. The disembodied tentacles continue to aggressively writhe on the plate after they have been cleaved and served. A lovely dipping sauce is provided. Customers who order Sannakji are advised to be highly aware of the choking hazard involved when eating the suction cups of animated tentacles."
"Ok," I said. "How about Casu Marzu?"
"Another excellent suggestion," replied the take-out operator. "Casu Marzu is a Sardinian delicacy. Once illegal, for a time it could only be attained at exorbitant prices from the black market. However Obscurity Sandwich is now proud to offer this rare gourmet dish. It is a soft cheese that has had its fat putrified from an enzyme caused by the presence of hundreds of live maggot larvae. The delicious gooey consistency of Casu Marzu is attained by leaving it to ferment in the sun while being infested by the attraction of cheese-flies--"
"Moving right along," I interjected. "What is Hufu?"
"Hufu is one of our more popular dishes. The name refers to it being a type of Human-Flavoured Tofu. Hufu is said to simulate the texture and flavour of human flesh while satisfying the palette of even the most demanding cannibal. Hufu is particularly appealing for students of anthropology who are eager to experience cannibalism but are deterred by the legal, logistical and moral obstacles."
"Never mind," I said. "I'll just take a turducken." It was the one thing on the menu I recognized. I was pretty sure it wasn't even remotely alive, filled with maggots or borderline-cannibalistic.
"One turducken?" asked the operator.
"Right," I confirmed.
"An admirable choice! Not terribly obscure though. One of our least obscure, in fact. But still worthy. Will you be needing a beverage as well?"
"What is there?" I asked.
"We have Baby Mice Wine, Chica de Jora, Cannabis Soda and the Hot Chocolate."
"Hot chocolate sounds good," I replied.
"Excellent."
I began to notice that everything was excellent to this person. I wished they would spend some time reading a thesaurus.
"Going by our call-display, you are ordering from Chateau Leafhead, correct?"
"That's correct."
"Will this be charged to the Leafhead Incorporated account?"
"Yes."
"Excellent," concluded the operator. "You can expect the delivery-mobile in about 9 hours. Goodbye."
Click.
I was annoyed to learn I'd ordered something that takes 9 hours to prepare. By the time the Obscurity-Mobile arrived I was psychotically famished and covered with red paint (having attempted to eat a Perogy-Bomb that I foolishly believed was real as if I were a madman castaway convincing himself that sea-water will surely quench his thirst). When Dr. Leafhead returned he was pleased to announce that no other intern had made such rapid progress with the dirtying of their new lab-coat.
Over nine hours later a bell rang inside every room of the house. It was the front gate system. I peered outside and saw a van parked on the other side of the fence. The Obscurity Sandwich logo was stencilled on the side in white paint. At a quick glance it merely looked like the van for an upscale catering company. I walked to the end of the driveway. A closer look revealed many subtle divergences from such false prestige. Choking plumes of black smoke were being hacked up by the exhaust pipe. The logo was typo-ridden and crooked, while the paint sketchily dripped. The windows were blacked out. Finally the driver got out, he was a menacing persona with a half-bald crew-cut and several unsettling scars interrupting his face in a manner that seemed to say I was once severely attacked by a machete-wielding maniac, deal with it. I realized the restaurant was likely a cover for those undercover agents. The guy walked around to the alternate side door and retrieved the turducken and the hot chocolate.
"Here is your order," he said. "One turducken and one hot chocolate."
I took the items and the receipt. "This has already been charged to Leafhead Incorporated, right?"
"Indeed. The total is at the bottom of the receipt, for your records. $26,000 even, I think."
"Huh?"
"$26,000."
"Twenty-six thousand dollars?"
"That is the amount when spelled out in letters, yes."
"For a turducken and a hot chocolate?"
"The prices are all laid our for you," he said, pointing at the receipt. "$85 for one turducken. $25,000 for one hot chocolate. Plus our reasonable $915 delivery fee."
"They didn't tell me the hot chocolate costs $25,000."
"Did you ask? We assume our customers realize they are going to pay the highest of prices, considering they are eating the rarest and most obscure food in the world."
"Well I've never ordered from you before."
"In your defense, you did accidentally order what is by far the most expensive item on the menu. Our hot chocolate is shipped in specially from New York City. It is actually the most expensive beverage in the world."
"I don't want it," I said, sniffing the gold and jewel-encrusted whipped cream. "I'm allergic to truffles that cost over two thousand dollars a pound."
"You'll have to take that up with the office," he replied. "You can file a complaint that might result in a refund. But there can be no immediate refunds. You understand."
I decided not to argue. When Leafhead got home I would just have to fess up to having wasted thousands of dollars of his money.
"Ok, fine." I said, turning around to leave.
"By the way," he added, "I included a pamphlet for the upcoming screening of a new film co-produced by Obscurity Sandwich. Check it out. Half price for regular customers."
"Thanks."
As soon as the van had disappeared from sight I intended on crumpling the pamphlet, but at the last second I decided to see what it was all about before throwing it away. It was very clearly a superhero type movie. The absurd title was: RED CAPE MAN AND THE PURPLE-ROBED FREAK vs. THE MAD SCIENTIST. The picture showed a red-caped superhero standing beside a sidekick who was undoubtedly what you would call a "purple-robed freak." The two of them were seen flying through the air while fighting off a Mad Scientist character and his robot-warrior minions. The villain partly resembled L
eafhead. I thought he would get a kick out of it so I saved the pamphlet for later.
After returning to the house I first went to the StorageCentre and put the Hot Chocolate under Cryo-Freeze. I figured the refund policy might require the actual returning of the untouched beverage.
I then took the turducken to the LabCentre and sent it through a cycle in the Ingredient-Analyzer. I was worried about it having been laced with something by undercover agents. The results contained nothing inedible or out of the ordinary.
It was as I sat in the dining hall and ate the turducken that I made my first journal entry.
Journal Entry #1:
I am only just finishing my second day at the Chateau and already I feel as if everything I thought I understood about the world has been thrown out the window. There are things in this house that most people would never believe exist in reality. Dr. Leafhead is the strangest, most brilliant person I have ever met. Part of me wants to believe he is an Alien or something not-quite-human (his functioning portal to Mars backs that up), however I know this is not the case. I still haven't figured out if he has a very bizarre sense of humor, or if he is just a little psychotic... but he says the most insane things as if they were perfectly commonplace. I spent all of today on my own. Leafhead had to leave the grounds on undisclosed business. He made a point of stressing how dangerous the house can be to the uninitiated (and indeed I did nearly die on my first night), yet he decided leaving me alone for the whole day was a good idea. I