Froog — Best Served Cold

“You see, it was when I caught this old cooking show on the view tube that it all broke loose. It was in the least likely of places in the whole universe for me to remember my roots, but there it was. I zapped through the channels, on my way from … nowhere to nowhere really. I cannot remember which particular town I was stranded in for the night. At the time one followed each other in quick succession, one mediocre motel after another, highway after highway, spaceport after spaceport. I was hiding from the law, but only very half-heartedly as they clearly did not care enough about a low-life like me to bring out the big guns. Granted, in the intergalactic scheme of things, my little swindles did not interest anyone. I had a nice little trick running, scamming hard-earned pennies from old folks and those who were nicer than clever. If I hadn’t run a scam on the grandmother of a police detective who took the case personal I might still be going. He tried to get the ball rolling and get me arrested, but luckily for me he had a hard time convincing others to care about this little scheme of mine. If I kept a low profile and managed not to run into a cop’s open arms I should actually be ok. So, even my flight from the law was not as glamorous as I imagined. I had hoped for thrills, chases, secret meetings in dark alleyways, preferably with some dames, but no. Here I was in a cheap motel on some god-forsaken planet on a Wednesday night, waiting for sleep to come.

‘Cooking with Froog’ promised to be just the thing. Even though they advertised ‘the most delicious show for the whole of the Andromeda Galaxy, ahahaha’, the character that appeared on screen was less than impressive. With the trained grin of a salesperson they rambled on about the magic nature of this dish about to be prepared, reminisced about the one time when it was prepared by a smarm of Broomps on Ex Gamma Seven ages ago ‘a feast for the eyes, not only for the mouths — or snouts if you are from B1205, ahahaha’ and digressed over leaves from the Brambla tree that make excellent pots, because ‘the original recipe asks for a ceremonial bowl made from Snoork teeth, but these days the Snoork have a lot to say on the topic, so I wouldn’t breach it with them, ahahaha’. I feel ashamed to admit this, but something about this dilatant’s stupid joke made the hairs on my neck stand up. Yes, the joke was bad, not really this bad, but whenever the Froog character said Snoork teeth, I felt a shiver. I saw the vessels in front of my eyes, even though I could not remember to ever having laid eyes on a Snoork, let alone their teeth, ever in my life.

I quickly thought about shifting channels because the programme clearly did not do what it was supposed to do. Instead of getting me sleepy so that I could rest and dream of some dames before another day of running from the law, I was wide awake. But then Froog started to arrange the vessels ‘like this, this and this’ and all thoughts of ever looking away were driven out of my mind. The vessels, the shapes, it all resonated somewhere deep insight me. While the mention of the ceremonial vessels, I mean cooking container, had made my skin crawl, this response happened all the way in my guts. I stared at the shape … and started to remember. I heard Froog go on and on about grinding cya seeds ‘some buy them ground, but I would not do that, not only do they lose taste, they are also quite drawn to explode, ahahaha’, pouring flaarn milk ‘Isn’t the texture amazing, like the surface of the lakes on Gamma Delta 77, ahahaha’ and plucking Seetree leaves ‘some use scissors, but I find the aroma more delightful if you let it out in bursts, ahahaha’ but all I could hear were the words. The magic words, the golden words of a language long forgotten. I could not remember that I heard them before, but their sounds: ‘Galaagh’, ‘schnorf’, ‘brah’…, rang through my body and made me lose myself. Involuntary I stood up, spread out my arms and opened mouth and eyes as wide as I could. Without understanding, without being able to process, I felt the full force of my being, of my whole wonderful being stream back into me. While I had tried to keep a low profile before and not to attract the authorities, now I did not mind all the lightning strikes that made the motel glow against the black desert night of this forlorn planet. It felt so good. Perfect. After aeons, I remembered, I felt whole again. It had been done. The being that I had been, the being that had controlled nearly the whole galaxy was me again, complete again, in control again. I remembered how the combined mages of three galaxies had made up this pact to bind me, to control me, to make me forget. I remembered the struggle of losing my power, oh no, of having my power taken from me. While I had always been kind of lucky, I now remembered that I could have been, had been, was so much more. I remembered all of that. And once I remembered, I could not help but laugh. Laugh my heart out. The forces that had tried to control me, break me, were defeated: by a cooking show that ran on a channel nobody had ever heard of before.

By now I have stopped running from the police. I am the police. Well, kind of. My word is intergalactic law. I am ready to crush everyone that goes against me, plotted against me. I will crush those who harmed me, but my life as a human has changed me. Remembering my own past as a low-life, I try to be benevolent to those minor beings that crawl the face of the planets. I show gratitude where gratitude is due. Froog has become my voice. Froog is now always on my side. While you had to click four numbers into your remote to see him before, they were now everywhere. While they appear a shadow of their already shadowy past, I think they kind of like the attention, the lime light if you like, of being the voice of a god. They are relieved from the pressure of thinking up all these terrible jokes, but now share the truth, the truth of a freed god, ahahaha.”