PICK SIX. There were three scenarios you had to include in the prompt and they were found by throwing a dice and then depending on the number thrown it was the one from a list of six you used. So the first choice for: You are sitting down to a nice dinner which includes- (the roll was a two) –macaroni and cheese, next choice: the doorbell rings and when you answer it, you find: (a four was rolled) a Martian. the third and last choice is: Thinking about your dinner getting cold, your reaction is to: ( the roll again was a four) Ask your visitor to come back in an hour.

Purple People Eater on a Quest for Mac and Cheese

Macaroni and cheese it’s always been one of my favorites, especially the way my grandmother prepared it with lots of cream right from their cows and a whole pound of Velveeta cheese. I’ve never quite been able to match hers but tonight I think I’ve come close.

“Come on kids sit up to the table were having mac and cheese.” Marcy herded the five youngsters into the kitchen and sat them in their usual spots.

“Ah, Mom, not mac and cheese again can’t we have Spagettios.” It was Herbert the seven year-old always wanting something different from what she was serving.

“Sit down, Herb, and be quiet. Helen will you please say grace.”

Just then the doorbell rang. “Who can that be coming to the door right at dinner time. Dish up the mac and cheese, Helen!” Marcy instructed her teenage daughter. She strode to the door inpatience on her face like a bad smell. She flung the door open expecting her neighbor Jake.

It wasn’t Jake. It was a three foot purple being with a horn like protrusion in the middle of his forehead and a single unblinking eye. “Who or what the heck are you?”

I’m Ambeladok from the planet Mars. I’m having a bit of trouble with my space craft.”

The creature’s Irish accent floored her, he should be green, she thought. “So.”

“I need some macaroni and cheese to fuel it.” The Martian said without blinking his eye but a strange whooshing sound was coming from the horn-like protrusion.

“Mac and cheese you’ve got to be kidding. Who are you really? No wait come back in one hour if the kids don’t eat all of it you can have what’s left.” She slammed the door.

“Who was that Mom?” The five kids asked in unison.

“I’m not sure it might have been the Purple People Eater.

By Christine Howard

*****

Mac and Cheese Soufflé

I cooked the Mac and Cheese soufflé to perfection even though I had emptied the package into my hot rock. Rock cooking has been one of my specialties for many years. I have cooked for as many as 22 guests using my hot-rock method. I had learned this unique technique from my Martian friend, Boggla, who, on Mars, also had endless miles of desert from which he could select the best rocks for this method.

Tonight, as my assistant, he was tilting the hollowed rock back and forth, round and round, while I inter-stimulated the Mac and Cheese. The Martian weather was perfect for the accomplishment of the hot-rock Mac and Cheese Soufflés what with the passing methane clouds dropping their light rain of liquid methane on the soufflé for the best possible consistency.

Our guests, most of whom were from the left-handed side of Mars known locally as the “left Quadrant”, were getting edgy after waiting for the hot-rock to twirl the Mac and Cheese into a number of baseball-sized spheres which, when fully solidified, would be consumed using the Plutonian insertion method, an aged methodology based upon the pitching of each morsel by one member into the open mouth of his opposite from the Left Quadrant, specifically invited for that purpose. The Plutonian protocol for the consumption of hot-rock Mac and Cheese Soufflés required the receiver to have his single eye closed, occasionally even blind folded, to ensure that the onus for completion of the manoeuver rested solely with the pitcher.

Tonight, after we had told the guests to “Come Back In An Hour” not once, but three times, we dispensed with the Plutonian protocol and permitted the receivers to open their eye and try to catch the molten speculum by any means at hand. Regardless, this was a difficult task as the distance between pitcher and receiver was three and a half miles. After the third “Come Back In An Hour” request, we also shortened the interdiction distance to three and a half feet, for fear that all participants might starve to death before we completed the hot-rock Mac and Cheese Soufflé concord.

In the end, all were satisfied with a fine meal, of my making I might add, and we all sat down to a rowdy game of Conjonkolan, which consists of… but, of course, you all know that game already.

By Lloyd Rain