“Everything that is incomprehensible does not cease to exist.”
-Blaise Pascal, Pensées
My friend Schmelnoz the Incomprehensible is so cool that I thought I’d just dedicate an entire entry to him.
Schmelnoz comes from a planet somewhere in the Near Future, which is sort of like the Bronx of The Future, and which, quite astonishingly, does not even exist as of yet at the present date. (They evolve VERY quickly on Schmelnoz’s world).
Schmelnoz told me that the name of his planet is unpronounceable by the human tongue, with the sole exception of one woman in Michigan who also happens to be the most popular girl in her town.
On Schmelnoz’s world they have (or will have, actually) these huge trees that you can eat.
Eat the whole the damn thing.
In one sitting.
They look like a poplar but taste like and have the consistency of vanilla wafer cookies. All light and fluffy. I wouldn’t shit you. I was there. I ate four of them.
All the creatures on Schmelnoz’s world are intelligent and can talk to you. You can walk right up and talk to a gnat, or a turtle, or a stonegopher, or even a snodfroffle, which is sort of this lavender colored squirrel-sized elephant with a pig snout instead a trunk and a handlebar mustache.
You can even talk to a turnip. I met a really cool one named Larry. He was delicious.
Those trees I was talking about actually talk too. You can carry on some pretty good conversations with them while you’re eating them. They claim to enjoy being eaten, and being a mere humble guest on their planet I wasn’t one to argue or question their traditions.
And then there’s Schmelnoz.
Schmelnoz is quite a guy.
Except he isn’t exactly a guy.
But he isn’t exactly a girl either.
On Schmelnoz’s planet they have 217 different sexes.
They have more appendage and orifice combinations than Carter has liver pills. (Do people still even say that anymore? Damn I’m getting old.)
All I can tell you is that Schmelnoz has it going on all over the place. He showed it to me one time when we were drinking. It turns that out Schmelnoz could even impregnate you or me. But he ain’t the kind of guy to hold it over a person.
I met Schmelnoz in a Mexican restaurant when I was in The Future. It was actually in The Past for him. Schmelnoz’s kind are always living in The Past. Having come into existence so close to the End of Time that’s really the only way they get to enjoy themselves. Still, Schmelnoz once confided in me that he misses his home timeframe. Not so much his family though. He says they smothered him emotionally. Schmelnoz has got some issues.
Anyway, I was drinking out of this bathtub full of tequila, and Schmelnoz was slurking on six or seven gallons of vintage Kentucky Bourbon and we got to talking and it turned out he knew about some party these Ianian chicks were throwing so I ended up giving him a ride and having the time of my life. He even ended up saving my life that night.
And we’ve been friends ever since.
When I told him I was writing this post about him, Schmelnoz asked me to tell you all something.
He said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you don’t know about yet.”
And then he farted out something in his native language that I couldn’t understand.
They don’t call him Schmelnoz the Incomprehensible for nothing.
