We've Got Cookies

For every first, there is a last. Every first step culminates in a last step. Every first Thursday of the month has a corresponding last Thursday of the month. Every first breath, alas, a last. It's Haslop's First Law of Lasts. Which, due to his inability to ever come up with another, was also his last law.

The one law wonder aspect of Haslop also served to illustrate the pointed fact that sometimes firsts can also be lasts, a state of being that is very confusing to those that like to ascribe ordered placement to events. After months and months of concentrated consternation, the surprisingly robust group of people for whom this was a big deal, came up with the word "gwirn" to signify the pain caused by not having a word to describe what position something came in. They are still working on the word for something that is first and also last. They are currently on a lunch break.

All of this rather mouthy preamble is to tell you about one particularly important last. A last that, if not successful, could end up being the last last ever. I am of course talking about the last peace envoy sent to end the most destructive war in Galactic history. A history particularly rich in destructive wars.

This intensely bloody and debilitating war that started with an overzealous landscaping company, will hopefully end with a plate of freshly baked cookies.

It is very safe to say that the war is being lost. And being lost badly. Or, at the very least, mediumly. It has been said that war has no winners, and that certainly is true, but even without a winner, there is most definitely a loser. And right now, that loser is us. The Incorporated Alliance of Interplanetary Cooperative Celestial Entities Who Could Not Find A Shorter Name For Their Coalition Even After An All Night Brainstorming Session And Were Told Repeatedly Not To Include This Portion In Their Name, or the ICCEWCNFASNFTCEAAANBSAWTRNTITPITN for short...ish.

This peace envoy was our last shot to end the conflict before any more harm could be done. There had been several last shots before this last shot, but all of us in the "We've Got Cookies" delegation were told this was the last of all the last shots. The bottle was empty. The buzzer had gone. The cheese was moldy. This was it. So we'd better not screw it up. A phrase that was helpfully sewn into the arms of our envoy team sweaters to remind us whenever we reached for anything.

I for one, was happy to be part of team. As I was there when this whole thing started, it would be a nice bookend if I were also part of the coterie that ended it.

Fresh out of my University Upload (I graduated with a 25 second degree in 30 seconds as I wanted to take my time a little) and ready to see the Universe, I joined a fledgling landscaping company, figuring it was as good an opportunity as any for Intergalactic travel. With most of the landscaping work being done by the AutoScaper 5000, pretty easy on the back too.

How were we supposed to know that canvassing a family for new business would lead to many ennacontillions of deaths and several highly regarded planets exterminated? We just wanted to garner some new customers and make a name for ourselves. Which, I suppose we did.

Gleef is a medium sized planet in the Small Magellanic Cloud. Nothing all that distinctive about it. A few oceans. Some indigenous species of butterfly. Really nice shorts weather. Other than that, the only thing that set Gleef apart from other inhabitable planets is that it is home to just one family. The Flgrge^gloff family.

The Flgrge^gloffs live in a charming bungalow situated in the most verdant valley on Gleef. As the entire planet is basically their front lawn, they have among the most sought after yards in the entire Yarpadon sector. Surpassed in beauty only by the Flowing Gardens of Gamma Gabba Hey 9, and in floral diversity by the moons of Seedbankatania whose use as the defacto go to Galactic Gardening Supply Warehouses for all of the ICCEWCNFASNFTCEAAANBSAWTRNTITPITN, gives them quite the upper hand in herbaceous heterogeneity.