Why Cheesus is My Lord and Savor

Dinosaurs, asteroids and the real reason we can love.

“Mommy, tell me a bedtime story,” said the wafer thin twelve year old who lay balled up under her cozy covers.

“Very well Smidge,” said Mommy. “I will tell you a story about a world where love didn’t exist, how it was struck by a big star rock, called an asteroid, and how that lead to the discovery of the ultimate purpose of life.”

Smidge’s eyes grew wide with excitement and Mommy uttered the cantrip, a minor spell to close the window blinds. “Shiri, turn down the lights.” The mage lights dimmed.

“Close your eyes and see our Spaceship of Imagination in your mind’s eye. Tell me what our Dimtey ship looks like.”

“It’s an iridescent blue cuttlefish. Bands of white flow shimmer across it, like light at the bottom of a pool. It turns to welcome us.”

“How do we get inside?”

“It has eight arms that gently pick us up and put us into its mouth. A door opens and we walk in.”

“I love it! Sounds fun. As you know, the only thing that can travel faster than light is imagination. It can find anyplace, or time, instantly, once we make our intention clear. The planet we’re looking for existed 65 million years ago and orbits a yellow LifeGiver(LightBringer). It’s a Goldismocks planet…You know what a Goldismocks planet is right?”

“It’s a world with liquid water, ice and clouds, so it probably has lifeforms on it.”

“Wow! I am sooooooo impressed. That’s right. As we fly through the darkness of space, the tiny blue marble becomes bigger and bigger. It’s covered with white clouds. As we get close, it becomes so big we can’t see the whole planet anymore, but you can see the blue sky. We enter its atmosphere at a high speed. Our Dimtey ship is engulfed in orange flames from the air resistance. Normally it would get super hot, but our heat shields keep us cool and protect us as we descend.

“As we zip over a vast ocean of saltwater, we head towards a peninsula. As we get closer, the horizon line is filled with a jungle of trees, and a white beach. That’s where we get first sight of the dominant light form. We call them reptiles. They call themselves Deinos, which means “really scary” in their language. Do you know what a reptile is?”

“Yes! They are like the Skexnor. They’re cold blooded, and start the day moving slow. They need to warm themselves in the light of a Lifegiver before they can move fast,” said Smidge. “Also, they don’t have mommies and daddies, because their brain drives don’t have love modules.”

“Right. That’s why the Deinos don’t cuddle with their family to stay warm in the winter and or tell their children bedtime stories. They only have phase one brains which means they can do what?”

“Eat, fight, hide, or make babies,” said Smidge.

“Yes. The Deinos are really good at surviving,” said Mommy. “But they are selfish and alone.”

“Sounds awful,” said Smidge.

“Yes it is very sad, but fortunately we have arrived just in the nick of time because this is the day before The Day That Changes Everything!” said Mommy in a big dramatic voice.

“As we look out through the eye windows of our ship, you notice a big scary Deino with a large head, tiny front arms, thick haunches and a long tail. His name is Rex and he’s just finished eating, so he’s walking off his lunch. Rex is a big, cranky tyrant who is incapable of feeling good, because his brain isn’t that advanced. He thinks nothing can stop him, but he’s wrong.

“I send a mental command to the ship, and in a burst of magic, we teleport to the cool lands of the North. This is where a furry species lives that will soon change the course of history and become the dominant life form. Using our specter vision we can see right through the rocks on a hillside where we see the home of a band of fuzzy creatures called Puffs.

“Well the night is cold, but the Puffs are snuggled together in their home burrow where they keep each other warm after a long day of eating grass. Some babies have just finished drinking their mommies’ milk before bedtime. They’re safe and cozy, like you, where the Deinos can’t snack on them.

“That’s good because Deinos love to eat Puffs. They are their favorite food, which is why the Deinos’ name for them means ‘crunchy snack puff with a chewy center’. When they see a Puff, they chase it calling ‘get back here crunchy snack Puff! I want to eat you. Rowwwrrr!!!’”

Mommy raised her hands like claws, and bared her teeth. Smidge let out a high pitched squeal, then they both smiled.

“The last Puff yawns and falls asleep, not knowing that tomorrow is going to be one of the most important days ever.”

“We use your Dimtey ship to jump through time, and go back to that beach we were just at. It’s the next morning, precisely at 11:09 a.m. A feathered Deino named Paleodogus J. Bigglesworth is eating crab like creatures at the edge of the ocean. He is at the edge of a peninsula that is several hundred stadia north of the equator. Do you know what equator means?”

“It’s near the belly of a world, so night and day are always equal,” said Smidge confidently.

“That’s right. Well, Lifegiver, the sky light, is particularly warm and bright that day. Paleodogus is watching a grasshopper who just landed in front of him. He’s laying very still and is just about to ambush it so he doesn’t see Rex sneaking up behind him. Rex is just about to eat him first when he looks up and sees a giant fiery asteroid crash into the nearby ocean…

“‘KABOOM!’ The shockwave is a hundred times louder than the loudest thunder you’ve ever heard. It’s so loud it almost blasts his tiny brains out through his ears. He looks up to see a big wall of water headed towards him and freezes.

“Uh oh,” thinks Paleodogus. “This can’t be good.”

The two watch as a nearby island vanishes in a mushroom cloud of water that grows higher and higher in the sky. Rex’s jaw drops as a huge wall of water flies towards him.

“Paleodogus doesn’t think. He starts to hop and glide as he tries to get away. Rex just keeps watching the huge mushroom shaped cloud rising up up up and covers him in a dark shadow. Too late, he turns to run as a massive tidal wave washes over him.”

“What happened to Paleodogus?” said Smidge, her eyes wide like saucers.

“He’s been jumping and gliding as fast as he can as he rushes inland towards a big rock. If only he can get high enough, maybe the water won’t get him. He hops and glides his way up a hill to safety and the wave crashes around him wiping out the jungle.”

“‘Whew, that was close,’ he thinks.”

“Yeah it was!” says Smidge.

“Let’s jump forward to the next day. We fly back to the family of Puffs, who are thousands of miles away. They are sunning themselves on a rock outside their home, but today it’s colder than usual and Lifegiver is much dimmer. It’s not bad for them, but why would this be bad for the reptiles?“

“It’s easier to catch lizards when they’re cold.”

“That’s right. Well the weather gets worse and it remains colder for many cycles. This puts the Deinos at a disadvantage, because they can’t move fast enough to catch any Puffs. The big Deinos soon die off, but not Paleodogus’s children. They have feathers, which help them travel longer and longer distances. That’s good because it makes them hard to catch and helps them ranger farther for food. One day they will evolve into skyfish, and swimfly through the ocean of air, but that’s a story for another night.

“Meanwhile the Puffs are doing well in the cooler weather because they are what?”

“Warm blooded!”

“Yes. They don’t need heat from the LifeGiver to move. They are soft, cuddly and warm because they have…”

“Fur!”

“And what does fur do?

“It protects them from the cold.”

“Correct. When it gets cold, the Puffs snuggle up with their family and stay warm. But they have something else the Deinos don’t. Their bodies have alchemical pockets that create milk to feed their young. Do you remember how milk is created?”

“Mommies eat food and drink water. Then their boobies add love and make it into milk.”

“Which is why boobies are magical. What food do Puffs probably eat?”

“Nuts, fruit or grass…”

”Correct. And how are those made?”

“The LifeGiver pitches balls of light at plants who catch them with leaf mitts. Then using magic they turn the light into fruit like oranges, which is why when you drink orange juice it tastes like you’re drinking sunlight.”

“Right again. So the Puffs eat the plants and their fruit, and their bodies transmogrify it into milk.”

“What is transmogro fi?”

“That’s when one substance is alchemically changed into a different one, like when plants turn light into sugary goodness. Only they turn their food into nutritious milk so their babies can grow big and strong. Now, this is where the final piece of the puzzle comes in. This is important because Puffs can feel it, but lizards can’t. Here’s a hint: How does drinking milk make you feel?”

“It makes me feel happy.”

“Right, and what else?”

“I don’t know, but I love love love it!” Smidge exclaimed enthusiastically.

“Right you love it, because it is liquid love. It has an alchemical ingredient called anandamide, which means ‘bliss molecule.’ It also has a morphine like substance that makes us feel safe and happy, like we are at home. That’s why babies keep coming back for more. Reptiles mommies can’t feel or share their love. But Puffs can, so when they feed it to their young love, it forms bonds that build families and homes. Soon they became a whole new branch of warm blooded animals like ours. We aren’t reptiles, we are what?”

“Manimals,” said Smidge.

“It’s pronounced ‘maaammmaalllsss’” said Mommy as she made an exaggerated motion with her mouth. “Yes. Mammals include any animal that feeds their babies milk. That includes dogs, cats, bats, and cows. This is another important point. Because our planet was also hit with a asteroid. What does the word asteroid mean?”

“Star rock!”

“You’re so good with your etymology! Because our planet was hit by an asteroid, the Puffs on our planet eventually evolved into The Prime Mates, like monkeys.”

“I love mankeys. I wish I could jump around in trees like they do.”

“It’s pronounced MUN-KEY, and so do I. Out of the monkey branch of life comes a small group of biobots known as the Five Apes. These are like the five humans of our planets, which are what?”

“Humans, goblins, bonobos, elves, and orcs.”

“Wow, you’re so smart. The humans love milk so much they even drink the milk of other mammals like sheep, goats and cows. They lure them in with hay and while they eat the food, the humans take their milk. It doesn’t seem to bother them and soon they become domesticated, which means…”

“Tame!” said Smidge.

“Sometimes the humans can’t drink all the milk before it spoils. So they learn to change it into butter, yogurt, and the most important substance in the Universe, the ultimate meaning of life…”

“Cheese!” Smidge said, as her tiny body squirmed with excitement.

“That’s right. Cheese is the pinnacle of existence and the purpose of evolution. And who went to the heavens and returned with the way to make all different types of cheeses?”

“Cheesus!”

“That’s right,” said the mother as she rubbed Smidge’s belly through the covers.

“So let’s recap. The asteroid wipes out most of the Deinos, which let the Puffs eat in peace. They became monkeys who figure out how to turn milk into cheese.

“This whole scenario is so unlikely that we call it a miracle. The reason its a bonafide miracle is that the asteroid hit at just the right time and place. If it would have hit 10 minutes before or after, it would have hit deep ocean and the course of life wouldn’t have changed. It would have thrown water into the air, but it wouldn’t have changed the weather, making it so cold that it killed off the Deinos. If that wouldn’t have happened, the Puffs would never have became the dominant life form. But the asteroid did hit at just the right time, and changed the course of life. Pretty miraculous huh?”

“Yes!” said Smidge. “Mommy, did Cheesus make the asteroid hit the planet?”

“No, but he willed us to send Milk Maker to that distant world.”

“We sent it?”

“Yes. Do you remember what the Technomagi did last month?”

“They shot a star rock at a planet that was really far away,” said Smidge. “But mommy, how’d they find it?”

“Our top imagineers explore the stars in their Dimtey Ships,” said Mommy. “They were looking for a Goldismocks planet that had Deinos and Puffs so they could create a major disaster that would give the Puffs a chance to become the dominant life form. They finally found one.

“So our technomagi ran some mathemagical calculations. They figured out how to shoot an asteroid named Milk Maker at this far away planet. That’s incredible in and of itself, because its the farthest we’ve ever shot something. But that’s not the most incredible part. Not only did they shoot it farther than we’ve ever shot anything before, but they shot it back through time. 65 million cycles ago to be exact.”

Smidge’s jaw hung open, then she scrunched her face and said, “How is that possible?”

“Everything is possible through magic. For instance, planetary motion is very predictable because the Universe was created by The Great Watchmaker. It made big things like Wanderers and LifeGivers travel very predictably so we can calculate where they will be at a certain time and place. But even if the asteroid is slightly off, there is a valiant crew of faenauts on board to steer it to its precise destination.”

“When Milk Maker hits that other planet, a planet we call Ocean, it will set off a cascade of events that will culminate somewhere around our time. Our imagineers have been monitoring it for changes on a daily basis. If everything goes as planned, we will change the course of life on that world. We may even be able to make contact with the new mammalian lightforms, I mean lifeforms.”

“Technomagical!”

“Yes it truly is. If everything works as prophesied by the mathemagicians and technomagi, mammals will spread love and milk across the planet. Eventually one of their biobots will turn it into cheese. And so it is that we do Cheesus’s work. We spread meaning, and the true purpose of life, through the dark oceans of space.”

“Cheesus really is the best,” said Smidge as her eyes began to close. “I’m so glad he came back with his slices of wisdom and shared his love with us.”

“Yes my child,” said Mommy as she stroked her head. “Now its time to go to melt under your covers, and dream of heaven. One day we too will walk through orchards of apple-cheddar and pear-gruyere trees. We will climb hills of Stinking Bishop covered with almonds and float on gooey rivers of Ticklemore that bubble up from underneath the crispy, crunchy planetary pizza crust.”

“Yummy! I can’t wait! Night momma. Love you,” the child said sleepily.

Looking at her child, she couldn’t help but think of a Cow Girl triple cream smeared lovingly over a nice crunchy flatbread with fig jam.

“I love you too dear heart,” she said as she licked her child lovingly on the forehead, closed the door softly and headed to her room.

Soon she would be asleep, wrapped in the loving embrace of Cheesus.

— — —

I put a fukton of work into writing these. Now it’s your turn to give back. I would appreciate it if you give me a clap and share this with a friend so I can grow my audience. Thanks!

Explore the technomagical world of the Belman Chronicles in these other installments:

Welcome to the Dungeon — The Story of Strappin’ Jack Hawthorne

Kragnar the Barbarian — Kragnar goes hunting for the most valuable bushmeat in the kingdom, at the Belman Crawl.

Why Cheesus is My Lord and Savor — Dinosaurs, asteroids and the reason we can love.

The Strange Gift — There’s a sucker born every minute.

The Butterfly’s Shitstorm — Monster right’s activists’ small actions have big consequences when they help free a gobblin.