Torkuk was due for his annual socio-economic review. Due to the sudden illness of his mother, the review was overdue. She’d had a bad bout of narcoleptic algebra, completely disabled when it came to being able to add up the amount of fruit in her fruit bowl.

Last time it had been the converse printouts he’d forgotten, this time it was something but he couldn’t put a finger on what. The first part of the review involved a full expenses rundown of various items, of which the interviewer demanded he recite them in alphabetical order. Any mistakes were jotted onto a pink pad of paper and sent up a chute. When he finally got to ‘Zzoynka Rivets’ the interviewer signalled for him to leave, and he thanked them by leaving on the table a strawberry cupcake, for edible tips were fashionable in this arm of the galaxy.

He approached the next interview with confidence that would surprise a lasagne. A short man, so round you could measure his circumference with a china plate, greeted Torkuk. His thumbs, two of them, hung from his chest pockets like little fleshy holiday ornaments. As Torkuk took a seat, the round man said, “Hmm.”

“Hmm?” Interviews involving one’s social dimensions usually always involved being invited back to have meet the interviewer’s entire first of kin over a cup of warm dreg. Torkuk searched for meaning among the ‘Hmm’ but found only the phrase, ‘He might misstep.’

“Hmm, so. We are dealing with a galactic parrot.”

“I’m not sure I follow, sir,” said Torkuk, having never heard of what a parrot was. Perhaps, he is hinting of the type of tip he would like. “But whatever it is, I’m certain it would be delicious with a cup of deg.”

“Do you realize,” came the voice of the man – its timbre made the earholes shudder and close up tight, “that I own this desk.” An appendage with five sproutly radishes lifted from his lap and massaged the oak wood.

“It was, sir, the item of which my ocular tools in my head could but not help to glance all over the moment I entered. A notable piece of wood most certainly. Where, may I ask, did you get such carftpersonship? Surely nothing less than the Forge of the Frumult Pulsar.”

Something grew on the man’s very round face. It started small and flat and began to spread and widen and bend quite a bit at the sides to reveal a set of teeth more ornate than a pearl comb.

“I once met a fellow in the Forge of the Frumult Pulsar. Called there because there was a bit of a verbal dispute.” Torkuk now realised he had made an absolute blunder: this man should he should have given the strawberry cupcake.

Along the polished mahogany trundled a little squib-squib, so small it had expended eight days to make it halfway across. A great radish performed a spontaneous anatomical reconstruction on the squib-squib and flattened it into a pile of green stuff. “Sadly, it ended rather necessarily in a – very innocent, you understand – a bit of a tussle. I’m proud that only one person was fatally injured that evening.”

Death now was not as abhorrent as during the Antigalactic Era, when politicians and social reformists of all sizes decreed the idea that humans should float in space more than stand on soil. Everyone had three hearts installed at birth, and upon death they transformed into whatever organ, be it brain or what have you, was damaged at death. Then one electric shock and you were back to kicking the rotosphere, so the saying goes.

“Ah, how unfortunate, that certainly sounds like a bit of a mess,” said Torkuk. “Luckily one of his extra hearts would – “

“Ripped them out. Every one of them. I killed him four times that day.”

“Excuse me, I would rather swim in a pool of joozy than accuse anyone of being afflicted with a bout of narcoleptic algebra, but how was it four?”

“I didn’t trust the third heart and so I called in the local resurrectacardiologist to wake the lad back up, then knocked him down again for good measure.”

Torkuk had a tendency to stroke the inside of his mouth in a circular pattern with his tongue when he was nervous. His inner cheek was now getting very sore.

“Well, a man of your intellect in such a position as you are, I can only commend. What bravery and erudition you must possess. It is, I must add, almost unworthy of me to be sitting across from someone the likes of you and taking up their time with a silly economics review, keeping you from duties far more pertinent. At least a hundred must have died from the moment I inquired about your ‘hmm’.”

The round man returned his great radish implements back to his shirt pocket and leant back so far the wooden chair he sat on squeezed out a squeak. “Do you know,” he began, “I have had many people try to measure me. Tests of the mind (BLOB TESTS), tapes of various units, forward and reverse Geiger counters, china plates. None have gotten a reading you could draw a line through. I like,” came the round man, relieving his chair of its effort and coming forward to almost spar noses with Torkuk, “to kill.”

“Goodness, well, in every profession there must be both a certain level of discipline along with a spattering of passion. To my eyes – though they consume a paltry number of photons in the presence of one like yourself – you are just the person for the job you do.” Whatever that job is, Torkuk refrained from appending.

The round man reconfigured himself and took on a posture of a priestly saint. The air in the room seemed no longer frightened and got back to work diffusing. “Now, let’s begin this interview shall we, Mr. Torkuk. I’ve taken a good while going over your recent societal interactions and I am quite pleased with how well you fit within the parameters of our hallmark citizen. Very well done may I say.”

“Why thank you sir, it was with great effort that I studied the etymology of your people, who are my people as it would so happen. I have been educating myself since the moment I flung from the birth canal on how to be the correct citizen for society.”

“Well that pleases me greatly to hear. Certainly, I almost want to take you back with me and introduce you to my wife and kids and say, ‘Come my kin, come my lady, bask your eyeballs upon a man who is the very identity of the society around us’.”

“You are too kind.” Torkuk fumbled a hand within his bag and found a delightful blueberry cupcake. It was donned with a smiling face, but one side had started to droop.

“Really, there is just one thing left for us to do before I can let you on your way.”

“Ah anything, sir. What would it be?”

“I couldn’t seem to find your converse printouts in the documents given to me. Do you have those on hand?” The round face looked up at Torkuk. So perfectly placed was it that it completely eclipsed the sun that came through the window behind.

Torkuk dropped the cupcake.