It’s January of 2019 and time for another blog hop… I hope you enjoy my contribution, and don’t forget to click on the links at the bottom for more free flash fiction!

Bia Trevia’s Worldly Eats

Welcome gentlepeople, one and all, to Bia Trevia’s Worldly Eats. Please recline in your species-approved manner and allow me to discuss the specials of the day with you. As we have not yet served your species but have gone 3079 planetary days without an incident, please follow the species-specific suggestions put forward by the doc-box to avoid poisoning, and remember that all translations are as precise as we can make them. Place your appendage on the scanner and do not be startled by the puncture of your epidermis and DNA sampling as a waiver indicating your understanding of the above. Your cooperation is appreciated.

First on the menu tonight, we have the following aperitifs: a fine thousand-year-old cheese made from the fermentation of crushed gnatberries and were-buffalo milk, served with long-grained maggot crackers, a delicacy from the tropics of our planet; a refreshing shaved glacier ice stained with candied eel ears in a blood-whip sauce; and finally, a savory salad made from the various purple grasses of our planet, with hummarr-skin chips, murtleberries, tomato-fruit and juvenile [untranslatable] ink sauce. The [untranslatable] ink has been sacrificed by the juveniles of my own household and strained a thousand times to remove any grit as the sacred writ of Scomlir requires.

Ah, a moment. The doc-box has advised that the gnatberries and the blood-whip are poisonous to your species. Should you choose either the cheese and crackers or the ears and ice, proper substitutions will be made. No? The salad? Excellent.

Next, the main dishes include: A whole, roast hummarr with candied peppers and—

Yes, the hummarr does vaguely resemble your species, does it not? We find them among the more stupid prey available on the planet, which is why they pair so well with the large feline sauce. Well, I’m sure on your planet of origin, you may eat items which remind you of my species. Yes, I see the gleam in your eyes when one of you mentions calamari, though I’m sure I do not have to remind any of you that the eating of any sentient…

Please stop caressing the hummarr knives in quite so worrying a fashion while eyeing my appendages. Thank you. All our hummarr are properly grain-fattened for exactly thirty-seven days in a humane, self-cleaning pen as they tend to wallow in their own excrement, and then slaughtered in the warehouse just behind the restaurant. Perhaps it would interest you to know that the hummarr squeals when killed, making a sound suspiciously similar to your hungry-hole noises. No?

Onward—erk! What do you mean by detaining my appendage thus? I shall complain to the interplanetary bureaucracy regarding your behavior and have you all banned from this planet. This entire system! Stop! Cease!

. . .

Ah, thank you, gentleperson. No doubt you have realized I did not request nor need your assistance. However, as you have come to my aid in ejecting those from your species—through a different conveyance, you say?—with only the temporary loss of one of my appendages, you and those you vouch for may continue to dine in our beautiful establishment. Yes, though annoying, the loss of the appendage is temporary, and, as you have pointed out, painful, though I have twelve more. I appreciate your display of empathy as a proper sentient being.

Thank you for your suggestion of disposal of the remains of our mutual foes. It is, as you have said, a blessing of Scomlir that the slaughterhouse resides just behind the restaurant. A pity we must reset our days-without-incident rating, but life better we discover our incompatibilities now than after the bill is due. We shall update our policies.

Please enjoy your complimentary human—er, hummarr—eyes dessert and do leave a starred Yelp review. Go with Scomlir in peace.