Chapter 1: Things are Going to be Interesting
{Table of Contents} Chapter 2=>
I completely destroyed everything in an instant. The old world of Danada was no more. But this had happened before, so many times I had lost count. The only difference between those times and this was this time I would not just make everything again the same the way it was before. I was starting anew with a fresh world.
Danada actually consisted of two separate planes. There was the main world, and then there was the heaven, which was called Pizza Paradise. Yeah... When I was younger I was kind of obsessed with Pizza. I guess it’s still called that until/unless I think of a better name. Pizza Paradise was located just a few millimetres ana (“up” in the 4th spatial dimension) from Danada. From this vantage point I could see everything in Danada simultaneously and from all possible angles (of course, I couldn’t concentrate on all of it at once, that would be a bit tiring). From here I could also manipulate anything in that world as I saw fit. Oh, by the way, did I mention I was a god? That’s kind of important to the story.
Okay, fine, I didn’t actually forget to mention that, I was withholding that particular piece of information as a narrative device. In any case, as a god, I had certain powers: logical omnipotence—I can’t do something logically impossible such as make two and two equal five. However I can voluntarily limit my own powers, for example, to create a rock so heavy I can’t lift it. Of course, then I could just say I can lift it now, so you be the judge. Or else I can just say, I can never lift it no matter what I say or do in the future. Yeah, that works.
I’m not a traditional capital G philosophical god however, as I am not omniscient. I don’t know everything. I still have a human mind. I was born a mortal, and I am only a god in Danada.
And then there is the third traditional aspect of godhood, complete goodness. Am I omnibenevolent? Again, you can be the judge of that. In any case I try my best.
The first thing I did was re-make Toaster-Man. Toaster-Man was a man with a toaster on his back and the powers of toastification. He had brown skin and brown eyes, somewhat curly black hair, and was wearing a red cape, jeans, and a black t-shirt with the red letters TM encircled with a circle (as opposed to encircled with a square). Also, he had sandals on his feet. “Let me guess, Danada was destroyed again,” Toaster-Man said, somewhat exasperated, but at the same time unsurprised.
“Yeah, I destroyed it, but this time it’s a reboot,” I said.
“A reboot?” now Toaster-Man was indeed surprised.
“Yes. We’re starting again from the beginning. From scratch; a clean slate.”
“Well if we’re starting from scratch, shouldn’t you have erased my memories?”
He had a point, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to do that with Toaster-Man. He was always my character with the most characterization (well, him and Pudding, who you’ll meet later). It seemed counterproductive to undo all that. But I did not tell him this, instead simply asking, “well, do you want your memories erased?”
“Not particularly,” said Toaster-Man. “By the way, what’s this giant rock doing here?”
“Oh, that? I made that to show that I can make a rock so heavy that not even I can lift it.”
“So can you lift it then?”
I went over to the rock. It, along with Toaster-Man and I, was situated on a solid cloud in the endless blue cloudscape that was Pizza Paradise. I tried lifting it. It was about the same height as me but round, taller than it was wide, and tapering off in a sort of flattened egg shape. It did not budge. “Nope,” I said. “Can’t lift it.”
“I meant using your god powers, not physically!”
I tried that. Nothing happened. “No, I made it so that nothing I did in the future could lift it.”
“So why would you want to make that, exactly?” Toaster-Man said judgingly.
“I dunno, to prove a point? In any case, this world has entirely too few fish right now. Let’s get Pudding over here.”
I re-made Pudding. Pudding’s full name is Pudding the Psychic, Air-Breathing Fish. Besides the description that is already present in his name, he is orange, and much like a goldfish except that he has an extra eye on a stalk in the centre of his forehead, from which his psychic powers presumably derive. He is about the size of a human head, and floats at about that level using telekinesis. He speaks using telepathy, which is indicated in text by being surrounded by <pointy brackets>, a convention I borrowed from Animorphs.
<Hello,> he said, in a baritone voice that echoed repeatedly in one’s head. <I see that you destroyed Danada again.>
The fish paused, and I felt a mental prod on the edge of my mind.
<A reboot eh? Should be interesting, in any case.>
“Yeah,” I said. “Well, I hope I didn’t ruin too much with that whole destroying the world again, this time permanently, thing.”
<Meh,> said Pudding. <I wasn’t really doing much anyway.>
“This fish is boring,” said Toaster-Man. “I’m sure your new readers would much prefer hearing about me and my backstory.”
“Well you don’t really have much of a—but fine, go ahead.”
“One fine spring morning,” Toaster-Man began in a bold voice. “I was toasting my toast for breakfast, when suddenly, I was bitten by a radioactive toaster! Oh, yeah, and there was this rock thing that made the toaster radioactive. That’s important to the story.” He kind of trailed off near the end.
“You know that’s not actually your backstory, I just sort of made you up whole-cloth on a whim.”
“You’re rebooting Danada, I can have whatever backstory I desire!” Toaster-Man asserted in his bold superhero voice.
“Fine, just for entertainment’s sake, continue.”
“The next day, I grew this toaster on my back, and discovered I now had the power of toastification! From that day forward, I vowed to fight crime, and toastify evil wherever it may occur.”
“You know you never actually even fought crime,” I said.
<You committed plenty of it yourself, in fact, as I recall,> added Pudding.
“Well, I- shut up.” Toaster-Man cleverly retorted. “Who says I can’t be a superhero and take over Danada at the same time?”
“Pretty much… any other superhero.” I replied, pointing out the one hole in Toaster-Man’s otherwise flawless logic.
“Also, stop being sarcastic in your narration. If you think I can’t read that you clearly don’t remember me very well.”
Oh, right, Toaster-Man also had the inexplicable power of breaking the fourth wall.
“Yes, I do. It’s that kind of book. So if you don’t like post-modernism you should probably just go read something else now,” Toaster-Man said
“Hm, it’s not like you to directly address the readers, though.”
“Well I just did. In any case, I’m starting to warm up to this reboot idea. Bring it on. This time, things are going to be different.”
<Oh yes,> said Pudding. <Things are definitely going to be interesting…>
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