Mister Cucumber woke up in an empty white room. As he got to his feet, the room suddenly erupted in flashes of red. “Identify yourself,” said a monotone voice from outside the room. However, Mr. Cucumber could remember nothing of who he was or how he came to be in his current location, so he said nothing. Instead, he walked out of the door, and into a room full of cotton candy. Mr. Cucumber ate a lot of this fluffy pink confection before he has grabbed from behind. “Cotton candy don’t eat their own kind,” said the monotone voice as the robot carried Mr. Cucumber to another room. It was bright yellow and smelled like rotten eggs. This greatly disturbed him, and so he pounded on the door, hoping to be let back into the room with the cotton candy.
The robot sat at a computer. “Damn it!” he said as he walked into the room full of sulfur. He put a sticker on the shirt of Mr. Cucumber. It said, “Not sulfur”. The robot lifted one of the sulfur rocks and pulled a lever hidden beneath it. This opened up a hole in the floor, which happened to be right where Mr. Cucumber had been standing.
The robot watched from above as the thingknown as Not Sulfur fell onto the object previously tagged “car”. While the two things appeared very different, it seemed as though Not Sulfur recognized it. Not Sulfer studied Car’s exterior carefully while gently stroking its side. The result was better than the robot could have hoped. From the side of the Car, an opening emerged, and Not Sulfur climbed inside. This was surely a mating ritual, thought the robot, certain now that “Not Sulfer” was really just a species of “Car” The ritual was quite complex: first Not Sulfur opened another orifice witihn Car and stuck an appendage inside. The robot realized that this appendage is what Not Sulfer used to manipulate objects. Not Sulfer removed his manipulator, and felt around the rest of the car haphazardly, until it found a small metallic object. Strangely, this object fit into an orifice wirthin Car, which caused it to emit light. This also caused Not Sulfer to make sounds from his cranial region. Not Sulfer stepped on an inclined object hidden in the lower regions of Car while manipulating the metallic object. In what was surely the culmination of the ritual, Car made noises of its own and jerked forward. This excertion appeared to end the mating; Car stopped emitting light and sound. Strangely, Not Sulfur only got more vocal, and then struck the inside of Car numerous times. The robot wasn’t sure what to make of this. Not Sulfur removed himself from Car, violently closing the place from which he entered, and struck the outside of Car with his lower body. For the next few hours Not Sulfur sat facing the doorway out of the room, and Car did not seem to be reproducing. Had the ritual failed? Was this particular Car sterile?
Mr. Cucumber knew nothing except his desire to leave this strange place. However, his hopes were thwarted, due to a dying car battery and a teaspoon of gasoline. The robot subjected Mr. Cucumber to various other rooms with varying degrees of failure.
The robot watched Not Sulfur enter the final room. This room contained beings whose physical structure was almost identical to Not Sulfur's, however, they were all inert. Not Sulfur gave them the briefest of looks before quickly moving to the last group of objects. These were the least desireable things the robot had found in his travels. Small beings comprised mostly of hair follicles surrounded Not Sulfer. They emitted high pitched noises which greatly irritated the robot, and caused Not Sulfer to emit liquid from his cranial region. Surprisingly, rather than eliminate the pests, Not Sulfer began to groom them; stroking their small bodies. At a loss for how to test this specimen further, the robot came up with the one identifying tag that made any sense:
