My eyes squinted. This day just kept getting weirder.

After carefully skinning, gutting, deboning, and sorting all the lizard pieces, I was left a bit confused.

The bones were purple. One of the organs in its chest cavity was a lumpy purple crystal. Instead of a brain, the creature possessed an organ in its skull that resembled a twisted mass of tentacles. The skin had an unnatural hardness except in the crevices between scales.

Was this really safe to eat? All doubt that this was some kind of space lizard had fled after I had butchered it.

I banished my doubts. I hadn't gotten my space rock. I would be damned if I let something like cowardice stop me now. I had already risked my life to eat space lizard, after all, and the meat smelled fine.

I threw the bones and the scraps in a pot and started making stock.

The meat was tough, but thin slices in a salt bath were soaked for some time, then introduced to a tenderizing hammer. The remainder of the meat, I placed in tubs of marinades in the fridge.

I whipped up some dough and threw a couple loaves of bread in the oven while I worked.

A quick sauté with minced onions, garlic, and salt.

Carrots and daikon radish were marinating in rice vinegar and sugar in the fridge.

I sliced up some pickles, some cilantro, some jalapeño, some limes, and sliced the bread. Some mayonnaise from the fridge, and in no time at all I had a Space Lizard Banh Mi sitting on a plate.

To say I was nervous was an understatement. To say I was worried would be closer to the truth, but I had made up my mind and I would not turn back now.

I took a tentative bite. It tasted like a normal Bahn Mi, except I had used too much pickles. The meat was rather gamey and a bit chewy, but nothing too far out of my expectations.

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I ate the sandwich a bite at a time, pondering how to cook the rest of the meat, having tasted it now and gained a portion of its measure.

A worthy foe, a challenge but one for tomorrow. the strength drained out of me like a rag wrung out over the sink as my adrenaline faded.

It had been a busy weekend, and now that my stomach was full, I went to go read and let the weight of the food drag my eyelids down after a mere 20 pages.

I woke suddenly, sweating and knocking my book on the floor. A strange humming was coming from inside me. I was burning up, and a vibrating, stabbing sensation was coming from my abdomen.

Groggily, I got up and grabbed some heartburn medication, some melatonin, and some nyquil, and downed them with a huge glass of water, tucked myself into bed and went back to sleep.

My alarm began blaring bright and early to get me to go check the stock. Bad practice, I know, but my stock burner was strictly and precisely temperature controlled, and I had a rather fancy magnetic stirrer for it. I found with such measures in place I could leave it unattended for a few hours with no risk either of fire or of ruining the broth. The joys of modern technology made it just a bit easier to get the perfect product with as little effort as possible.

Stopping in the bathroom briefly, I turned on the faucet to splash water on my groggy self. The faucet handle came off in my hand, leaving the water running.

I stared at it for a moment, then set the handle on the counter, carefully twisting the remaining nub to turn off the water.

Annoying.

Entering the kitchen the smell of stock was overwhelming. Lightning crawled up my spine as the scent sent all the right signals directly into my brain. My stomach growled, so violently my whole body trembled. I was HUNGRY and my brain took a back seat as I lunged forward and grasped the stock pot, lifting it to my lips. The hot liquid burned on the way down, but not with a terrestrial fire. I felt my guts contort and twist to accommodate the liquid as my back arched and I drank the entire twenty gallon pot. When I regained control, I was crunching down the last of the softened bones from the bottom of the pot. My fingers left massive dents in the aluminum stockpot where I had grasped the pot during my bout of insanity. My mouth was hardly burned and my belly protruded obnoxiously, but it was feeling lighter by the moment.

Looking at the dents where my fingers had ruined my stockpot brought some annoyance to mind, but a grin came to my face anyway. I had space lizard superpowers now. So what if I was a little hungry. I had a culinary degree, if I couldn't deal with a little hunger, then I was a failure of a chef.

First I was going to need a new stockpot though. If that hunger was anything to go by, I was going to need to pull the rest of the bones and scraps out of the fridge and get cooking.