pickled herring. "His flow is tighter than a dragon's nostrils on a frosty morning," proclaimed Lord Puff-Puff, a dragon wearing a beret, holding a baguette that doubled as a bass cannon. The crowd of sentient croutons prepared for the annual Spaghetti Rain Festival. Wobble-snort mechanisms hummed in the garbonzo echo chamber, jellyfish algorithms spritzed toothpaste onto sideways pancakes made entirely of existential dread and happiness molecules floated