Thread by @JeremyCShipp

If you opened an egg and found a small bustling city inside, would you devour it?

The idea of eating the egg tugs at your mind, but you decide against it. A tiny jerboa in a top hat, standing on a skyscraper, offers you a drink. You:

You reach out to pick up the Lilliputian drink but decide against it. Instead, you say, "Hey, nice top hat." The miniscule jerboa inside the egg smiles and says through a mini-megaphone, "I like yours too!" But you aren't wearing a hat. You:

By the way, I'll move on to the next poll as soon as the previous poll reaches 20 votes.

You thank the jerboa and her grin intensifies. "This conversation is going quite well," she says, sipping on the drink that she offered you earlier. "Are we best friends now?" You reply with:

"Of course!" you say, your soul buzzing with the feeling that you've known this jerboa much longer than a couple minutes. In response, the jerboa dances what can only be described as a frenzied jig of friendship. While she moves, the rest of her drink spills out. You:

I love that you all just want to make friends with this Jerboa.

A torrent of chummy emotion rushes from your heart into your limbs, causing you to join in on the jig. Somehow, you know every step of the dance, and you get the feeling you are psychically linked to this merry, miniature rodent.

As you perform the jig, the entire city screams, as you are still holding the egg in your hand. When you finally stop moving, the jerboa says, "That was fun! We should dance together every day."

By now, you've worked up quite the appetite and you ask your new BFF if she wants to go to Arby's. She says, "Yeah, of course! I'd love that! What's Arby's?" You use an egg carton to transport the city to your favorite restaurant. Inside, you talk with the jerboa about:

After placing a minikin chunk of curly fry onto the skyscraper for the jerboa, you rather clumsily shift the conversation toward the topic of egg city and all its secrets. "Secrets?" your friend says. "Oh, you mean like city hot spots that tourists wouldn't know about?"

"Well, there's the Chortling Flame, where you can watch Manuel carve a sun melon to look like your face, and then you can eat yourself. There's also the Castle of Death, which isn't what most people expect. It's not a castle at all. They have good tacos." At this point, you:

At first, you're a bit annoyed that the jerboa isn't offering answers to more crucial questions, such as: why is there a city inside an egg? But as soon as she mentions the Castle of Death, you forgot all about your mild exasperation. "So, what's that taco castle all about?"

Gnawing on a gnarled hunk of potato, the jerboa says, "So, the whole place is made of bones. which might seem a little creepy, but it's really fun because of all the glitter everywhere. Supposedly, people used to do all sorts of rituals there, but now it's all about tacos."

"You know what's weird?" the jerboa says, her mouth more than full. "I had a dream we would go to the Castle of Death together. I saw your flesh melt off and you became a walking skeleton. It seemed really funny at the time. I couldn't stop laughing. Hey, do you want to go?"

You nearly campaign for the melon place, because the thought of your flesh melting off fills you with a tinge of dread. But then again, you've been quite bored lately. Your Netflix queue is uninspiring, and your Hamburglar memorabilia collection doesn't satisfy you as it once did

If you're going to embark on an absurd adventure inside an egg, you might as well go full-speed ahead. You might as well face the Castle of Death. So you say, "I'm always up for tacos! So, how exactly do I...you know...enter the egg?"

"Ugh," the jerboa says, lying flat on her back. "Do you ever eat so much that you have to lie down? I love it. Anyway, what were you saying? Oh yeah. If you want to come here, you have to drink the yolk of the city. I brought you some in my lil bottle."

She sits up and peeks into the bottle. "Uh, I think I must've drank it all. I'm sorry but it tastes so good! Like music and wet stones and pickle juice. I can get you some more, but I need to get down to the market. Could you carry me over there? That'd be faster." You say:

"OK, hop on this sandwich," you say, holding out the tattered remains of your classic roast beef sammie. Without pause, the jerboa leaps off the edge of the skyscraper, onto the toasted sesame bun. "Are you ready?" you say. "Ready," she says, gripping the bun with her little feet

You attempt to move the sandie slowly, carefully, but the jerboa is immediately knocked off the edge of the bun due to the increase in velocity. She plummets toward the city streets below, shouting words you can't quite make out.

You try to reposition your sandwich to catch her, but you are too late. Also, the swift maneuvering of the sando causes a glob of Arby's sauce to escape the bun and plunge toward the unsuspecting citizens of Egg City. You let out an awkward yelping sound.

You stare into the city, holding the egg an inch from your eyes, but you can't see well enough between the skyscrapers to identify where the jerboa landed. Now you:

Rivulets of sweat trickle down your back as you speed home in your 78 Ford Pinto. Is she dead? She has to be dead. Right? But you have to be sure. In Egg City, maybe jerboas can sprout bat wings and fly. Maybe all the creatures there are stuffed with Poly-fil.

In your apartment, you grab your Hamburglar magnification mask from inside the hamburger-shaped chest at the end of your bed. You're still not sure why the magnification mask was ever created in the first place, but right now you're quite glad of its existence.

Wearing the mask, you're able to see through the magnifying glasses that fill the eye holes. You search Egg City for your friend, paying close attention to the spot where she fell. But even after 10 minutes of looking, you detect no sign of her. Next, you decide to find the:

Where should you check next? The hospital? The melon place? In the end, you decide on the Castle of Death. The Jerboa dreamed that the two of you would go there together, so perhaps that's where you're meant to be. (Hopefully the whole skin-melting-off thing won't happen though.)

After a quick scan of the city, you spot a cylindrical building made entirely of bones. Jagged horns push up through the roof, pointing towards the sky (or your face, rather). The edifice balances on four enormous leg bones (or at least enormous to the citizens of Egg City.)

"Hey, uh, Castle of Death," you say. "Is there a jerboa in there? With a top hat?" After a few moments, a jerboa with a top hat comes out, holding a megaphone. You hope against hope that this is the jerboa with a top hat and a megaphone that you're looking for.

But your heart drops, because the jerboa says, in a somewhat intimidating, sonorous voice, "What do you want from me, giant?" "I, uh," you say, sweating again. Which is a shame, because your sweat from the car had just finished drying.

"I'm actually looking for a different jerboa in a top hat," you say. "Hmm, that's not a lot to go on," the jerboa says, frowning. "We all wear top hats these days. Very chic. What's this jerboa's name?"

You panic silently, because you realize that you never asked your new best friend her name. Then it dawns on you that perhaps you never asked her because you already knew. There is some sort of psychic link between the two of you, isn't there? You hear a name whispered within.

"Epiphany," you say, a little unsure of yourself. "Oh, Phany?" the jerboa dude says. "Yeah, I know her. I don't know where she is, but I know her. She's the one who told me that a giant might be showing up sometime soon. I guess she had one of her visions from the Dream Squid."

"And if you don't know what a Dream Squid is, don't ask me, because I don't get it either." Now you:

Dream Squid? Didn't you dream about a singing, iridescent squid the other night? You suddenly remember a few words from the squid's song. "Eat the ancient pickle. It will make you tickle."

You want to question the jerboa about the squid, but he asked you not to, and though you'd rather not admit this to yourself, you find this teensy rodent to be more than a little intimidating. So instead, you say, "Why do you have a megaphone? Do all jerboas carry one?"

The jerboa sighs and rubs at his face with his bitsy hands. "No...we don't all carry megaphones, giant. Why would we do that? The only reason I have this is because Phany came around recently with a Santa bag full of megaphones. She left one here. Said we'd need it, maybe."

"I tried to convince her to return the damned things, because I know she drained her bank account buying them. She didn't even get a taco when she was here, and I could tell she was hungry. The woman won't listen to reason though, when her precious Squid is involved."

"Is that all you wanted to know?" the jerboa says. "Can I get back to my tacos now, or do you want to talk more about the damned megaphones?" You decide to:

You feel bad that Phany spent all her money buying megaphones just so that people could talk with you, and you feel bad that you told her to hop on that freakin' Arby's sandwich. You feel bad that even while she was falling, she gave you a look that said, "These things happen."

You can't remember ever having a friend who treated you with such an exuberance of kindness. All these feelings swirl inside you, and you say, "I'll buy her a taco." The words sound silly coming out of your mouth.

But maybe you need this. Maybe you need to buy her a taco to convince yourself that she's still alive. This is a taco of hope. "Hey, don't look at me," the jerboa guy says. "I don't work here." "Oh," you say. "Can anybody working in the Castle come out? I'd like to buy a taco."

Before long, an oryx comes out, dressed in a black polo shirt with a winking skull on the front. You're not exactly sure how a skull can wink, but this one is. Glittery ribbons spiral down each of the oryx's horns. "Hello, my name is Halcy, I'll be your server today."

"Would you like to try our Hot as Hell Burrito Bites?"

"Uh, no," you say. "I'd like a taco or two. Do you know Phany? I'd like her regular order."

"Oh, you're a friend of Phany's?" she says, visibly relaxing. "OK, that'll be six slug bucks."

Now you:

"Could you, you know, put it on my tab?" you say.

The oryx frowns a bit. "Yeah, we could do that. But...keep in mind, man. This might be a taco place nowadays, but the Castle is still a sacred site. If you don't close out your tab in a timely manner, the Castle can get...angry."

The oryx turns around and heads back into the Castle before you can even gulp. While you're waiting for your order, a gargantuan skull in the middle of the Castle wall says, "Have you tried our Hot as Hell Burrito Bites?" You:

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