[b]Pokash (hatalmawsh for 'big country')
A nobash (hatalmawsh for 'big living tree') in the Big Dry Region
January 3rd, 2057 (the globally-adopted calendar proved to be more convenient than a more traditional system under which every month was 'big month' or 'bigger month')[/b]

[i]"Liftoff liftoff liftoff liftoff liftoff."[/i]

Lizard Woman Keshesh cheered with her brood of five healthy young trips. Hatalmawsh young were called trips because they were small and had a tendency to get underfoot; today, however, the five children felt bigger than the entire world, for their great country of Pokash had finally taken the next vital step towards conquering the universe. They watched on the television as the satellite's rocket engines forced its crude body into space, much as a toddler forces a cube through a round hole.

Hatalmawsh, like big hairballs on stilts, could not be said to be beautiful, but among her own kind Lizard Woman Keshesh would have been a real neck-turner, if hatalmawsh had necks to turn. Her stench, assured her collection of suitors, who were doubtlessly watching the liftoff from their prison in the tar pit outside, was a potent insecticide for miles around. As it were, Lizard Woman Keshesh looked more like three soda straws stuck into a moldy potato than anything that would win a Miss Nova Mondial pageant. Nevertheless, this woman, the beauty of her race, only had eyes (three of them, one on each side) for one man - Big Man Shakashosh, one of the nation's 17 Big Men, powerful and large hatalmawsh who ruled each of its 17 regions and made all the big decisions.

Lizard Woman Keshesh, skilled in the art of the man (even throwing paint at a wall is art), could have chosen any of the nation's Big Men to be her groom. She watched as the satellite's rocket engines continued to roar into the heavens. Perhaps it was just a coincidence that Big Man Shakashosh, the one she had chosen as the victim of her love, was currently one of the farthest people aways from her. Lizard Woman Keshesh brushed a clawed hand tenderly over the television screen. So smart, her Shakashosh, so wise, so very sizable; if anyone could conquer space, it was him.

"IT'S BEAUTIFUL," sighed Lizard Woman Keshesh with a voice that would be considered by most civilized nations as 'cruel and unusual punishment.' "WAVE TO YOUR FATHER, CHILDREN. WAVE FASTEEER!"

As the five young trips giggled and roared and flailed their limbs at the TV screen, the satellite exploded. Lizard Woman Keshesh gasped and put a fist through the screen. "THAT'S ENOUGH TV FOR TODAY, CHILDREN. GO STEAL TONIGHT'S BEDS." She paced the room, pondering the consequences, as the little trips raced eachother away down the stairs. That was the eighth failed launch this month. But they had to get it right eventually. If you throw enough things at the wall, one of them will eventually stick.

In the meantime, Lizard Woman Keshesh would need a new husband. She peered out the window to the prison tar pit outside, where her suitors waved self-consciously from among the tortured screams of the city's criminals, vagrants, and nearsighted (the tar pit is located in the center of the street). She sighed. Her Shakashosh had lasted ten days in the pit to prove his love, longer than anyone else she'd known. Who else was so big, so strong, so heat-resistant? She'd have to search the world to find a man like that.

Search the world... Now that was an idea...

Lizard Woman Keshesh smiled. If her brain had been a whiteboard, it would have shown the words 'ROCKET EXPLOSION' and 'SCAPEGOAT' and 'INVASION' and 'KIDNAPPING LARGE OFFICIALS ONE-BY-ONE' written in block letters, underlined, and connected in messy concentric circles. It was the makings of a perfect plan, the kind of plan that was whispered just out of the audience's hearing, the kind that such a high-ranking woman might even be able to pull off. Lizard Woman Keshesh stole her bed but lay awake most of the night scheming and scratching her parasites. It was high time the hatalmawsh went to war.