By Ginger Marin

Mars is the red planet.  Most people know that.  What they don't know is that deep, deep below the surface of Mars, about 10 kilometers down, is a community of red beings called, well not Martians, you fool, but Goolgians.  That's what they call themselves.  These Goolgians don't look anything like humans; they're rather like red-colored marshmallows with triangular eyes, antenna instead of ears and funny little purple mouths in the middle of their marshmallow bodies.  Oh, and they do have tiny, perfectly round feet which allow them to hop around the Goolgian cave structure they call home.  And they have matching round suction cups for hands.  They hop sideways most of the time except when they get excited.  Then they hop upside down.

There are at least 505,003 Goolgians deep inside the red planet and they live in families of 10-12, nestled in tiny crooks and nooks inside the caves.  They don't talk as we know it; they whistle kind of the way a tea kettle whistles.

One day the Goolgians heard a very loud noise that kept going "thump, thump, Thump, THUMP", louder and louder until their antenna shook.  They got so scared that they started hopping sideways, then upside down and finally they did sommersaults backward and forward and they bumped into each other.  The noise seemed to come from way, way up....UP....as in ... at the surface.  But they'd never seen the surface so they weren't quite sure.  "thump, thump, Thump, THUMP", it went again and again.  "OH MY GOSH ... it's ... it's ...", a tiny Goolgian whistled.

"Fi, Fie, Fo Fum, I smell the blood of a Goolgian!", came the ROAR from far above them.  It was so loud, it shook the entire planet.

"It's ... it's ... the BOGSWAMPTHING", the tiny Goolgian named Mupps,  whistled.   All the other Goolgians shook and sneezed, then cried, then burped.  "What shall we do; what shall we do?"... they all whistled like crazy people.  But they weren't crazy people, you know.  They were Goolgians and Goolgians aren't crazy.  They're just different.

Marjop, the leader of the Fourth Order Goolgians, located in Cave Trellis Number 9 knew he had to act quickly.  It was up to Marjop to save his sect from being destroyed by Bogswampthing.  For that matter, Marjop knew that he must fight to save all the Goolgians everywhere in all the Cave Trellises, otherwise there would be no Goolgians left anywhere on Mars.  He whistled to his sect: "Run, fellow Goolgians, run!  And so they did.

Bogswampthing was a vicioius Goolgian-eating, black bumped, lizard skinned, green-eyed, red-horned, fur-footed, drooling pig-like snorter of dirt and flies.  In case you're wondering,  flies do exist on Mars.  In fact, flies, roaches and ants exist everywhere in the entire universe!  Of course, there's dirt too, lots of red hot dirt.  Bogswampthing snorts until his pig-like snout is filled with ugly stuff then he blows his snotty snout with gooey goo until the landscape is covered with dirty black beady-eyed flies in a blue mushy mush.

Bogswampthing thundered overhead.  He stamped his big ugly lizard black-skinned feet and roared.  "Fie, fi, fo, fum"...  "I'll get you tasty Goolgians if it's the last thing I do.  Or even the first. "  

Life as the Goolgians knew it was about to end .. or so they thought.  

The poor Goolgians were still hopping upside down and every which way around their tunnels when they heard a new sound that scared them even more.  Bogswampthing now used his snotty snout to drill deep below the surface.  "poom, poom, poom, POOM" came the new sound and dirt was both being ripped up and caving in all over the Goolgians.  Then the Bogswampthing thumped his tumps and their little world was shaken to the core.

But in one tiny tunnel cave, a single Goolgian name Goos-Goos had been gathering all the rocks he could find ... big rocks, little rocks and in between sized rocks too.  Goos-Goos was the strongest of the Goolgians and he was determined to beat back the big black bumped, lizard skinned, green-eyed, red-horned, fur-footed, drooling pig-like snorter of dirt and flies that was now threatening their home world.  Goos-Goos whistled under his breath as he worked feverishly to complete his mission. "Bogswampthing, you big bad bog of a thing, I won't let you hurt my friends.  I won't let you ruin our world.  I'll get you."    

Then soon, Goos-Goos was being joined by a few other Goolgians who saw what he was doing.  There was Choots; he was the oldest and the most feeble and Suga, the youngest and even Usuh, the grand teacher of all Goolgian children.  Goos-Goos whistled privately to Usuh, and very quickly, she understood what he meant to do.  Usuh let out a whistle to alert all nearby fellow Goolgians to the plan.  They hopped and spun in every direction, all gathering rocks from around their tunnel caves and piling them high and wide.  They were fully determined to beat back the vicious ugly snorter monster from above.  

The thumping got louder; the snotty snorting came closer.  Bogswampthing was almost upon them.  "Fi! Fie! Fo! Fum! I smell the blood of many Goolgians, tasty treats for me to eat."

Marjop ran in and took the lead.  "aloo, aloo, ALOOOOOOOO"  ... that's just how Marjop's super strange new whistle sounded as it swept through all the Goolgian cave trellises everywhere.  Bogswampthing had breached their home world as his snotty snout snorted blue mushy mush into Cave Trellis Number 10b, the home of Choots and his wife, Gabrina who remained bedridden through the entire horrible ordeal facing the Goolgian empire.  

The sects of Marjop and Goos-Goos rushed to Choots' trellis to save Gabrina.  They carried their rocks in their little round hands and in built-in pockets in the back of their little marshmallow bodies.  When Bogswampthing breathed in deeply through his snotty snout in hopes of gathering up and eating the innocent tasty little Goolgians, they shoved their rocks right up his snotty snout.  "TWIRP!" they went in and then there was a giant  "GULP" as the surprised Bogswampthing choked on his dinner of rocks.

The Goolgians hopped in joy then instantly calmed down, waiting silently, not knowing what Bogswampthing would do next.  "THUMP, THUMP, THUMP".  The Goolgian home world was being shaken forcefully by an even angrier Bogswampthing.  They waited for the next attack of the snotty snout.  And then it came ...  to Usuh's Trellis.  They rushed in with their rocks in tow and again, as Bogswampthing took a deep breath in, they shoved more rocks into his ugly snotty snout.  "Take that" whistled Goos-Goos and Marjop, "and that", whistled little Suga.  Before you know it, one by one, more and more Goolgians were shoving rocks into Bogswampthing's ugly snotty snout and they heard GULP after GULP after GULP as the ugly snorter monster from above could breathe in no more.  

It was Marjop, the bravest of the Goolgians who stepped forward to test the snotty snout to see if it were dead indeed.  Indeed it was.  He now lead a team of Goolgians up along the outside of the snout to the world above to see if the attack was really all over.  They each used their tiny suction cup hands to haul themselves up the ugly, slimy snotter of a snout, weaseling their way through the red dirt and dirty flies from Bogswampthing that now crusted their trellises.  After a very long climb for many many miles they came close to the surface of Mars, where they peeked through a hole that Bogswampthing had made in his attack and saw the deadly, dastardly monster lying flat in the red hot dirt.  He was even bigger than they had thought!

They waited and watched for a very long while, just to make sure that he was most certainly dead.  Just for good measure, Marjop and Goos-Goos threw a few more rocks, hitting the monster in the head.  Over time, Bogswampthing, the vicioius Goolgian-eating, black bumped, lizard skinned, green-eyed, red-horned, fur-footed, drooling pig-like snorter of dirt and flies, was being covered over by the red hot dirt.  His skin shriveled, then the body ever so slowly sank into the soft Martian soil leaving nothing but a large crater behind. The wind blew silently and the Goolgians left the surface to return to their home world deep deep below ground, never again to be bothered by Bogswampthing.  

Upon their return,the triumphant Goolgians whistled and hopped in their own special way.  To this day the Bogswampthing Crater can be seen by all who search the night skies but you'll never see a Goolgian.  Some believe they don't exist and that the Bogswampthing Crater isn't really a death crater at all but rather a place where meteors hit the planet.  That's just plain silly.  Goolgians know the truth.  And now so do you!