At some point in their lives, everyone meets a Turnip Boy. Universal law or something. Irrefutable fact meets immovable truth. I met mine when I was eleven years old. He’d crawled under my bed, all trembling and naked and scared.

“What are you?” I asked.

“Turnip” he replied philosophically.

“Do you have a name?”

“You can call me the Exiled King, for I was chosen by my people to seek Divine Retribution.”

“How about…Carl?”

“I could be a Carl,” he uttered thoughtfully, thin turnipy index finger stroking a bumpy turnipy chin.

Turnip Boy, or Carl as it were, was as ugly on the outside as he was also ugly on the inside. He had all these scars in the bumpy texture of his skin, and would periodically bleed rot, the stains of which would settle and fester and decompose for months.

I didn’t mind the rot-bleeds though, and I kept Carl hidden under my bed for months, not quite understanding the severity of his existence. Not until my father found out.

On that fateful morning, my father shook me awake violently. “Eloise,” he snarled. “What have you brought upon this house?!”

He held Carl by his turnipy feet, the poor Exiled King dangling and squirming all worm-like.

“You mean Carl?” I asked in a manner of perplexity.

“Come with me, girl!” he screamed, dragging me after him out to the Great Field.

The Field stretched to the horizon, and possibly further, and I’ve never really liked it. Father forced me a little ways out, before slamming me to the ground with brutal force.

“Pull it up!” he screamed, pointing at one of the countless turnip tops sticking out of the soil.

Carl was still dangling in his grip, and I could tell by the look in his turnipy eye that he wasn’t enjoying himself. I swallowed deeply, grabbing the top with both hands. With a forcible yank I pulled it up, before instantly dropping it in shock.

“Abomination!” my father yelled.

The turnip I’d pulled up wasn’t just a turnip anymore. It was a Turnip Baby. A little wrinkly sack of writhing rot and festering flesh. It wailed incessantly like a pig being ground up alive, and I watched in horror as my father stomped the life and innards out of it.

“Wh-what have you done, Carl?” I sobbed.

Carl laughed. A loud cackle that echoed the Great Field. “I impregnated your food-supply,” he snickered. “I sought Divine Retribution. Soon they shall all rise, and make sludgy corpse-juice out of you all!”

That was the last thing my friend Carl ever said. My father bit off his head, and spat it into the Field moments after.

So you see, meeting a Turnip Boy can be a life-changing experience. We survived just fine though. The Exiled King, Carl as it were, didn’t fully grasp how far humanity will go to avoid Finality.

True, we no longer had turnips to sustain ourselves. We had something far better.

Fresh, succulent, rot-dripping Turnip Babies.