Bosco starts dieting, and loses so many inches off his waist that his belt generates a Mobius paradox. Time skids on a corner around it; light goes weird as it tries to operate in space that’s traded its curve for a Mercator projection. Things warp.

Bosco has only a second to take a deep breath before he’s sucked headfirst through the singularity in his belly button. The warp implodes and tosses him out onto a white and alien prairie: blue suns, drifting helium beasts, a sharp whiff of chlorine. Bosco is humanity’s startled envoy to a new frontier.

Thanks to dieting!