The Present Tense

Dook brings Flops a mysterious gift from The Dreamlands that converts everything Flops touches into strange matter, threatening to transform all of reality. With Flops losing his emotional memories while gaining cosmic knowledge, Dook ventures to the Library of Things That Didn't Happen for help. The Librarian reveals that "nostalgic matter"—crystallized memories of how things used to be—can reverse the conversion through mutual annihilation. Dook collects memory crystals of normal Flops and uses them to restore reality, learning that clearance gifts come with unintended consequences.

Interior: Dook & Flops' Living Room - Afternoon

Dook materializes through a shimmering doorway carrying a small, wrapped box and humming something that sounds like elevator music played backwards.

Dook (pleased): Flops! I visited the Dreamlands Mystery Gift Shop. They had a clearance section labeled "Probably Fine."

Flops (perking up from the couch): Ooh, presents! What's the occasion?

Dook: Tuesday. Also, the shopkeeper said this one "really wants to be opened." It kept rattling.

Flops eagerly takes the box, shaking it near his ear. Something inside makes a sound like wind chimes having an argument.

Flops: It's so tiny! What could possibly—

He unwraps it to reveal a small, crystalline object that pulses with an inner light that seems to exist in colors that don't have names yet.

Flops (mesmerized): Ooooooh... shiny...

Dook (suddenly uncertain): Actually, maybe don't—

Too late. Flops reaches out and touches the object.

Instantly, Flops' finger turns into something that looks like liquid starlight with geometric patterns. The effect spreads up his arm like beautiful, terrifying mercury.

Flops (voice becoming oddly harmonic): This feels... mathematical...

The strange matter conversion reaches his torso. Then the couch he's sitting on begins to shimmer and transform. Then the floor beneath. Everything Flops touches, and everything that touches what he's touched, begins converting to the same crystalline, pattern-filled substance.

Dook (watching reality reshape itself): Uh oh...

Flops (now completely converted, speaking in overlapping harmonies): Dook... I can see the equations behind... everything... but I can't remember what Tuesday tastes like...

The conversion spreads to the walls, the ceiling, everything—except it slides right past Dook like he's not there.

Dook (to himself): Right. Figment of own imagination. Different physics apply.

He quickly opens a portal back to the Dreamlands, glancing back at the crystallizing room.

Dook: Don't convert anything important while I'm gone!

Strange-Matter-Flops (geometric patterns flashing): I'll try to remember what "important" means...

Exterior: The Dreamlands - Realm of Rolling Hills

Dook emerges into a landscape where the hills literally roll around like giant green bowling balls. He has to hop from hill to hill as they tumble past.

Dook (to a passing hill): Excuse me, have you seen the Palace of Ferns?

The hill makes a sound like distant thunder that might be laughter and rolls away.

Dook passes a cave entrance that seems to exist only when he's not looking directly at it. A sign reads: "Unbeast Lair - Visitors Welcome (But Not Really There)."

Dook (waving politely at the entrance he can't quite see): Good afternoon! Sorry, can't stay to chat!

A sound like appreciative static emanates from the not-quite-visible cave.

Dook walks up to a magnificent structure that looks like it was grown rather than built, covered in every variety of fern imaginable, plus several that exist only in the subjunctive mood.

Interior: Palace Entrance Hall

Dook approaches a SCRIBE - a floating robe, book, and quill that writes continuously in the air.

Dook: Excuse me, I need directions to the Library of Things That Didn't Happen.

Scribe (in a voice like rustling pages): Purpose of visit?

Dook: I accidentally made something happen that needs to un-happen so it can become something that didn't happen, which would then make it the library's problem instead of mine.

The quill pauses mid-word, then continues writing, possibly taking notes on temporal paradoxes.

Scribe: Third corridor, past the Memorabilia Wing, through the Door That Only Opens When You're Not Trying Too Hard.

Interior: Memorabilia Wing

Dook walks past floating objects from previous episodes: the tiny gnome bottles, Odie's cactus (looking suspicious even here), the wooden beechball, a jar labeled "DRÖG," and several lottery tickets that won but haven't been scratched yet.

Dook (nostalgic): Oh, memories... or things adjacent to memories...

He stops in front of a floating waffle that smells like Norway.

Dook: We had such a nice time making you...

Interior: Library of Things That Didn't Happen

Endless shelves stretch in directions that don't necessarily agree with geometry. Behind a desk that exists in several dimensions simultaneously sits the LIBRARIAN - who looks remarkably like the bank teller frog, but with an aura of cosmic bureaucratic weariness.

Librarian (not looking up from a ledger): Let me guess. You made something happen that shouldn't have happened.

Dook: Yes! My friend touched something from your gift shop and now he's made of strange matter and it's spreading through reality and—

Librarian (interrupting): And since this clearly DID happen, it's not in my jurisdiction. However, if you could make it so it DIDN'T happen, then I could help you with the thing that didn't happen.

Dook (nodding earnestly while his brain makes the sound of a dial-up modem): That makes perfect... wait, no... but yes... I think?

Librarian (sighing): You didn't understand a thing, did you?

Dook (still nodding): Not even slightly!

Librarian: Of course not. Follow me.

Interior: Library - Shelf Section "Reality Mishaps R-Z"

The Librarian pulls out a thick tome: "So You Destroyed Reality? Vol. III: Strange Matter and Stranger Solutions."

Librarian (flipping through pages): Let's see... Strange matter conversion, reality cascade failure, figment-of-imagination immunity... Ah! Here we go.

The book shows diagrams of matter conversion chains and something called "Nostalgia Conjugation."

Librarian: The solution is elegant in its improbability. Strange matter converts everything because it's more stable than normal matter. But there's something even more stable: matter that remembers what it used to be.

Dook: Nostalgic matter?

Librarian: Precisely. You need to collect memories of your friend being normal, crystallize them using dream logic, then introduce the nostalgic matter back into your reality. When nostalgic matter meets strange matter, they annihilate each other, leaving behind whatever the nostalgic matter remembers.

Dook: That sounds complicated and simple at the same time.

Librarian: Welcome to quantum mechanics through the lens of dream logic. You'll need this.

The Librarian hands Dook a device that looks like a snow globe crossed with a telescope and a fishing net.

Librarian: Memory Crystallizer. Standard issue for temporal paradox resolution. Point it at a memory, turn the dial to "bittersweet nostalgia," and collect the resulting crystals.

Exterior: The Dreamlands Memory Garden

Dook walks through a garden where memories grow like flowers. He spots memories of Flops: laughing at his own jokes, being confused by cacti, eating cloudberry waffles, panicking about cults.

Dook (using the Memory Crystallizer): Sorry, memories. This is for a good cause.

Each memory he captures turns into a small, warm crystal that hums with familiarity.

After gathering a bunch of memories, Dook opens a portal back home and steps through it.

Interior: Dook & Flops' Living Room - Now Completely Strange Matter

The room is beautiful but alien - crystalline structures pulsing with mathematical patterns. Strange-Matter-Flops sits in meditation pose, speaking in harmonics.

Strange-Matter-Flops: I have calculated the emotional weight of seventeen different types of melancholy, but I cannot remember why that should make me sad...

Dook (gently): Don't worry, friend. I brought you something to remember.

Dook carefully places the memory crystals around the room. They begin to glow, and where they touch the strange matter, both substances sparkle and dissolve, leaving behind normal matter that looks confused but relieved.

Dook (as reality restores itself): Remember being confused by simple things? Remember worrying about ridiculous problems? Remember the taste of Tuesday?

Flops (gradually becoming normal again): Tuesday... tastes like... leftover Monday with a hint of optimism?

Dook: That's the friend I know.

Interior: Dook & Flops' Living Room - Normal Again

Flops sits on the restored couch, looking dazed but himself. The mysterious object sits safely contained in a glass jar labeled "DO NOT TOUCH - SERIOUSLY."

Flops: That was... intense. I knew the meaning behind every equation in the universe, but I couldn't remember why I liked chocolate.

Dook: The important things are rarely mathematical.

Flops: What happens to the... thing?

Dook (carefully placing the jar on a high shelf): I'll return it to the Mystery Gift Shop. With a strongly worded note about their clearance labeling.

Flops (grinning): Next time you bring me a present, maybe stick to something from the "Definitely Safe" section?

Dook: They don't have one of those. But they do have "Probably Won't End Reality."

Flops: I'll take it.

They sit in comfortable silence, appreciating the simple pleasure of existing in only three dimensions.

End Credits

Soft music plays over footage of the Memory Crystallizer being carefully stored away, the strange matter sample being re-wrapped with seventeen warning labels, and a brief glimpse of the Dreamlands Mystery Gift Shop putting up a new sign: "Strange Matter 50% Off - Bring Your Own Nostalgia."

Final shot: Dook and Flops sharing normal, non-mathematical cocoa while the contained strange matter sample pulses gently on the shelf like a nightlight made of physics.

Fade to black.