Commander Sarah Chen stared at the scanner. “Mike. Tell me why this planet smells like a bris.”
Mike Torres frowned at the readings. “Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Water. Vegetation. And… Jesus Christ.”
“What?”
“Commander… the carbohydrate levels are off the charts. This planet is at least 40 percent bread.”
“That’s impossible.”
“Ma’am, the gluten alone could destroy us.”
Dr. James Walker leaned forward. “It’s probably nothing. Maybe a dust cloud. Maybe a rock formation.”
“It’s bagels,” Mike said softly, like a man who had seen God and God was a baker.
Sarah strapped in. “We’re landing. If there’s even a chance of bread, I’m prepared to violate seventeen treaties and my entire digestive system.”
They landed. The hatch opened. A wave of scent rolled in: yeast, salt, toasted crust, and something else—hope.
Outside, towering golden rings stretched into the sky.
James whispered, “Oh my god… it’s… a bagel planet.”
Sarah touched one. It was warm. Steamy. Chewy. A sesame seed the size of a pistachio fell into her hand. She popped it into her mouth like a sinner.
A voice shouted: “HEY! You want schmear or you planning to fondle my trees all day?”
They spun around.
An older man approached wearing a lab coat, cargo shorts, sandals, and a T-shirt that read I Came. I Saw. I Kvetch’d.
“Dr. Saul Goldstein,” he said. “Exobotanist. Bagel farmer. Amateur cantor. Full-time disappointment to my mother.”
He thrust out a hand. “Welcome to New Eretz. You’re the first humans we’ve seen since we left Earth three thousand years ago. We would’ve vacuumed.”
Sarah shook his hand. “How do you speak English?”
“We learned from your greatest scholars.” He held up a thumb. “Lucille Ball. Mary Tyler Moore. Tony Soprano. You know. The Torah.”
He offered a basket. “Eat. You look one protein bar away from a mutiny.”
Sarah bit in and immediately forgot her name, rank, and moral compass.
James groaned into his bagel. “If this is a dream, don’t wake me up. Let me rot here.”
They walked through a forest of giant bagels. Streams of matzo-ball broth flowed around them. A kugel the size of a compact car sat cooling on a rock.
“So everyone here is Jewish?” Mike asked.
“Mostly. We allow converts. Except for that one guy who came door-to-door selling salvation. We sent him away with leftover brisket and a pamphlet about boundaries.”
They approached a city built like ancient Jerusalem redesigned by a stoned mid-century architect.
“That’s the Institute,” Saul said. “Smartest people in the galaxy. We have 200 Maimies. It’s like Nobels, but with guilt.”
Inside, Sarah saw labs so advanced she felt her NASA training was basically arts and crafts.
“What are they working on?” James asked.
“Unified field theory. Teleportation. A perpetual-guilt generator. Should power the whole planet once we get the nagging quotient stabilized.”
They entered a courtyard packed with people.
On a stage, a woman with a mane of hair like a lioness in a wind tunnel belted a melody that made the sky weep.
“That’s Miriam Abramowitz,” Saul said. “Best voice in four star systems. Her one-woman show Fiddler on the Roof… IN SPACE sold out before she finished writing it.”
Nearby, a man juggled flaming menorahs while arguing with three holographic versions of himself.
“It’s performance art,” Saul said. “Or mental illness. You choose.”
Sarah rubbed her temples. “This cannot be real.”
“Lady, you flew eight light-years to a planet made of carbs. And this is the part that bothers you?”
Mike asked, “Why didn’t you help Earth? Why hide all this?”
Saul sighed deeply, like a man who had practiced disappointment as a hobby.
“We tried. Sent a ship in 1938. By the time they got there… let’s just say it wasn’t exactly a good century for our people.”
They nodded silently.
“So we nudged things. Encouraged Einstein. Whispered some ideas. Tried to warn you about fascism and low-rise jeans. But humans… oy. You don’t listen.”
The sun set over the bagel forests in shimmering circles of gold.
“Come,” Saul said. “Shabbat dinner. My wife Sarah makes a brisket so good you’ll question why you ever believed in anything else.”
They passed homes glowing with warm light, challah braids the size of pythons cooling on windowsills.
Sarah finally asked, “Okay but seriously. Why bagels? Why terraform a whole planet out of bagels?”
Saul stopped, put a hand on her shoulder, and spoke with the gravitas of a rabbi mid-sermon:
“When God gives you a planet…
and you have yeast…
and generational trauma…
you make bagels. You make them BIG.
This is our legacy. Our carb-based heritage.”
He spread his arms. “Welcome to New Eretz. Try the lox.”
one of your fuuniest. The Promised Land meets the Big Rock Candy Mountain.
Excellent!