Young Johnny Everall leaned backwards over the fence, stretching back until the whole world was upside down, and all of his burrito-y insides began sliding toward his head.
It was a hot day, and the dry air played tricks on his eyes, smearing objects in the distance like a mix of nacho cheese and hot sauce. Watery, shimmering blurs... that is all there was far as the eye could see across the Old Tortilla Flats.

“Now Johnny B. Everall, you git yerself off that ol’ fence afore you tear yer aluminum foil, young burritito!”
It was his mother, her foil shining dully in the harsh noon light. She was always such a pain, worrying about useless things. Still, he slid off the fence and all that was burrito goodness inside him slithered back towards his feet. On the front of her frock she had a garish F written in black marker. That meant that she was a fajita-burrito, with notoriously spicy peppers. Johnny often asked the Great One why he had to get the only mother in town with spicy peppers, but he never got an answer. The only thing he got was hell from all the other burritos in town, especially when she called him “my little burritito”. She said that where she came from, it was a diminutive term. He sure felt diminished when she said it. Sometimes he wished someone would eat her.

Suddenly the family taco, Dog, came running up the gravel drive, weaving erratically from side to side, spilling shredded cheese all over the road.
“What’s wrong, thar, Dog?” asked Johnny, steadying the taco and gently scooping some of the cheese back into the shell. The taco didn’t answer. Instead it fell over on its side, panting and leaking beef juice all over the drive. The dry sand drank it up, leaving barely a spot. Johnny noticed that the taco’s shell was badly cracked. With each breath the crack grew larger, an evil spindly line growing along the axis of the taco. Soon it would break in half. What had happened to sweet, crunchy Dog? Who had done this?

Dog had gone out with Dad and the other Burritos this very morning on his usual rounds to collect taxes from all the other creatures on the Earth. It was part of his new position as Imperial Treasurer to go down to the Rio Grande at least quarterly to collect the taxes and offerings paid by the rest of the Earth to the country of Mexico. The last couple of years the offerings had been sparse. No one knew if it was because those beyond the Rio Grande had suffered overmuch the last season, and had nothing to give; or if indeed they had become surly, forgetting why the Burritos ruled the Land and failing to pay them the homage they so richly deserved as the Lords over All Things.

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Note: This was originally in response to this challenge. However, it was going to be WAY too long. So here it is. If you want to see what I actually submitted, you can follow the link. :P You should submit one for yourself!!

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