Tal Klein, Chaos Chef to the Stars (1976-22.79^3 billion)

Born to Orlando Klein, Pamela Sturgeon Wallace, and the cosmic entity erroneously referred to as God, Tal Klein is one of eighteen people to accurately be described as “of the cosmos” (along with the Artist Formerly Known as Prince, an immortal cow on the Isle of Wight, and Erik Fisher from the accounting department of Baskin-Robbins, among others). While he spent most of his childhood blissfully unaware of the unusual circumstances of his birth, in part because his parents believed he would benefit from a mortal life, his true heritage was revealed sometime in 1989 while watching Star Trek: The Final Frontier, in which subliminal messages had been inserted by William Shatner. Picking up on the cues, Klein asked his parents about his birth, and they reluctantly revealed that he was partly the child of cosmic forces beyond human comprehension.

Initially shocked by this revelation, Klein sought the council of the cosmic entity erroneously referred to as God (God-but-not-God, or GBNG for short). Like most gods in the universe, GBNG was not particularly inclined to respond to contact requests from supposed mortal beings, especially those emanating from the mortal realm rather than the more appropriate telenetworks in the Complex of the Cosmic (believed to be located somewhere on Pluto for unknown reasons). For a thousand years, Klein searched the Earth for evidence of GBNG’s whereabouts before eventually procuring a one-way trip to Nimbus Station. There, Klein met Gilles D’Ouverture, a Parisian chef who sought to bring the fineries of French cuisine to the cosmic nursery at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.

Entranced by D’Ourverture’s unique task, Klein abandoned his quest in favor of the mundanities of stellar service. For the next 37 years, Klein trained under D’Ouverture to develop the requisite skills necessary to satisfy the youthful desires of new stars emerging from the cosmic nursery. Stars, he learned, would not eat soup of any kind or any food covered in what they considered to be a soup. They would, however, consume frog legs, soufflé, quiche, anything containing the word “pie,” and a roll of pre-1938 U.S. nickels.

Sometime in 3026, Klein set out on his own and opened The Darkside Café. There, he solicited the help of a quantum physics specialist to develop a randomizer founded on the principles of chaos, thereby earning himself the name “Chaos Chef” (see Chaos Chef: Las Vegas for the reality TV show). With the randomizer in hand, he designed a menu that could best be described as irrational. It included items such as Diesel Burgers with Kale Salsa, Montana Chili without Beans, and something called Spunglickel, which one non-stellar patron described in a newspaper interview as “sort of like having your soul blended in a cheese sauce and fed to you through an extra long swirly straw.” The Darkside Café was an immediate sensation, and for the better part of a stellar millennia (approximately 12 billion years), Klein remained the preferred choice for stellar meals. In one afternoon, for example, he could serve as many as 47 million stars, with only the sentient R class super giants offering something bordering on criticism.

Following this monumental success, Klein handed over control of The Darkside Café to a colleague and took up a spelunking expedition to the heart of the cosmic nursery. This adventure lasted until the official collapse of the universe in 22.78^3 billion. It is believed he was consumed by a black hole in the final days of the universe, but rumors circulated before the lights finally went out that he had, in fact, found GBNG and opted to stay at the godly being’s flat somewhere deep within the complex tubing of the nursery. In fact, at least four sentient satellites left over after the destruction of the Earth by the supernova blast of the Sun received transmissions of laughter taped over old Earth sitcoms which themselves did not feature laugh tracks. Some believe these were the voices of Klein and his literal godfather. To date, this has not been confirmed.