by L. T. Hewitt
“Um, just out of curiosity,” asked Clint, “what happened to that last waiter – Dave?”
“Dave?” she asked, contorting her face. “We haven’t had a Dave work here in years.” With another twisted expression, she continued: “It is a quite common name; are you sure you’re not confused with someone else?”
“He said he worked here.”
She turned around and spoke into a walkie-talkie. “Joe, we have another intruder.”
It buzzed back, “I’m on my way, boss.”
She left with another air of mystery that Dave didn’t quite need right now, amongst all his delusion.
They all looked down at their fresh pizzas that had been so sought after.
“These look nice,” said the Space Chicken.
“Yes, they sure do,” Dave agreed for once. “Ouch!” he shouted so a few people from other tables looked around.
“What?” asked Clein.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You just said, ‘Ouch’.”
“Did I? Oh well, this day has been so confusing already I can stand something else odd.”
He looked around at the rest of the table’s plates. Everyone was tucking into pizza. Crazy Dave had already finished two slices.
“This really is—”
Chapter 20
Dave woke up. His first instinct was that all his odd experiences had just been a dream. They hadn’t. Dave was back in bed on Glix. Everything was normal. Normal – the word struck Dave. This was normality. His experiences the previous day had proven to him that Glix was normal – Glix was all right. Glix was perfectly wonderful once you understood it. Yesterday’s experiences hadn’t been entirely pointless, then.
He took in the beauty of his new hotel room. He couldn’t remember retiring to this abode, but it was somewhere on Glix and that was great. Its stunning colours danced with his eyes. He stepped up to the window to take in the full splendour of the world beyond. He now noticed things he had been blind to before. He hadn’t previously noticed the different purples which made up the sky above him. He also appreciated the slight yellowish tint to the grass. The flowers were weird and wonderful – every colour in existence appeared in nature here too and the plants looked like the softest, warmest material known to man. He also strongly suspected that he could see another small star appearing from behind the other vibrant, glowing orb of wild reds and yellows. It was nothing like the mess of a daybreak they had at his home planet. What was the name of that place?
The others awoke around him.
“How do you feel, Dave?” asked the Space Chicken.
“I feel great,” he replied with a smile.
“No more funny experiences, then?”
“No. Everything seems to be back to normal. The good normal. The abnormal normal.”
“Yeah, I feel the same.”
“Let’s try not to do too much travelling today.”
“Yeah, we might have been too tired yesterday and that’s why we felt weird.”
“Maybe, although I can’t help feeling somebody must have popped something in my drink.”
“I know.”
Someone to relate to – that’s all we really need in this world, thought Dave. Everything was great for the time being. Oh no, Dave thought. It’s not real is it? This always happens when something good is happening. This is either a dream or a hallucination.
“Space Chicken?” Dave asked.
“Yes.”
“Has the sky… always been… purple?”
“Yes…” the Space Chicken answered, confused at all these strange questions. But he then remembered that Dave (being a being from another planet) wasn’t used to this world in all its confusion. He also remembered not to use any more ellipses or else face the Wrath of His Mother.
“And the grass yellow?”
“Sure thing. It is in Borg.”
Dave wasn’t so willing to accept this information – his eyes and ears must surely be playing some trick on him. “Good.” But he had better accept it while it lasted.
After getting ready for the day ahead, the whole group convened downstairs in the dining hall.
“This place looks nice. I guess it’s because it is brighter today,” Crazy Dave pointed out.
“What do you mean?” asked Dave.
“Well, I mean it’s brighter in this room now than it was last night when we were here.”
“Yes, obviously,” Clein said rudely. “That’s because it was dark last evening. We are in Quinquomber, you know, where the days are shorter.”
Quinquomber? Dave thought. But that was another question he’d better ask the Space Chicken. “Wait, we were here last night?”
“Yes, don’t you remember?” asked a puzzled Clint. “You were sick on one of the waitresses.”
Dave looked sheepish and went to talk to the Space Chicken, who was getting a plate and some toast for breakfast. Dave hoped he was only going to eat the toast and leave the plate. It would be very greedy to have both.
“I think something weird did happen to us yesterday. I wasn’t dreaming about everything being strange, was I?”
“If you were, so was I. I have no memory of arriving here yesterday whatsoever.”
They planted themselves back at the recently elected (and inaugurated) table. As soon as they had sat down, Crazy Dave began to get onto all the top topics of the moment.
“I think we should do a lot of travelling today,” he said. “If we keep travelling, we will reach BongVe Bong today and then we will know exactly where in the country the Fez is, and we will be able to plan out the rest of our journey. We can make rough estimates of how long it will take us to get there, and how many more days of travelling there are.”
Dave looked at the Space Chicken. “You know…” began Dave, “the Space Chicken and I were thinking that maybe we shouldn’t do too much travelling today. Maybe tiredness is the reason we were feeling grumpy yesterday – again, sorry about that, guys.”
The Space Chicken had finished all his toast, and went back to the buffet to get an egg to eat. “Oh, Dave, do you still honestly think that’s the reason we felt so… different yesterday?”
“It might have contributed,” Dave muttered.
“Can’t you see; it’s something we did.”
Dave was justifiably confused still. “But, you’re a 500-year-old Chicken prophet, I’m a middle-aged—” he said, almost slipping up again. “I’m a middle-aged human being and a full-fledged inhabitant of Glix. Sure, we’re great friends, but there’s nothing we have in common in our actions and lifestyles.”
“You know, it’s the same distance from Carpe Yolu to BongVe Bong as it is from Carpe Yolu to Wales,” Clint pointed out. “So, if we had headed off in another direction, we could have been heading there instead.”
“But what would we have wanted in Wales?” The Space Chicken diverted his concentration from the morning newspaper he was reading. “It’s just hills and sheep, and if you travel for ten kilometres you might see a house.”
“There’s also not the Fez,” Dave pointed out.
Crazy Dave thought about this. “True. Let’s go to BongVe Bong instead.”
“We’re already on our way there,” said Dave, beginning to get angry.
The Space Chicken opened his newspaper and took a sip of his tea. And promptly spat it back out again – an odd event and intriguing to those who, as of yet, have not seen a chicken (let alone a Chicken) spit out tea in surprise.
The Space Chicken turned the newspaper around to show the headline: ‘TEA SYNDROME’.
He read through the newspaper article aloud:
“‘MANY COMPLAINTS TO MANUFACTURERS prompted further studies on the effects of tea in males and females over the age of thirty. It seems the results may be worse than previously feared.
“‘The Jackshire Tea Company has released a statement announcing the withdrawal of all stock in Nekken-Shins England, owing to possible side effects, including drowsines
s, fatigue, sleep-deprivation, and tiredness. Furthermore, they recommend either the disposal or the return of any products purchased within this area having an expiry date between 81,42 and 123,42, which can be returned for a refund and possible compensation if any effects have been noted. For safe measure, we advise the returning of tea for dates ranging from 74,42 to 158,42.
“‘The studies were funded by the Public Society of’ mrrrrrrrruh…” he trailed off in a murmur to himself, pretending to read aloud but obviously not. “‘The complete list of possible side-effects caused by the drinking of this diseased form of Jackshirian tea is as follows: migraines; déjà vu; headaches; hallucinations; unanticipated grumpiness; déjà vu; unusual sleeping patterns and/or the appearance of tiredness. No long-term effects are confirmed.’”
“That sounds like what we had yesterday…” Dave’s voice trailed off.
“Did you have any tea yesterday morning?” the Space Chicken wondered.
“No, I can’t have…”
“We were very tired.”
“I think I needed a little pick-me-up… I had a cup or two.”
“So did I. But only because we stayed up so late talking to Quack and we were so tired in the morning. I can’t handle late nights like I used to. These youngsters don’t know how good they’ve got it.”
“Well I never, tea that makes you tired. What is this world of caffeine coming to? This is a crazy life.”
But this planet’s normal now. Remember, idiot?
Dave’s heart sank. And to think he thought he had fully adjusted to the Glix’n lifestyle. Maybe my problem wasn’t just my lacking understanding of my surroundings, but something deeper psychologically. If I’m still hearing voices in my head, I doubt it can be as simple as being a bit lost.
You don’t say? Wow, you really are a bright spark, aren’t you?
Hey, shut up.
I CAN’T BELIEVE THE SPLIT PERSONALITY’S COME BACK.
What you gonna do? You can’t hurt me.
I’m… I’m going to push you off a cliff.
THAT WON’T WORK.
You’re going to push me off a cliff?
What you going to do about that?
…
Yeah.
…But – as much as I hate to admit it – you are me! You would get injured just as much.
I HOPE I DON’T GET HURT. I’M NEW HERE. DON’T HURT THE NEW GUY.
“…So what do you think, Dave?” asked Clein.
“…About what?”
Bring! Bring!
“Hello, it’s the Space Chicken here. How may I help you?”
“Ellipses? Do you think there is an unlimited supply of dots here? Interpuncts are useless and defunct now anyway, but you need an even spread of short and long sentences to conserve full stops. But ellipses? I am very much ashamed of all of you. Ellipses are the equivalent to three full stops in one. You should therefore only have one so long as you then have three long sentences afterwards. You have used nine in the short space of time since you finished reading the newspaper.”
“Hello mum. Nice talking to you.” The Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack hung up.
The Egg started ringing. The group looked over in slight confusion and disbelief.
“Hello,” they heard coming from inside the Egg’s shell. “Hello, it is me, Margery.”
There was the pause that is only natural to one half of a telephone conversation.
“I know, it is so rude, is it not? And to his own mother.”
Another pause.
“I am so proud of you. To have you as my grandchild is so much better than to have that disgrace of an actual son that nature provided.”
“Oh, here we go again!” the Space Chicken said melodramatically, now fuming. “Blaming everything on me. ‘You’re not part of the family.’ Why don’t you just leave me alone, mum? I’m not a flaming two-century-old!”
There was a silence as the air of mystery and suspense passed over the team.
And still carried on.
…And on.
“And can you believe all the ellipses he has gone through?”
“Right, that’s it!”
The Space Chicken ran over to where his son hovered in the air. He picked up the small Egg and dropped him on the floor so he partially cracked. The Chicken stormed out of the hotel and – being a possessor of no worldly goods, so having nothing to come back for – never returned.
Chapter 21
The two Daves and the two twins packed up their possessions and were leaving the hotel when they noticed the small Egg crawling across the floor towards them.
“Hello,” said Dave. “I thought you would have flown off with the Space— er, daddy.”
‘How can I? I am a broken and injured combination of chicken parts. This world has brutally mistreated me.’
Dave was shocked. “Did anyone else just hear that?”
“Yes,” they all responded.
Dave now wasn’t that surprised by this sort of event. “Ah, well you can come with us. We’ll carry your weight.” Dave picked up the tiny prophet and found he weighed hardly anything at all. The Egg, that is. As much as Dave would have liked to weigh hardly anything at all, he was still pretty much the same as he had been the night before. He couldn’t remember what he had weighed the night before, or what had happened the night before, but he still assumed he wasn’t much lighter than the last time he’d checked. Though, saying that, he wasn’t sure about the difference in gravity on Glix. And Clint had said he had thrown up. He diverted his attention back to the baby in his arms. He needed to return him to his father, and was determined to do so.
‘Thank you.’
“No I still haven’t managed to find this David Gratton yet,” said the Space Chicken.
“Have you been looking for him?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “Of course.”
“Properly?”
The Space Chicken could tell Quack was raising his Duckbrows.
“Maybe.”
Quack sighed. “We really need to find this man.”
“Yes,” the Space Chicken droned, “and stop him before he opens the Fez. I’ve heard it all before.”
“This is important, Space Chicken. You need to do everything you can to work out who he is before he even gets close.”
“Well I don’t want to sound intrusive. ‘Hello, are you the future Prime Minister David Gratton?’ We don’t want a repeat of the Great Flood.”
“I don’t think we need reminding of that,” said Quack.
“That’s easy for You to say. I had to go around telling everybody ‘The flood is coming. The rapture will claim you all. Lock up your wives and daughters!’ Et,” said the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack, “cetera.”
“Well, at least you gave them good warning,” Quack justified.
“Without good reason! You know, when the rapture does come, I’ll be so smug.”
“Which will get you sent straight to Tartarus, won’t it?”
“Will You really send me – of all people – to Tartarus?” asked the Space Chicken in dismay.
“No, probably not. I couldn’t do that to you.”
“I think some people need to go to Tartarus though, don’t You?”
“I sometimes wonder if I’m being too nice to them. I mean, come on, how many times have I had to send Job down now? And they have just destroyed him.”
“Bless little Yobb.”
“Job,” Quack corrected.
“That’s what I said.”
“No, you spelt it wrong. Anyway, the people of Glix do have a habit of hurting my creations.”
“Was it last time You sent Job down to Glix that the humans ate him?”
“Yeah, although they have a tendency to do that quite often,” Quack admitted sheepishly.
“Oh, and there was that time when they said he had the wrong number of wings so they set fire to him,” the Space Chicken chuckled.
“I apologized profusely to him
for that,” Quack excused.
“And You can’t forget that time when they exploded him. Or when he had two wings chopped off and he was told to fly off a cliff.”
“Yes, yes, I get the point—”
“And when he was shot and stuffed. And You have to remember when he seemed to be living okay, but he went into a museum and saw his stuffed self… all the paradoxes destroyed him!” the Space Chicken laughed.
“Enough already!”
There was a moment of silence.
“So what did You want, anyway?” the Space Chicken asked. “Was it about the Fez again?”
“No. It was actually…” Quack was anxious regarding the Space Chicken’s response. “It was actually a new sort-of project.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” the Space Chicken said. And the anxiety was met with confusion.
“But I thought you were just moaning about all these projects I give you?”
“Well… I sort of got bored of that Fez-Gratton thing. I’d like a new challenge.”
“You will carry on with that David Gratton hunt, won’t you?”
“Yes. But it seems like it will never end. I want a challenge I can do that is tasking rather than one that has no clear answer. Obviously I will continue to track down David Gratton, but I’d like to know there’s another task that needs doing in the near future.”
“Good. Because this is an issue about the future. And the past for that matter. With a little of the present thrown in.”
“Get on with it.”
“Orbiting the Glix is a collection of rifts or eddies. These are the problems and ideas in the world. They are located on two islands in space and appear as a jumble of switches floating around in the air. Well, in the small amount of atmosphere that surrounds these islands.”
“I see. What sort of things do these switches do?”
“They are like the controls for life. I had to put them somewhere when I made the Glix, so I made them into a sort of technological natural satellite,” he said. “There is one, for instance, for the fact that butter melts on toast. If the switch was flicked back, the butter would stay completely solid and nobody could have any buttered toast.”
“What about when butter won’t spread and it just stays in a hard lump on the toast? Does that mean the switch has been flicked off?”
“It means you’ve left the butter in the fridge for too long.”
The Quack went into great detail for a long time to the Space Chicken. He explained how the switches and levers sort of swirled around in the air and could be summoned by anyone nearby. Any fact or statement on Glix would have an on/off switch, which worked like binary. The fact that windows are transparent had a switch that could be switched to make all the windows on Glix turn opaque. The concept of sheep having wool possessed a switch which held the potential power of making sheep bald. Quack then went on to explain how the rift system worked the other way, meaning that certain switches were there which would have to remain switched off for various reasons, such as the idea that sheep have fur.