by L. T. Hewitt
no need to shout
I’M NOT SHOUTING. THIS IS SHOUTING!
Obviously there is a massive difference there then…
‘W’ to the ‘E’ to the ‘space’ to the ‘A’ to the ‘R’ to the ‘E’-
spit it out
Yeah!!
To the ‘Meant’ to the ‘Be’—
You’re incredibly annoying.
To the ‘We are meant to be the Ten Daves’ to the ‘but everybody turned up in the wrong order’.
FIRST DAVE OBVIOUSLY COULDN’T MAKE IT AS HE IS UNCONCIOUS.
And I’m Dave 2.
I WAS REFERRED TO AS ‘DAVE 3’, I BELIEVE.
dave 4
To the ‘Dave’ to the ‘5’!
Shut up!
dave vi is late again
Sorry!! Dave VI!!
YOU ARE NOT DAVE VI.
I a-m D-a-v-e V-I-.
I’m Dave VII then!!!
Daue the Eighth.
where is dave 9
You need a question mark!!!
i cant do those
You’re stupid!!!!
Dave9here.
Sorry, I can’t understand you in the slightest.
WellIhavetotiltmyheadtoreadyou.
You don’t even have a head!
Imaginen Daue ; with ten visageſ.
To the ‘Where is Dave 10?’
D-o w-e h-a-v-e a D-a-v-e 1-0-?
dave tne hear! :P
W-h-o i-s D-a-v-e ‘-t-n-e-’-?
soz Typo :( lol no gud at tipin
Oh Quack.
i say we kill at least daves 5 6 and 10
There is no Dave 56!!!!!!
trollolololol
We could kill Dave 1. I hate him.
DAVE 1 IS YOUR BODY AND, THEREFORE, YOUR CONCIOUSNESS.
maybe not bother with the whole consciousness thing
Yeah, we don’t need to be awake.
i like it
How about Dave 3?
he thinks hes so intellectual but comes across as naïve
Ooh!! I didn’t know you could do those dot thingies!!!
DIAERESES.
When Dave 1 wakes up he’s going to be so freaked.
what happens if he finds out about it
What?
the way to get rid of us
Oh no!!!!!!!!
To the ‘That would be awful’.
epic fail ): pwnage xxx :P
That wouldſt be horrendus ; ſimple awefull-foollish!
To the ‘I know’!
I find you very annoying. Couldn’t you just change your, um, writing style to being bold?
Okay. I find you incredibly annoying.
Good, that’s much better. I still find you quite annoying.
To the ‘That wasn’t me’.
IT SEEMS THERE IS AN ELEVENTH DAVE.
And twelfth.
maybe we’re not the twelve daves but the eleven voices
WELL, ELEVEN IS AN UNLUCKY NUMBER.
thats settled then
As we were saying, Dave doesn’t know it, but the way to destroy us is—
“What‽ What is it‽” Dave shouted. Realising he was back in the old-man pink room and that he had jumped up in fright, Dave threw himself back into the bed in a state of despair.
After getting dressed and ready, Dave went downstairs and into the kitchen. Slumped at a stool, there was a very tired-looking Space Chicken.
“Hey, Crazy Dave,” he called, the feathery bags under his eyes drooping, “can I have some of that mint cake?”
“Yeah, me too, please.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah!”
“Yeah, I don’t need it.” He handed packets out to everybody.
“I love sugar,” said Clint.
The Space Chicken looked at him in disbelief. “Well, I really wanted the mint cake… so I could gain energy. I’m terribly tired; I couldn’t really get to sleep last night.”
“I love sugar, though I prefer salt slightly.”
“I want sugar to wake me up, not as an unusual snack.” Clint still didn’t get it. “I’m old and tired, so leave me alone.”
“That’s stupid. Everybody knows that the best thing to have if you want waking up is tea.”
They didn’t talk much after that.
“May I sample some mint cake also?” Old Man Tales asked politely.
They – mostly the Space Chicken – stuffed their faces and were soon up to scratch and so set off.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality,” said the stuffed Chicken. “I anticipate our meeting again soon.”
“Thanks for having us to stay,” said Clint. “Sorry, I don’t believe I asked your name,” he added inquisitively, not having paid attention when told the previous day.
“Old Man Tales,” he answered.
Clint was taken aback. “Well… Old Man Tails.” Quack rang the phone to tell him the mistake, at which point the old man grinned. “I hope to see you again someday, sooner or later.”
Chapter 26
“What did you mean ‘see you again someday’?” Dave asked Clint as they walked along the road from the warm and homely Old Man Tales’s house to the barren, cold BongVe Bong. “Do you honestly think we’ll ever see him again?”
Clint was silent and thoughtful for a moment. “We might.”
“No, we won’t. He’s a really old man who we will never come across again. I promise you that if we ever meet him again… pigs will fly and kittens will explode and Crazy Dave will be King with me as his servant.”
“I get a kingdom?” Crazy Dave asked, his eyes aglitter with hope.
“No! I just said that would never happen.”
“You said I would when we meet Old Man Tales again.”
“If we meet him, I said,” Dave corrected.
“That would be a nice treat, I’m sure,” Clint said.
“Old Man Tales already gave me a little present,” Crazy Dave said, looking pleased with himself.
“What is it?” Dave asked out of phatic courtesy, though he was genuinely interested. “I bet it was something mysterious. Was it longevity, by any chance?”
“No, it’s a little more physical,” Crazy Dave replied, taking the gift out of his pocket. “A rock.”
“What? Why would you want a rock?”
“I like it. It really says ‘me’.”
“Throw it away. That was probably the lesson he wanted you to learn: there are some things in life we must part with, so as not to become materialistically obsessed.” He then added, less wisely, “Try skimming it.”
“I don’t think it will skim. It’s quite spherical. Besides, I’m keeping it.”
“It will be a big addition to what you have to carry. But if that’s what you want, whatever.”
“So what did you all think of the old man?” Clein asked as they walked.
“Which old man?” asked Crazy Dave.
“Old Man Tales, of course,” the twin responded, impatiently.
Crazy Dave still looked blank.
“The one we just spent half a day with!”
“Oh, him. I thought he was odd.”
“You would say that, wouldn’t you?” he muttered.
“I thought he was very mysterious,” said the Space Chicken.
“I thought he spoke very wisely,” Clint explained.
‘I thought he seemed full of stories and just about ready to burst,’ the Egg mused telepathically. ‘Yet he didn’t. He hid them all away from the world, concealing his mystery more for another day, other people, another time, and maybe even another race.’
“I thought, and still do think,” said Dave, “that we have just found our elderbeard.”
Chapter 27
“It all started some time ago,” Arthur explained to Quack. “And then it continued in some time from now. If you get what I mean. But it was all in the past, as well as some of it being in the future. You – the future You, the You who understands/understood/will un
derstand the story – explained (or, perhaps, will explain/already explained)—”
“Get on with it, and do so in past tense, second person, preferably in a linear structure and do try to keep your tale as objective as possible.”
Arthur Cardigan, unable to fully comprehend the demand, merely responded with, “Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“Now if I may continue without any further interruptions,” he said, glancing with a hateful eye towards Quack’s invisible presence, “You explaine—”
“Go ahead.”
“You ex—”
“I won’t interrupt again.”
“You—”
“Oh, sorry.”
“—”
“I’ll shut up now, shall I?”
“That would be good,” said Arthur, with teeth so gritted that no snow was likely to land, nor any ice form, within a hundred yards of the man until a decade after the end of time. He cleared his throat. “You explained to me that I have a purpose on this—”
“My Beak is sealed.”
“Will you give it a rest‽” Arthur screeched.
“How dare you‽” Quack exclaimed. “Personal pronouns referring to me are always capitalised!”
Arthur took a minute or two to pluck up the courage to continue. “And You wonder why there are so many atheists,” he muttered. “Anyway, as I was saying, You explained to me in the future that I have a purpose on this planet. You need to keep the world in order and I am the one You come to for physical help.”
“Really? I usually just go to one of the prophets for that sort of thing.”
“But You needed to train me up. You explained my life to me and then sent me on my way. Then, when the time came, You asked me if I was ready to begin my life – my true life. I wasn’t. And that’s why You sent me here. Into the past, where I can catch up on my training, while I catch up on time.”
“Sorry, but what training?”
“You need to prepare me for the life that lies ahead.”
“But I don’t know what life lies ahead of you. How can I train you and accustom you to something that even I don’t understand? It would be a lot easier if you just told me what I told you.../will tell you.”
“Now You’re doing it! You filthy, lying, dirty great hypocrite!”
“I’m allowed to be a hypocrite; I made Glix, I will inevitably destroy Glix.”
“What do You mean You’re going to destroy Glix‽”
“I’m only kidding,” He laughed. “You’re going to destroy it just fine all by yourselves.”
“That’s still bad! In fact, it’s possibly worse.”
“Relax; none of this will ever affect you. You’ll be long dead by then. And, as we know all too well, the future can never impact on the past. Which is sometimes a good thing and sometimes a bad thing,” Quack reflected. “But all we need to remember is that what happens at the end of time can’t possibly have any effect upon your life.”
“Well, actually,” Arthur said, “it’s not always that simple."
Chapter 28
The Space Chicken, the Egg, Dave, Crazy Dave, Clint and Clein walked continuously, with the atmosphere changing and the landscape turning noticeably hillier and littered with fields of livestock. The language of the locals they met as they travelled became increasingly peculiar.
“Do you think we’ll arrive in BongVe Bong today?” asked Clint.
“We should do,” said the Space Chicken. “I’ve travelled this way before and this seems about right. It doesn’t take long before you reach the border. Oh, that’s another thing, isn’t it: the border to BongVe Bong is really weird. The entire street is built up with office blocks and skyscrapers and then… it abruptly stops.” He thought of the journey so far and how bizarre it all was. The intelligent twins, the crazy boy of 14, the flying Egg, the old man and himself – the massive, holy Chicken.
His phone rang.
“And the interrupting god.”
He put his phone down again.
It rang.
“And the punctuating mother-Chi—”
He switched his phone off.
“Actually,” he decided, “the Border’s not that weird.”
“Oh, I know now,” said Clint suddenly. “Didn’t they demolish part of the street and the wall in the 1920s. Well, just the bits that were in BongVe Bong. They kept the English parts. It had a name, didn’t it?”
“Yeah. Oh, I remember,” said the Space Chicken, “wasn’t it called the Wall-Street Crash?”
“I think so.”
Dave tried to change the topic to something he understood. Or at least partially understood. “I had a really weird dream last night.”
“What was it like?” asked Clein.
“It was sort of like an argument between all the voices in my head.”
They all looked at each other. “There are voices in your head?”
Dave was worried. “No,” he said nervously, “I don’t mean it like that. I’m… I’m not crazy. I’m normal Dave. He’s the crazy one.” He pointed at the other Dave. “He’s Crazy Dave.”
Crazy Dave began a speech. “Taking into account the libration, I think the energy reflected by both moons is more than enough to give us sufficient light when we are positioned away from the two stars – Romploon and Quil – and when we are positioned towards them, it is incredibly bright. In the Nekken Semisphere, it is bright all summer.”
“No. No! NO!” Dave screeched.
“It’s okay, Dave,” Clint said.
“I’m not crazy, I’m not crazy.”
The Space Chicken was already on his phone to Quack.
“He says he is having these weird dreams and there are these voices in his head.”
“And you’re sure he’s not crazy?”
Margery joined in. “Ask him if they have different kinds of punctuation as their speech.”
The Space Chicken sighed. “You and your punctuation in speech. Dave can’t hear it, you know.”
“Just ask him.”
The Space Chicken went over without hope to the gibbering Dave and asked him the question.
“Yes,” Dave responded. “There were eleven of them and they all spoke using different punctuation.”
This shocked the Space Chicken. Why does everything have to be so shocking? he wondered. This world can’t just run as expected for one second. He returned to Margery and reluctantly told her the news that she was right.
“It is just as I suspected,” she said confidently. “These are mind-possessors known as Vaemei.”
The Space Chicken turned around and called to Dave, “They’re now dubbed ‘Veemeye’.”
“It is ‘Vaemei’, dear,” Margery corrected.
“That’s what I said.”
“No; you spelt it incorrectly.”
“Whatever, I can’t tell the difference,” the Space Chicken lied.
“They are eleven mental daemons who gather around people and taunt them in a variety of ways. Each Vaeme has its own personality.”
“How do you know so much about them?” asked the Space Chicken.
Margery intertwined her voice with thick trellises of hatred. “They use incorrect punctuation.”
“Okay… How exactly do they do that?”
“Well, one of them speaks fully in capital letters.”
“Right,” the Space Chicken sighed hopelessly.
“Another of them has hyphens between every letter. Honestly, I swear we are going to run out of those one of these days. There is also a Vaeme who insists on saying ‘to the’ before everything. Though – strictly speaking – that has nothing to do with punctuation, I still thoroughly detest such phatic colloquialisms. The quotation marks it uses, however—”
“I don’t care!” he exploded. “Sorry… I just want to know: can I get infected with these Vaemei things?”
“You may if they leave Dave. Or even if Dave still has them, you may be at a small risk of catching them. They are attracted to peopl
e who are tired, confused or, sometimes, paranoid. If you become more tired, confused or paranoid than him, they may infect you instead/also. So Dave will only have these torturing him for as long as he is tired, confused and/or paranoid.”
“Sounds like Dave all right.”
“Is he likely to be any of these things?”
“Well… he’s from another planet, you see.”
“What‽ Why cannot you be more like my lovely grandson and have normal friends.”
“But— but he is one of us; a group of friends.”
“I do not see what that has to do with it.”
The Space Chicken hung up.
“Am I all right?” cried Dave. “Is there anything Margery has said I can do about them?”
“The hen says you are more vulnerable to the Vaemei if you’re tired, confused and/or paranoid.”
The Space Chicken’s phone rang. “Do you realise you said ‘hen’ instead of ‘Hen’?”
“I know. I meant to say it,” the Space Chicken uttered contemptuously, before putting the phone down.
“If I’m tired, confused or paranoid? Well, that’s a great help,” Dave exclaimed dramatically and sarcastically. “I could have worked that one out by myself,” he muttered.
“When we’ve found the Fez and I’ve gotten whatever’s inside, you can go home and rest,” said Clein.
“Who says you’re opening the Fez, Clint?” asked Crazy Dave.
“I’m actually called Clein, if you don’t mind too much,” he retorted. “But I say so, and – erm – your face is… your face is…” he started, trying to think of an insult about what (besides a face) Crazy Dave’s countenance resembled.
“Who says we’ll even make it to the Fez?” the Space Chicken said.
“What‽” exclaimed the Unanimous Everyone.
“Quack told me of a problem with holes in time,” he said.
“What, like a sort of vortex?” asked Crazy Dave.
“Yeah.”
“Your face is like a sort of vortex,” Clein said.
“What do these vortexes do?” asked Dave.
“They just appear out of nowhere, inhale people and spit them out at another moment in Glix’n history.”
“What are they actually called?” Clint enquired. “These timeholes surely must have a specific name. Besides ‘timeholes’, that is.”
“I don’t know. I never really saw it as an important issue. Make up one if you like.”
The Space Chicken’s mobile rang and he put it on speakerphone.
“What is it now, mum?” he asked impatiently of the innocent handset.
“I’m actually not your mother,” responded Quack. “I’m not even in the same family as you and I’m not in the right genus. But I am in the same class as you. That’s if I were a life form in your style of existence.”
“Get to the point.”
“Basically, I was eavesdropping on your conversation and I reminded Myself to be part of the naming of the timeholes process.”