The Fez

by L. T. Hewitt

  “Surely your… ‘finger-nails’ are an inconvenience in everything you do,” said Clein. “Try pressing one of those buttons on the dashboard. See if you can do it.”

  Dave did so successfully. Well, successfully in that his fingernails didn’t get in the way. The Speedvan wasn’t so positive about its buttons being pushed and all of the seats started shaking uncontrollably. Up and down, left and right, forwards and backwards, Nekken and Luc, Nord and Shins. This fierce action muddled and revolved the minds of the Speedvan crew.

  “MaKe iT StOp!” wailed Clein, infuriating Margery.

  In a panicked frenzy, Dave flopped his hands rapidly onto every button, switch, lever, light and stick atop the dashboard. Thankfully this stopped the Speedvan from shaking, but in a stroke of luck – bad luck – Dave set off a dozen other silent and unnoticed problems.

  “Phew,” said the Space Chicken, relieved. “You really had me worried there. I thought we were going to keep on shaking forever and I was going to turn into Chicken jelly.”

  Clint and Clein both started laughing imprudently.

  “Chicken jelly,” Clint chortled.

  “What was that‽” demanded a peeved Capon. “I take extreme offense to that comment,” he huffed.

  “No, it’s nothing against you,” Clein justified. “Honest,” he added, dishonestly. “I was just thinking how… It’s just that…” he thought of a way to say what he had to say that the Space Chicken wouldn’t find rude. It was hard. “Chicken doesn’t really go well in a desert,” he tried.

  “I’ll have you know that chicken doesn’t go well in anything.”

  “We didn’t mean Chicken – like a prophet.” The intelligent twins were sweating as they fought for peace. “We meant like the animal – the useless creature.”

  “Just because you’re not a prophet or a human, it doesn’t make you worthless! Chickens deserve equal rights to everyone else and I don’t think it’s at all funny that you would even consider joking about something like murdering one of the creatures and turning him or her into jelly, only so that you can observe your own taste in food. It’s high time the nation of Britain grew up and realised that animals and food couldn’t be any more different.”

  “To be honest,” Dave started, “you can have your little ‘Chickens are innocent’ thing, and I respect you for that. But I know just what you mean by that, Clint. Chicken jelly really wouldn’t taste nice.”

  This thoroughly enraged the Space Chicken beyond the strength of his own brain, and he was about to give Clint, Clein and Dave a thorough roasting, when he noticed a strange occurrence on the road. “Holy Quack’s Woollen Stocking, it’s misty today.”

  As he spoke, the tarmac below them was stolen by clouds. Within several seconds, absolutely no land features around them were visible.

  Dave’s immediate reaction was to crush the brake pedal with the full strength of his thighs. This had no effect on the car, which seemed to harbour its own uncontrollable momentum. Dave immediately became paranoid with concern that the car would crash. But they never even felt a crevice in the ground. Not a bump. They could barely feel the road beneath them any more.

  As the fog parted, it became clear that, in the space of time that had passed from the haze to the clearing, night had fallen upon them and engulfed reality. It still all seemed bizarre, though; the darkness appeared to be unbelievably gloomy and silent to have fallen in a matter of Centihaca, ten Centihaca at the very most.

  It struck Dave. It struck Clint. It struck Clein. It struck the Space Chicken. It struck the Egg. It struck Crazy Dave. And it puzzled them all. It was still daytime: the Quil and Ra were still shining down on Glix. But the Speedvan wasn’t. The group and vehicle had left the atmosphere and were now orbiting the planet.

  Chapter 33

  The upwards journey had been somewhat unpleasant. Dave wasn’t used to transport on Glix, and so assumed this was probably just a regularly occurring feeling. It wasn’t, of course, and the rest of the Speedvan crew felt at extreme unease. There wasn’t a great deal of support for belief in fate or destiny on Glix, and whenever questioned by the press, Quack would respond by mumbling ‘No comment’ or ‘If there were fate, wouldn’t you find out if fate existed or not without having to consult me?’ or ‘It’s complicated.’ However, in their predetermined situation, the unwilling spacemen felt that, if there were even the slightest chance that they could have opted against being hurtled into space, they would have happily stayed at home with no questions asked.

  The pressure of travelling one hundred kilometres in under a minute was rather intense and the rapidly decreasing gravity as they rocketed outwards from Glix only caused more sickness. That, combined with the increasing reaction force acting upon them as they travelled farther and farther through the atmosphere and against the existing force of gravity, meant that the only things preventing them all from being physically sick were the g-force, and the minor vacuum into which they were entering.

  The Space Chicken’s experience of the whole event was similar to his prior conceptions of the apocalypse. He felt a deep burning in his mind and wished it would stop as soon as possible. Upon reaching space, he felt a twisting, contorting feeling strangle his stomach and rid any remnants of food that might be residing there of the concept that they may remain there for the rest of the day. Whilst these feelings weren’t necessarily painful, the Space Chicken wondered how much of this sort of displeasure could be experienced by a person before they began to sweat blood through their eyes.

  When going up to space, the Egg had a feeling that he believed was the same as that of being boiled, which continued for his entire trip away from Glix.

  Dave immediately wondered if this was some sort of prank that the other members of the group had been pulled on him. As he gazed out of the Speedvan at the bright stars splintering through the violently poetic swirls of space’s infinity, he forgot everything else for a moment and became suddenly certain that nothing else in the universe could even mockingly compare to this. He forgot about the car, the people he was with and the environment around him. He forgot all daily actions and forgot to care that he had a body, an identity or any necessities, like the need to eat and sleep and think beyond his connection with the universe. He even forgot who he was and accepted only the stars as an eternal representation of life and intelligence. Their splendour captivated him and he had an epiphany that life and death no longer mattered, so long as he had the universe to fall back on.

  “I feel so unique,” said Clint.

  “So do I,” said Clein.

  “It’s as though there’s only one of me in the whole universe.”

  “It’s like no-one can ever feel as I do right now. I’m having a personal connection with everything natural, but it’s not something people can ever realise. I am alone in this experience.”

  “I hear you, brother,” said Clint. “I’m having exactly the same feelings as you.”

  “No, you’re not; I’m alone in my understanding.”

  “Yes, but I’m alone with you.”

  “You can’t be.”

  “But I am.”

  “You’d never understand! You’re an idiot and you don’t realise anything. Go on, look out the window, and see if it opens anything up in you. I doubt it ever could.”

  “I’m not sure I like your tone. Perhaps I’m unique in my revelations, and you are a fool who is closed to the world.”

  “We’re all having a wonderful time, I’m sure,” the Space Chicken said, attempting to break up the argument. “But I feel somewhat sick, so if anyone would care to open up a window, I need a bit of freshness to pass through here.”

  Crazy Dave woke up from his wondrous slumber and addressed the twins. “Don’t you two have exactly the same thoughts and emotions?”

  “Yeah,” they both replied simultaneously.

  “So why did you need to have that little convers— argument amongst yourselves? I mean yourself. No, wait, I mean yourselves.” Crazy Dave
tried to rub his head until he understood which term to use. He never did, and so continued anyway. “Whatever you want to call yourselves/yourself, you needn’t converse. You merely have to think one thing, and both of you will have the thought simultaneously.”

  There was a moment’s silence. “Shut up,” said Clein. “You’re crazy, so you don’t know anything.”

  “My thoughts precisely,” said Clint.

  Chapter 34

  Arthur Cardigan curled his fingers awkwardly around the edges of the bowl and stood silently in the holy room. The respect occupying the room with him was powerful. This building was ruled – no, possessed by Quack. Even the bowl was sacred. The bowl could collect great treasures with the power of the Almighty Quack. Arthur knew what to do with it.

  “Any donations, ladies?” Arthur asked of several elderly women.

  “Ooh, of course,” one of them chirped. “I always like to give a little something.”

  “It gives you that lovely warm feel inside, din’t it?”

  He sighed loudly. The women were clearly annoyed by this but still gladly clinked their pennies into the dish.

  “Any donations to the House of Quack?” Arthur asked of the next person along on the pew.

  “Where does the money actually go?” asked a skeptical young man.

  “Um... well, it goes to the House, I guess.”

  “What good is that? What does the House need money for? It isn’t funding anything. And this supposed ‘God’ doesn’t need it, as the philosophy states how he doesn’t have a need for material goods.”

  “Well, I don’t know. Does it really matter? It’s meant to make your soul good, or something.”

  “Whatever, I don’t see how that would benefit ‘God’ or the chickens, if you believe that.” The man – who Arthur now saw to be only about seventeen – grabbed the books he had brought with him and began to leave. “Surely God’s only purpose is to create and destroy. There can be no gods or goddesses, because it is illogical to assume life would be created purely so these fictitious, narcissistic deities can be admired by lesser beings.” He walked out of the House. “What is it with that ill-placed capitalisation anyway?” he muttered as he went. “Is it that ‘God’ is greater than humans, so feels the need to be referred to incorrectly, just to prove how epic he thinks he is?” he pondered mockingly. “‘Here are a few typos in My Name, but i am still better than all of you combined. Although, to be fair for a change, each of you is probably better by yourself than when combined physically with every other member of your disgusting race—” The door slammed shut behind him.

  Arthur noticed a strange feeling rising up inside him. Had he really been that inspired by the boy’s speech? He then realised it was coming from a stone he had in his pocket. The stone compelled him and refused to cease in its constant agitation, until it was answered like a telephone.

  “Um... hello?” Arthur said, pressing the piece of rock up against his face.

  It replied to him: “You have sorely disappointed me as well as the whole of religion.”

  Arthur was shocked. Not at what was being said of him, but that he was being spoken to at all, and how the words arrived in his ear. “Sorry, how are you talking to me, whoever you are? In fact, how can you know me? Nobody knows me.”

  Quack sighed. He liked explaining things, but not when He had to explain the same thing to different people constantly. There is enough in the world worth explaining without having to repeat yourself.

  “I’m a god, remember,” He began. “With a lower case ‘g’,” He added, through what would generally be described as ‘gritted teeth’, if Quack did, in fact, have any teeth. “I’m a god,” He repeated. “That gives me the right to create my own rules (within certain guidelines, of course). If I say rocks act as mobile phones, they do. Okay?”

  “I guess so. What did You want anyway?” Before Quack could answer, Arthur added, “I assume You wanted to tell me something.”

  “I wanted you to stand up to Quack-fearing racists! I have no use for this money; it is distributed to deserving animals. Usually it goes to them via various charities, so the money can be put to the best possible use. Basically, it’s a simple way of giving money to lots of worthwhile causes at once, by just giving at one place.”

  “All right, then.”

  “No. Not ‘All right, then.’ This is a fallacy that must not be spread. It has to be dealt with. By you in particular. You have just told Richard over there that I am a money-grabbing hypocrite.

  “And there’s another thing you’ve forgotten: it’s a personal experience to give the House money,” said Quack. “It’s ‘Do you have any donations for the House?’ not ‘Any donations to the House of Quack?’ Remember your duties if you want a reward at the end of this.”

  “Hey!” Arthur shouted at the rock, causing a few House-goers to jump. “That’s not why I’m doing this. It’s my duty. In the future, You’ll understand this.”

  “And hopefully in the future you’ll understand what not to say in a House. Now stop looking weird; there are some elderly ladies who wish to speak with you.”

  Quack hung up first, leaving Arthur confused for a while as to what He meant. That was until the women he’d been talking to earlier decided to talk to him.

  They waited until he’d definitely finished his conversation/monologue, and then said, “It’s nice to have a word with Quack, isn’t it?”

  Arthur put down his rock and looked at them. “...Yeah,” he said.

  “I often talk to Him when I’m in the bathtub. But I guess a House is probably the best place for it.”

  “That’s just you bein’ weird,” the other woman laughed. “Talking to ‘Im in the bathtub, what are you like?”

  “Oh well, I’m sure He has the decency to give me privacy in my own bathroom. He’ll listen to what I have to say all right, but not look. Just put His Head to the door with a beaker.”

  “Wait a minute,” Arthur said, “have you got a mobile phone?”

  “Oh, yes, sure,” she said, rifling through her handbag. “Why, do you need to call your mummy?”

  “What? No, I meant for Quack.”

  The lady giggled and her hand stopped searching.

  “Aw, bless him,” she said to her friend, who was also stifling hysterics. “You don’t need a phone to call Quack. Why, you’ve just been speaking to Him yourself.”

  Arthur understood and his heart sank as he realised he was alone. “Yes. Of course. You’re right.”

  The ladies quickly dismissed this confusion. They leant forward, as if about to impart a secret. “You’re a good lad. Don’t turn out to be like that Richard Dakin.”

  Chapter 35

  In space, no sound can be heard. This is exactly why this kind of space was peculiar. Sound could be heard. In particular, a loud sigh coming from a large Chicken.

  The entire crew of the Speedvan turned and looked at the Space Chicken. Seeing as there were no cars or road signs to crash into, Dave didn’t need to pay attention to what was ahead of him and so delighted in having the opportunity to gawp at someone who presently appeared slightly weirder than he did. Upon looking at their friend, all other members of the space-travelling group saw something they had never seen before and certainly weren’t expecting to ever see in their lives.

  “Um… Space Chicken?” Clint asked.

  “Yeah?” he replied, louder than ever before.

  “Don’t you need to be wearing that to breathe?”

  “The helmet? No. I needed it to keep the high concentration of carbon dioxide out and to keep the Space Jelly in.”

  “Space Jelly? How are you going to find whatever that is around here?”

  The Space Chicken looked at him. If looks could kill, this look would very probably maim Clint almost to the point of unconsciousness, lean over and scream in his bleeding ear, “Did you really just ask me that‽”

  “‘How am I going to get Space Jelly… in Space?’”

  “Well it’s obviou
sly not here. I mean, there not anything here, is there? It’s space; there’s nothing.”

  The Celestial Cockerel narrowed his eyes. “How are you breathing?”

  Clint became worried for a minute as he felt his oxygen levels deplete, and then he collapsed in a heap on the floor, his face getting redder by the second.

  “You are breathing,” the Space Chicken pointed out to him and the boy sat up and regained consciousness. “But, how are you breathing?”

  Clint was dumbfounded.

  “This is Light Space,” the Space Chicken explained. “There is some oxygen amongst the Space Jelly amongst the nothing.”

  The twins still looked bemused.

  “Look,” the Space Chicken interjected. “What do you need to survive?”

  “Er… food? Water? Oh, a life.”

  “No.” The Space Chicken was playing a losing game.

  “Yeah. You definitely need one of those.”

  “No, what I mean is you need to breathe. Specifically, you need an environment which is only a small amount oxygen. Light Space is that. And it has no intense vacuum. I need Space Jelly to survive. That’s why I wear the helmet. It’s filled with Space Jelly. I don’t need to have a helmet in Light Space because there’s no carbon dioxide to harm me. This is where I was placed when I came to Glix. This is home.”

  “So what you need to breathe—”

  “It’s not breathing so much as it is eating,” the Space Chicken interrupted.

  “...is it, like, some sort of weird Chicken jelly?” Clint immediately knew he had worded this completely wrongly.

  “Chicken jelly‽” the Space Chicken squawked.

  “I meant it as in jelly eaten by a Chicken, not jelly made of Chicken,” Clint explained, timidly and hoarsely, but the Space Chicken heard none of this.

  “You still think this is funny‽ Do you consider eating either a Chicken or a chicken to be funny?”

  “In my defence,” Clint declared. “What did you have for breakfast? And what have you eaten for a week? Egg. How is eating an Egg any different from eating a Chicken?”

  “It was unfertilised! And how dare you call it an Egg‽ It was an egg! It would never have become a Chicken. It couldn’t have become a chicken.”

  This time Clint felt the difference. He knew an Egg from an egg. “So what about the egg? Your little friend. He’s ‘the egg’, so would you eat him someday? How do you see him as different from any other egg? But of course,” he said melodramatically, “you don’t care about him. You threw him to the ground. He’s less to you than any other egg, that’s why you’re keeping him alive.”