by Walter Moers
Bolloggs possess the unique ability to survive without a head. Although born with heads, they lose all forms of social awareness and communicative instinct the bigger they get. When they reach a height of 150 feet, if not before, their capacity for human contact disappears. Their ability to speak, which is only rudimentary to begin with, becomes completely atrophied, and their brains are scarcely needed any more. From 5000 feet onwards the Bollogg attains that rare state of independence in which sense organs such as eyes and ears become superfluous. At 6000 feet or thereabouts, most Bolloggs discard their heads, which are, in any case, only loosely connected to the rest of their biosystem. From then onwards they take in nourishment through their pores, which are so big that birds, mice, and even piglets and lambs can be ingested and fed into the circulation. A Bollogg has only to roll around in a field of wheat to satisfy its hunger for months to come. The discarded head is usually left behind [an average Bollogg head can exceed 1200 feet in diameter] while the rest of the body continues on its way, presumably in search of its missing cranium.
CRRRRASH!!!!
The Bollogg
And then we saw it: a Bollogg all of two miles high was steadily tramping through the South Zamonian wheat fields. Its fur was dark, almost black, like a gorilla’s. It resembled that animal in other ways, too, with its long, dangling arms and apelike feet, except that gorillas grow no bigger than a wardrobe and keep their heads on their shoulders.
CRRRRRASH!!!!!
Although it had already trampled a few farmhouses underfoot, it probably hadn’t harmed any of their occupants. People can usually hear and sense the approach of a Bollogg in time to get out of its way.
One or two countryfolk had already emerged from their boltholes and were mourning their ravaged fields and farmyards. We soared over them, resolutely making for the Bollogg, which was only a few miles ahead and had now come to a halt. Mac must have sensed something long before, and even I had registered the growing intensity of the danger in the air. I could now make out a building at the Bollogg’s feet and see, as we drew nearer, that its barred windows were crowded with dozens of little dogs, all howling in the most pathetic manner. ‘Wolperting Whelps,’ said Mac.
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Wolperting Whelps. One of South Zamonian agriculturalists’ chief sources of income is the breeding of Wolperting Whelps. This industry is based in the town of Wolperting and the countryside that surrounds it. Highly prized as pets throughout Zamonia, Wolperting Whelps are regarded as the acme of cuteness, even surpassing Hackonian Cuddlebunnies and Zamonian Dormice in that respect.
The building was one of the typical local dog farms, and its owners had presumably fled hell for leather, leaving their captive, defenceless charges to their fate. I shook my head at such irresponsibility. If there were such a thing as a popularity scale for life forms, Bolloggs would come right at the bottom and Wolperting Whelps in first place. They are the cutest creatures in the world. They serve no particular purpose; they exist merely to delight the eye and gladden the heart. Wolperting Whelps live on affection, so the saying goes.
Wolperting Whelps [cont.]. There is a theory, as yet unsupported by scientific evidence, that Wolperting Whelps live on affection when very young. One cannot exclude the possibility that they possess telepathic powers that enable them to assimilate the affection they are shown and convert it into calories. Despite their relatively cute appearance, it should be added that these quaint little puppies grow up into Wolpertingers of impressive size. At puberty they measure as much as ten feet from nose to tail, have three rows of fangs, walk on their hind legs, and tend to be pugnacious. They take only six months to reach maturity, so inexperienced Whelp-owners can be traumatized by their lapdogs’ rapid development.
CRRRRRRASH!!!!!!
The Bollogg came to a halt.
‘We don’t have much time,’ Mac observed. ‘The Bollogg’s about to sit down.’
‘Where a Bollogg sits down,’ runs an old Zamonian proverb, ‘no Gloomberg Moss will grow for a thousand years.’ On the very rare occasions when a Bollogg sits down, it does so with a vengeance, and this one was about to park itself on a building filled with Wolperting Whelps.
Fortunately, these giants are slow movers – very slow movers. So slow that it’s almost agonizing to watch them in action. Our specimen was now going into a crouch, but it would be some time before its posterior came into contact with the roof of the dog farm. Its sluggishness was our only hope. Some thirty Wolperting Whelps were scrabbling at the windows and whining. Before the Bollogg’s backside crushed the building, therefore, we would have to extract every last Whelp and fly it out of the danger zone. There wasn’t room for more than three or four of them on Mac’s back in addition to myself. The great rump was descending at around 300 feet a minute, which meant roughly ten return trips in ten minutes – on the face of it, a sheer impossibility.
I had never seen Mac work so fast. This time every last second counted, so histrionic tricks would have been out of order. We flew over to one of the windows, where I wrenched the thin grille out of its seating and extracted four puppies. Then we zoomed off as fast as possible, hurriedly dumped the little animals out of range of the Bollogg’s backside, and flew back again.
Meantime the Bollogg was steadily hunkering down. The huge black creature had already shrouded the canine prison in shadow. We carried a second load of puppies to safety. On the third run one of them fell off, so we had to go back and retrieve it.
That wasted precious seconds.
On the fourth run, one of the puppies – I still vividly recall the red fleck on its forehead – behaved in a thoroughly foolish way. The panic-stricken little creature couldn’t manage the leap from the window into my arms, so I had to do something foolhardy: holding on to one of Mac’s horns, I leaned right over and grabbed it by the scruff of the neck. It rewarded me for my pains by biting me on the paw.
By the time we had flown to and fro five times, the Bollogg’s backside had reached the top of the house and was starting to crush the chimney. Bricks went tumbling into the interior and terrified the puppies still more. The roof timbers were creaking ominously. By the seventh trip the roof was already caving in under the pressure. Shingles snapped off the battens and whistled around our ears like bullets. One of them hit Mac smack between the eyes, but he displayed total indifference (pterodactyls being covered in an inch-thick layer of horny skin).
The first roof timbers cracked, piercing the walls of the upper storey and sending plaster and mortar flying in all directions. It was as if the building had opened fire on us. The puppies howled and whimpered fit to melt a heart of stone. On the eighth run the upper storey collapsed in a shower of bricks, beams, and iron pipes. A batten snapped off and came whizzing towards us like a javelin. It would have made a shish kebab of the four puppies behind me if Mac hadn’t evaded it by performing a graceful dive. On the ninth run, only the ground floor remained intact. The upper floor had been emptied of puppies and crushed soon afterwards. The last of them had taken refuge in the cellar and were whimpering through the cellar window. The foundation walls exploded with a roar, bricks disintegrated into a red sawdust that almost robbed us of visibility. We dumped our penultimate consignment.
On our last flight the Bollogg’s behind had subsided to such an extent that Mac and I could only just squeeze through the narrow gap between it and the ground. We hauled the remaining puppies out of the cellar window and set off on the return journey.
Flying was out of the question, now that the Bollogg was only three feet from the ground. Each with two puppies on our backs, we endeavoured to crawl out of the danger zone on our bellies. We almost passed out, the Bollogg gave off such a stench. Behind us, the cellar ceiling caved in with a crash. I suddenly found myself enveloped in a maze of greasy strands: my view was being obscured by the long, slimy hair
that dangled from the Bollogg’s backside. Was I crawling in the right direction?
‘This way!’ I heard Mac croak. ‘I’m out already!’
I crawled in the direction of his voice.
‘This way! Come on, quick!’
At last the hairy curtain parted: I was in the open! Mac was already shepherding his passengers out of the danger zone.
I was about to remove the puppies from my back when I noticed that there was only one of them. I tossed it to Mac, who caught it in his beak, and crawled back into the forest of Bollogg hair.
The other little creature, beside itself with fear, was hanging from a sticky strand like an insect stuck to flypaper. I plucked it off, hugged it to my chest, and wormed my way, panting, into the open air. Behind me, the Bollogg’s posterior came to rest with a sound like thunder. The ground shook so violently that miles-long cracks appeared in the surface.
Then peace returned and the dust settled. I scrambled to my feet and looked for Mac. He was lying on his back, bathed in sweat and breathing heavily, while the rescued puppies romped around him and nipped his wings.
Once a Bollogg has sat down it ceases to be a danger, at least for some considerable time. The colossal creature can remain motionless for as long as two years before getting up again. While Mac was flying around in search of other Reptilian Rescuers who could help us to find the puppies a home, I looked after the quaint little animals. We recovered from our frightening experience in the shade of the gigantic Bollogg. Each of the puppies wanted me to fondle it. They were probably famished and eager to feast on my affection.
Once the puppies had been found good homes and Mac had given the dog farmer a severe dressing-down, we flew off. I was mightily proud of our rescue operation. Mac made no comment, of course, but he purred like a cat beside a warm stove.
The remainder of my year with Mac literally flew by. I felt so much at home in my new life that I could well have imagined going on like that for ever. I never contemplated a change – not, at any rate, until Mac announced at supper one night that we must soon go our separate ways.
‘I’ve got a chance of a room at “North End”, the Roving Reptilian Rescuers’ Retirement Home on the Worm Peninsula,’ he told me, avoiding my eye. ‘Full board, congenial company, a good view of the icebergs in Shivering Sound. Sea serpents are reputed to mate there in the autumn. It’s a breathtaking spectacle, by all accounts.’
I didn’t know what to say.
‘All right,’ he went, ‘I can also think of pleasanter ways to end my days than playing chess in a home for superannuated pterodactyls, but that’s the way of the world. My eyesight isn’t getting any better. Besides, it’s time you mingled with people and got to know the serious side of life.’
‘I can do without the serious side of life,’ I replied.
Mac ignored this. ‘I’ll take you to a place where they teach the really important aspects of existence: darknessology, arcane sciences, Zamonian poetry, Grailsundian Demonism, and so on. I’m going to enrol you in Professor Nightingale’s Nocturnal Academy.’
‘A school, you mean?’
‘A special school for special individuals like you. You must have the finest education there is, and that you can only get at the Nocturnal Academy.’
‘But I couldn’t afford it!” I protested rather feebly. ‘I’m completely penniless!’
Mac’s big, bloodshot eyes fixed me with a lingering gaze.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘Professor Nightingale owes me. I saved his life once – in the nick of time, what’s more.’
Farewell to Mac
There were no big speeches when Mac and I said goodbye. After a flight lasting five days he set me down in the Gloombergs, a mountain range in north-west Zamonia. It seemed that the highest educational qualifications were obtainable only in the continent’s highest region. We landed outside an unprepossessing cave, doorless, dark, and forbidding. There was an ‘N’ carved into the rock face above the mouth of the cave, and a black arrow on the wall pointed into the interior.
‘The entrance to the Nocturnal Academy,’ Mac explained.
I shook his talons, bereft of speech. For a whole year he had been my moral support and his back the ground beneath my feet.
‘Always keep your eyes skinned,’ he croaked, rather falteringly, ‘and avoid eating meat as far as possible.’
He gave my forepaw another firm squeeze, then soared into the air. It was a majestic sight, marred only by the fact that he was flying straight for a wall of rock.
‘Climb!’ I yelled.
He did so at the very last moment – as usual – and skimmed over the crag. Then he disappeared into the lee of the mountains.
Dark and sinister-looking, the entrance to the Nocturnal Academy gaped like a mouth in the iron rock face. Another of my lives lay behind me; the next loomed ahead, fraught with menace and uncertainty. I was about to exchange a wild, emancipated, adventurous existence for a classroom in a gloomy cavern. It wasn’t a very alluring prospect.
For one brief, defiant moment I thought of simply turning around and running away – no matter where to – but beneath me yawned the chasms of the Gloomberg Mountains. The slopes were steep and offered few footholds. I drew three deep breaths and made my way into the dark tunnel.
‘KNOWLEDGE,’ PROFESSOR NIGHTINGALE bellowed in the classroom, opening his eyes until they were as big as saucers, ‘knowledge is night!’ This was a maxim derived from Nocturnomathic philosophysics, a subject taught exclusively at the Nocturnal Academy.
In the Nocturnal Academy
PROFESSOR NIGHTINGALE OFTEN SAID such things, probably in order to disconcert us. There was method in these seemingly nonsensical statements: by the time we’d grasped their total idiocy, our thoughts had strayed in every conceivable direction. This was precisely what the professor wanted: to steer our thoughts in as many different directions as possible.
In this particular case, however, there was a grain of truth in what he’d said, for Professor Nightingale was a Nocturnomath. Nocturnomaths are the most intelligent beings in Zamonia (and probably in the entire world, if not the universe). In normal lighting they have an IQ of 4000, but when darkness falls it attains astronomical heights. That is why Nocturnomaths favour the darkest conditions possible, and why Nightingale’s Nocturnal Academy was housed in a dark complex of caves in the Gloomberg Mountains. In his spare time the professor was working on a system whereby darkness could be rendered darker still. To this end he had installed a darkroom which he alone was permitted to enter. We ourselves had no great desire to enter it in any case, for the noises we heard when we listened at the door were far from inviting.
A run-of-the-mill Nocturnomath has three brains, a gifted Nocturnomath four, a Nocturnomath of genius five. Professor Nightingale had seven. One was in his head, four grew out of his skull, and a sixth was located where the spleen normally resides. As for the seventh, that was an object of eternal speculation among his pupils.
To the superficial eye he looked rather small and frail. His spindly little arms dangled – superfluously, it seemed – at the sides of his bent body, which was precariously supported by two wobbly legs resembling lengths of garden hose encased in trousers. He was slightly humpbacked, and his head, with its four external brains, was tremulously balanced on a long, scraggy neck. His big, bright eyes protruded so far from their sockets, we were always afraid they’d pop out of his head, especially when he became agitated.
Yes, Nightingale made an extremely frail impression, but appearances were deceptive. He simply preferred to solve problems by dint of mental exertion. I was actually present one day when the professor opened a can of sardines merely by applying his mind to the task. After witnessing that feat, I never flicked another paper pellet at him behind his back.
‘You’re very special!’ he would bellow at us, so loudly that we all gave a jump. He was forever reminding us that every graduate of his Nocturnal Academy was unique in his or her own way. He had a
point, too: we really were rather out of the ordinary.
The Nocturnal Academy had precisely three pupils at this time: Fredda the Alpine Imp, Qwerty Uiop, the gelatine prince from the 2364th Dimension, and yours truly, the bluebear. Professor Nightingale made it a rule only to accept life forms of which it could be proved that only one example existed on earth, so the Nocturnal Academy was very much an elite establishment. Perhaps I should give a slightly more detailed description of my classmates and the teaching staff before proceeding with my story, because they really merit some explanation.
Fredda:
The Alpine Imp
Fredda, the only female creature at the Nocturnal Academy, was madly in love with me. So much for the good news. The bad news: Fredda was an Alpine Imp, and Alpine Imps may well be the ugliest creatures imaginable. No, let’s not beat about the bush: Alpine Imps are far and away the ugliest creatures imaginable.
From the
‘Encyclopedia of Marvels, Life Forms and Other Phenomena of Zamonia and its Environs’
by Professor Abdullah Nightingale
Alpine Imp, The. An inhabitant of the Impic Alps in southern Zamonia, the common Alpine Imp may generally be numbered, like the Gulch Troll and the Glacier Gorgon but unlike the Troglotroll or Avalanche Ogress, among the so-called guileless mountain demons, in other words, mountain-dwelling sprites devoid of evil intent. Although innocuous in manner, the Alpine Imp is condemned to relative solitude by its repulsive appearance. Yet the true extent of its ugliness cannot be detected. Providence has been kind enough to conceal Alpine Imps in a growth of matted hair so dense that their physical characteristics can only be guessed at. The sight of a clean-shaven specimen would be more than the eye could endure. Alpine Imps usually vegetate among the highest peaks of the Impic Alps and can climb like chamois equipped with the arms of a chimpanzee. There is a popular belief that they can even walk on clouds, but this unscientific conjecture may safely be consigned to the realm of legend.