by Rhys Hughes
“That worry is too obscure for us,” said his friends.
“Well here’s one less obscure – the inhabitants of that other planet are probably offended that we left without saying goodbye. Suppose they declare hostilities against Earth, to teach us a lesson? I believe we’ve just triggered a cosmic war. If we’re lucky, they haven’t invented interstellar travel yet and will find it impossible to actually launch an invasion.”
“What shall we do?” cried Paddy and Harris.
“It’s too risky ever to go back. If our craft is captured, the secret of the faster than light drive will be exposed!”
They left the lighthouse and walked to the pub. The storm had died down and the sea was relatively calm. When they passed through the door of their favourite haunt the decrepit barman said:
“That chap with you earlier – the one with the hat and moon obsession – came back when you weren’t here. I think he wanted immediate revenge. When he saw you had gone he left a message.”
“What was it?” asked Castor.
The barman consulted his memory. “Well, he said that without the moon there would be no tides, no ebb and flow, no howling dogs, no total solar eclipses, no wax and wane, no werewolves, no moonbows, moonrakers or mooncalves. Then he added that you, Castor Jenkins, had done the moon an injustice and would pay dearly one way or another!”
Castor was disappointed. “Was that all?”
The barman nodded. “I’m afraid so. What can I get you?”
“Beer. One pint of,” said Castor.
“Aren’t you going to buy a round for your friends?”
“Good point,” admitted Castor, “but they haven’t finished their old drinks yet. They left them on the table, where I note they still are. I abhor waste. They should finish those before they get new ones.”
“I’m surprisingly in agreement with you,” said the barman.
“Drink up!” cried Castor as he returned to the table. Paddy and Harris sipped their stale pints with expressions of disgust. While they did so, Castor threw back his head and stared at the ceiling, as if he could peer through the plaster and tiles at the stars beyond. All the while he muttered to himself in vinegary awe, “We ate chips on another world!”
* * * *
That’s the story as he relates it, with all its essential details intact. The first time he told it to Paddy Deluxe and Frothing Harris they regarded him with disappointment and disapproval and said:
“You’ve told us a great number of tall tales, but you’ve always been careful to ensure we can’t disprove them, leaving open the question of whether you are a dreadful liar or just possibly telling the truth; but on this occasion you’ve made a simple and drastic error. You included us in the story! But we know for a fact that we never went to Gemini with you.”
“Of course you went there,” chuckled Castor.
“No we didn’t. We would remember such an amazing thing.”
Castor shook his head. “I’m sorry to break the news to you this way, but the madman who loved the moon did take his revenge when he returned to the pub. He spiked your beers with Forgetfulness Honey. That’s why you don’t remember. I guess he wanted to steal away our memories as punishment, hoping to deprive us of some wonderful past experiences. A clever and devious trick! I was lucky, I had already drained my pint and so ordered a fresh one on my return. You should never have drunk those stale beers.”
“How can you be sure Forgetfulness Honey was in our drinks?”
“I’m a minor expert on bees and their products. Didn’t I treat you to a lecture on apiology, among other topics, just before our voyage? Stale beer is a vile substance anyway. In future you must always buy fresh pints. Why not practice now and get one for me at the same time?”
6 Taffia = Welsh Mafia.
The Cream-Jest of Unset Custard
Three times Castor Jenkins dreamed of the marvellous trifle, and three times was it snatched away while still he paused with raised spoon above it. All delectable and wobbly it was, with layers of sponge soaked in brandy and thick whipped cream, to say nothing of the yellow custard, not quite set, like the sweat of the primordial sun that once oozed over swamps wherein things that ought to crawl were learning to walk, badly. And so, unhindered by this overblown prose and the prosaic concerns of everyday, he decided to seek the trifle in his waking life and taste it on his fleshy tongue, no matter what the consequences might be.
But where to look, and who to ask for directions if he got lost, were puzzles of no easy solution, and the enormity of the quest threatened to overwhelm him and cast him into a stupor, in much the same manner that greyish clouds overwhelm the caravan parks and holiday chalets along the Cambrian coast. But let us talk not of weather and turn instead to the questions of whether and whither – whether mortal man has any right to seek an object glimpsed only in his night visions, and whither such a searcher should go to obtain life insurance at a reasonable rate, for it is no trifle to hunt and devour a dream trifle.
The obvious place to negotiate for directions, insurance and advice was the dark enchanted wood that stood between Porthcawl and the village of Nottage. Smaller than in days of yore, it nonetheless remained the sylvan abode of zoogs, gnoles and other intertextual beings as cruel and brutal as any surprise ending needed them to be. Castor pulled on his hiking boots and selected a stout staff. But he paused at his front door as a better idea struck him, and he realised there was no need to disturb the unpredictable zoogs and gnoles among the whispering leaves and twisting roots of the wood that never will have a name.
Instead he turned to the resource that all modern seekers after secrets, both good and bad, consult as their primary oracle, namely the unfathomable Internet on the glowing mystic monitor. In his bedroom on a desk stood his ebon computer and for many hours Castor sat in his hiking boots with curved spine before the glowing screen, clicking and scrolling and tapping keys like some insectoid supplicant of a half-remembered formic creed. His investigations were thorough and astute but at first yielded no intelligible result, and not even the most blasphemous pages that mutate in the darkest gibbering corners of Wikipedia could aid him in his quest, but at last he found what he wanted on Facebook, a few moments after the dread stroke of midnight chimed dismal.
He learned – and long would the foul knowledge blight the nethermosts of his sanity – that the most evil man in Porthcawl was a certain Mr Hugo Bloat, and furthermore that this depraved individual held the dream trifle in his possession and planned to broach it before dawn. Despite the convoluted syntax in which he was trapped, Castor wasted no time in visionary speculation, but changed his boots for sensible shoes, and his staff for a simple cane, and hurried out into the sombre crepuscularity of the moon-saturated town.
The streets were deserted, slick with freshly fallen rain, and the pounding of the distant surf was a rumble of chthonic and goetic hunger in his conchophobic ears, while the few remaining clouds – those black argosies of moisture – in the inverted abyss of the sky were like ludicrous and tessellated but highly mobile similes that awfully flee an overwrought sentence beyond the restraint horizon. Yes they were. Anyway, with a shake of his head (and a shrugging of the parentheses) he lurched down the abandoned ways in the direction of that residence he had never dared to pass, even when emboldened by beer.
For it has been rightly remarked7 that in the tallest and thinnest houses dwell the grimmest and sickest souls, and long had it been whispered among the gloomy fishermen down by the misty harbour that the narrow high gabled abode of Hugo Bloat was a place to be avoided at all times. Old Gutsy Conker swore he saw a face in the highest window once that was the exact shape of a set of wind chimes, a face that moved in a horribly sensual manner like the hips of an arcane dancing priestess and tinkled as it did so. And because Old Gutsy was known never to lie, unless paid specifically for that purpose, no person had dared walk that way since. His elbows smelled of fish but not his hands. A bit odd, that.
Castor was no fool and h
ad taken precautions before setting forth into the loneliness of this unnaturally quiet paragraph. From a chest bound with iron hoops in a corner of his bedroom had he retrieved a fetish thing found by him long ago when he sailed the seas with the pirate Captain Ribs. Once on a mysterious island in the heart of a lost overgrown city, while fighting off a tribe of intelligent and sinister monkeys equipped with blowpipes, he plunged through a hidden trapdoor into a secret catacomb, and here had he discovered, by the light of a flaring flambeau, the mummified priest-king of an unknown antediluvian civilisation. Robed was the mummy in garments that powered to dust at the merest breath or touch, and also adorned with a mask of onyx and gold and materials unknown even to pseudoscience.
So scary was this mask that Castor never shaved himself while wearing it nor did anything else that might require him to gaze into a mirror. But now he fitted it over his face and relished the confidence it gave him. Under the house of his friend Frothing Harris went he, and also near the house of his other friend, Paddy Deluxe, and both gentlemen stumbled out of bed and looked down as he stalked past, roused by some morphogenic twaddle resonance and goaded into attitudes of gaping ghastliness until the masked figure was gone, and then they went back to bed but could not sleep a wink, for they were simple horror story background characters and took everything too seriously.
As for Castor, his heart beating a rhythm scarcely heard since the ancient jungle gods danced to the drums of their reptilian followers when the archaeopteryx filled the sulphurous skies with croaks, he reached the gate of Hugo Bloat’s thin mansion and walked up the path with quivering knees. At the black door he rapped the knocker, a knocker shaped like a hideous toad swollen from a diet of poisonous ants, a toad from the same jungle as the drums mentioned in the previous sentence, and stood back and waited with the sweats of dread pouring in oily and almost sentient streams down his face behind the mask. Itchy nose! Involuntarily he glanced up and his heart figuratively turned to basalt, the most inhuman and demonic of all igneous rocks, as he perceived nothing less than a set of wind chimes that resembled a human face! Hideous, hideous, oh!
His first instinct was to turn and flee, but it was too late, as a bolt slid back and the door swung open and the pale visage of Hugo Bloat, most evil man in Porthcawl – has that been mentioned already? – loomed out of the musty shadows, and thin lips curled back over milky but pointy teeth, and anaemic gums shone unhealthily, and filmy pale blue eyes sparkled not with ordinary human glints, and a thin hand protruding from a voluminous sleeve stretched forth and beckoned Castor to cross the threshold and the candle that Mr Bloat held aloft in his other hand spilled hot wax like the ichor of a ghoul over the curiously stained floor, and then the voice issued forth like the rustling of desiccated worms in a sieve:
“Come in, come in, old boy! You’re the last to arrive. The party’s about to start. There’s lots of grub and drink!”
Into the hall went Castor, following the wavering light of the sickening wick, and Hugo Bloat kept up a constant dismal chatter as he led his guest to a flight of stairs that went down, not up, into a vast cellar far below the sane ground, and together they lurched down the steps, deeper and deeper into a hellish region of metamorphic devils and vintage clarets, finally emerging in a large room that contained a table around which sat men and women who wore masks of different kinds, all hideous. And then with a shock that almost caused him to implode, in some bizarre biological incident, Castor realised that not all the guests wore masks. Some of them really had faces like that. Cripes! Before he could die of fright, Hugo Bloat addressed the gathering, and Castor was forced to nod and smile.
“Our last guest is here!” cried Mr Bloat, “and I must admit that I’m pleased, because when I sent out the telepathic invitations I wasn’t sure everyone got one on time. You know how these things are. Anyway, without further ado, let’s celebrate Cthulhu’s birthday!”
“C-c-c-c-c-cthulhu?” stammered Castor.
“Yes, the great priest of the Great Old Ones, the green sticky spawn of the stars, the awful squid-head with writhing feelers, the rubbery amalgam of octopus and dragon, the thing that cannot be described (even though I just did), mighty Cthulhu himself! And today is his birthday! And we’re going to have a party, with games and food!”
Castor asked timidly, “Will there be trifle?”
“Absolutely. The greatest trifle ever created, for Cthulhu is one billion years old today! Now please take a seat.”
Castor did so, feeling he was locked inside a fever dream in the same way that the end of a snapped key is locked inside a lock. A bit like that anyway. He sat at the last remaining spare place at the table, at the opposite end from Cthulhu himself, or itself, if we’re going to be pedantic, which we are, well I am at least, you can be whatever you like. The lights were dim and all Castor could see was a scaly, winged, flabbily clawed, amorphous, bubbling, grotesque, slimy, evil and very very very very very dubious metaphor for sexual repression. He scanned the table and noticed his dream trifle standing in the shadows. Yum! He licked his lips.
A cake was brought for Cthulhu but it didn’t have a billion candles on it, for Hugo Bloat explained aloud that such a number would be excessive as well as impossible. No, it had one hundred candles instead, each flame representing ten million years, and the guests encouraged the monster to blow them all out in one go. Cthulhu managed to blow out ninety-three with his first wheezingly liquidy rasp and had to take a second puff to deal with the remaining seven. Then the singing began, a chanting as vile and arcane as Castor had ever heard in his most toxic nightmares. And yet he was forced to join in for the sake of good manners.
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday to you!
Happy birthday, dear Cthulhu!
Happy birthday to you!
Three cheers! Hip, hip, hurrah!
Hip, hip, hurrah! Hip, hip, hurraaaay’ai’ng’ngah h’lee-l’geb f’ai trhodog uaaaaah aaaaaiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
For he’s a jelly gross fellow,
for he’s a jelly gross fellow,
for he’s a jelly gross fellow,
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!
There was a wild round of applause and then the guests began tucking in to the meal. The trifle was broached, bowls of the stuff were passed around and Castor tasted the most cosmic flavours imaginable. He asked for seconds and was granted his heart’s desire. Pays to be assertive! Finally satisfied, he was able to take time to inspect the gathering more closely. It seemed to be composed of monsters and humans in roughly equal measure. Apart from Cthulhu, the monsters included Azathoth, Nyarlathotep Yog-Sothoth, Ithaqua, Aphoom-Zhar, Dagon, Zoth-Ommog, Tsathoggua, Yig, Shub-Niggurath, Derleth, Ghatanothoa, and Hastur the Unspeakable, about whom there is not a lot to say.
After the meal there were games. Castor took part in ‘blobbing apples’, ‘musical scares’ and a weird hybrid of mysticism and funkiness called ‘pinning the grail on the honky’. More games were about to follow, Castor was ready for them, and so were all the guests, when suddenly another figure entered the room from a trapdoor under the table. Plates and uneaten jelly flew everywhere. The table toppled over and smashed into pieces. This new arrival was Nagoob, the androgynous mother of Cthulhu. Nagoob grimaced and shook a tentacle-finger and said, “It’s getting late. You’ve had your fun. Time for bed!”
Cthulhu kicked up a fuss but in vain. Off he went with Nagoob, dragged by the lobe of one his ears, and the other monsters drifted away one by one, making various excuses. Without the birthday abomination present, the party quickly deflated. The human guests stood aimlessly and some of them departed too. Castor thought about leaving but he went up the wrong flight of steps and emerged in a room with a cool sound system. A beautiful girl from Macedonia by the name of Brankica Bozinovska was also there. They selected some great music and danced until morning, like adults, like people without psychological problems.
7 Just now.
The Day the T
own of Porthcawl was Accidentally Twinned with the Capital of the Cheese and Biscuits Empire
When Castor Jenkins wanted to give up smoking, he realised that the further he had to walk to obtain cigarettes the less often he would buy them. Shortly after this revelation he required a fresh packet, so he left his house and proceeded down the street, but instead of pausing at the corner shop he kept going. He also passed the supermarket and several newsagents. Soon the town was behind him and he was in open country with night drawing on.
It was creepy, very creepy. Owls hooted in the trees. Ghosts mounted on bony stallions jousted with skeletons mounted on spectral mares. Stuff like that. Castor kept walking under the enormous moon without altering his stride until one of the moonbeams slapped him in the face and it became apparent that the yellow globe above was actually a balloon with a rope ladder dangling from it. On impulse he climbed up into the wicker basket.
There were no other occupants: the balloon was adrift on the aerial currents and heading east. Castor gripped the side of the basket and peered down at the gloomy landscape. On the very tops of the trees, where they thought they couldn’t be seen, the owls played backgammon. The hooting was just an act. Feeling he would never trust an owl again, he settled back to enjoy the ride. Far below, stunted hills rushed past like grounded clouds on castors.
Fatigued by that strained simile, he slept soundly and when he awoke he was over a choppy sea with the end of the rope ladder trailing through the tops of the waves. He looked down and saw a triton, a male mermaid, with a trident slung over its back, climbing the hemp rungs with intentions that were obviously not friendly. Castor cut the ladder with his penknife and the triton plunged back into the deeps from whence it came.