by Hughes, Rhys
They spent many secret nights arranging their elopement. Finally, on a predetermined hour, he came for her and they slipped away, hand in hand. They raced through the deserted streets of the village, laughing silently, her worm-gnawed feet clattering on the cobbles like the hooves of the devil himself. The man felt delirious with joy, as if he had just imbibed large quantities of black wine. Once beyond the village, he paused to kiss his prospective bride and found that her decaying lips tasted of sweet nepenthe. Everything seemed perfect. They would escape to some distant land, they would swim among the wrecks and coral reefs of an exotic shoreline and lurk among dank forests where voodoo drums pounded a hole in sanity. They would consummate their unholy marriage and conceive an eldritch child. It would be a phantom pregnancy.
These were the thoughts entertained by the man when he suddenly realised he had forgotten his pet raven. A true romantic never goes anywhere without a pet raven. So, stroking his true love’s matted hair, he left her alone on one of the fields behind Iolo Machen’s farmhouse and hastened back to his garret to fetch it. However, when he returned, she was nowhere to be seen. But Iolo’s sheepdog was standing in her place, wagging his tail and extracting the vestiges of marrow from a splintered thighbone. Needless to say, the young man was inconsolable. He vowed that he would never love again. But despair had a perverse effect on him. As well as wandering cemeteries of an evening, he also began to saunter down to the local pub. This might have been perceived as bad form for a romantic, whose purpose in life is to seek out the phantasmagoric. But what better place to dabble with frightful spirits?
This then was the theme and development of my major poem. I had seen the manuscript of this masterpiece bounced around more publishing houses than there were eyelids in Emyr’s meat-pies. I had also been more than a little confused by the reaction of editors to the work. They generally replied that my poem stretched credulity and suggested that in future I should only ever write from personal experience. But that is precisely what I had been doing.
Anyway, unpublished or not, I was still the closest equivalent to a Bard that existed in Lladloh. And now the stranger had satisfied himself that I was indeed the one he sought. “Well,” he hissed, as he regarded my trembling frame, “I think that there is little need for modesty here. Come now, my fellow, why not admit your profession? You will not regret it, I assure you. As I said earlier, there is only a little pain. Just a few incisions and a little blow with an iron hammer and all will be over! You’ll probably be on your feet again within a couple of days, if nothing goes wrong.”
I stammered and sweat poured from my brow. “There must be some mistake sir!” I gasped. “I am not a poet. Oh no indeed! I can’t even read the stuff, let alone write it! Besides, poets all have curly hair. How can I possibly be a poet with hair like this?” And with a desperate look, I appealed to all those gathered to confirm the truth of my words. But they merely continued to frown ambiguously.
The stranger was now so close to me that I could smell his fetid breath and see the phosphorescent veins that glowed faintly under his skin. He jabbed a finger at my chest and icy chills ran along my breastbone. “Good poets have curly hair,” he pointed out, “as you say. But bad poets have hair that... dangles.” He raised his hand and brushed my greasy fringe. Another fit of trembling seized my body. I shivered and dropped my glass, which shattered into a thousand sharp fragments at my feet. “Look!” the stranger cried and pulled open his coat. All along the inside, held in place by black ribbons, strange steel instruments glittered. He toyed with a selection of hooks and miniature saws and then drew out a twisted scalpel. “Ten egos I have collected this season. Ten hideous egos in ten grim bottles! You shall be the eleventh. Do not fret! The operation takes little more than a couple of hours.”
I lost all control of my legs and collapsed to the floor among the rivulets of spilt beer. I clasped hold of his bony knees and closed my eyes. It is said that when a man loses his life, he sees the whole of his past rush before him. I wondered if this also happened when a man lost his ego. I sincerely hoped that it did not. I had no desire to relive all my mistakes, all my dashed dreams. The shock alone would probably finish me off.
It was Emyr who saved me. With haughty contempt, he growled at the stranger: “What is all this nonsense? Do you mistake this man for the local poet? Any fool can see that this is not he. I am insulted by your insinuation that I would let a poet drink in my establishment! What sort of place do you think this is? This is not Swansea! Do you believe that we have no pride? Of course this man is not the local poet. You’ll find the local poet where any genuine rhymester would choose to spend his time. Down by the river, under the old stone bridge. His name is Toby.”
The stranger curled his mouth in a sneer and angled his head to one side. Suddenly, he pulled away and departed with a nod at Emyr. “If he refuses to pay me, I shall be back to claim my fee,” he said. Emyr proceeded to wash and wipe the stranger’s glass. “Don’t worry about that,” he remarked. “Toby is a very generous soul. You won’t be back.” We watched through the open door as the stranger mounted his ancient motor-cycle and started the engine, roaring away in a cloud of oily smoke. Clambering back to my feet, I made for the bar and ordered another beer. Unusually, Emyr insisted I have one on the house.
We never saw the stranger again. We found his broken motorcycle lying in the centre of the road that leads over the bridge. And we also found the box that had held the blue-glass bottles. Only one of these bottles was intact and I brought it back and set it up behind the bar. What happened to the contents of the other nine can only be guessed at. However, poetry has started to appear on the walls of the bridge, awful poetry, written in what appears to be dried blood. It is said that this blood glows faintly at night. It is also said that Toby has recently taken to wearing a tall hat and picking his teeth clean of travellers with a curiously twisted toothpick.
Even more disturbing than this is the fact that someone has been taking sly drinks from the bottle behind the bar. I suspect that it is Emyr. It seems I will soon have a rival. This is the last thing I need at my stage in life. Had I submitted to the operation, my own ego might now be the one that is being consumed and I wouldn’t have to worry about competition. I sometimes stare out of the grimy windows of my garret, hoping that the stranger, or one like him, will return. It is a forlorn hope. More often, I take myself out to my favourite cemetery and lay myself down in that opened grave which I refuse to see refilled. Ah Gwyneth! She alone understood my essential nature. How I yearn for her puffed face close to mine, her wormy embrace! There is another poem somewhere in this, I am sure. Who knows? If I persist, I may yet attain the status of creative genius.
The West Pole
The West Pole was traditionally discovered by Caradoc Weasel, an explorer who did nothing with it. For many centuries, its existence was merely a rumour. After it was found, the other theoretical Poles were accepted as real. In due course, they were also reached and researched. Of the six Poles, the West remains the most magical. Nobody can say why. The North and South are too functional to inspire the same feelings of awe. They occupy the two ends of the axis upon which the planet spins. The East, Front and Back Poles have no such role, though no geographer dares consider them superfluous. But they do not command the respect which is offered to the West Pole. Possibly this is because the human race never truly appreciates what it has until it is gone.
The longitude of the West Pole is 90ºW. Naturally it lies directly on the equator. It ought to have been easy to locate, for it stands exactly where it should, at the sunset’s point of absolute rest. But the diameter of the Pole is only that of the thickness of any line of latitude, and it is sunk into the sea, and sailors are often drunk. It persisted as a myth for long ages. But once it was found, it became obvious, and then the mystery was how it had eluded detection before. That is usually what happens with new things. Now storms always seemed to be blowing ships onto it and it was marked on every chart as a hazard. Without
changing their routes at all, many vessels were wrecked there, and the act of its discovery was generally held responsible.
In time, its reputation mellowed, because ships grew harder and steel plate did not puncture so readily. Then the storms were no longer so frequent. Sailors began to steer for it deliberately. As a meeting place, it was ideal. The Galapagos lay a little to the west, yet the Pole had none of the disadvantages of conducting business on land. There were no brothels to start fights in. Before long, a thriving market came into being around the actual Pole. Ships would tether themselves to it with ropes. Then goods would be traded from deck to deck. Sometimes crews would just chat or sing together. The neutrality of the Pole was respected. Even the fleets of nations at war would refuse to engage in combat in the vicinity of that foolish but astounding length of wood.
For such was the material from which it had been created. The same was true of the other three inessential Poles. Whether they had grown there naturally, or were carved and planted by an unknown and forgotten intelligence, is an unanswerable question. The fact they were striped with red and white bands is cited as evidence for an artificial origin. But the world is strange and too many conclusions about its secrets are apt to be wrong. Even the objection that wood does not grow under water is a prejudice rather than a certain truth. It is wiser not to speculate. The East Pole at 90ºE in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Sumatra, and the Front at 0º in the armpit of Africa, and the Back at 180º near Kiribati, all on the equator of course, are identical to the one that was the West. Perhaps it will grow again.
When he was an old man, Caradoc Weasel decided to repay a visit to the site of his discovery. He also wished to purchase some fine wines, a plate painted with a picture of a winged cow and a replacement key for the front door of his house. He knew that the West Pole had become the biggest floating bazaar in the world. It was a place where almost anything, however unlikely, could be bought. He dug his life savings up from under the floorboards where he had been hiding them and set off on a ship. He was carried across the Atlantic Ocean and around Cape Horn, because this was a time before the Panama Canal was finished, and up along the Pacific coast of South America. When he reached the point of the Pole, he was astonished. There were no other ships in the area. The sea was empty all the way to the horizon.
True, he had not expected to see the actual Pole. Like its counterparts in the other oceans, the West Pole did not break the surface of the water. On a day without storms, when the sea was a smooth belly, the top of the Pole lay exactly level with the oceanic meniscus. It was neither higher nor lower than the surface by even so much as the breadth of a fish scale. Its flat top was part of the plane where liquid became air, a small but perfect circle at the intersection between ocean and atmosphere. This is why it had proved so difficult to discover. Only the hulls of ships knew, and they suffered for it. After it was established as a geographical feature, experienced eyes would look for the bent line of its shadow plunging into the depths and the infrequent glimmer of red and white.
Ships would tether themselves as close to the top of the Pole as possible. Other vessels that came along would moor themselves to these ships. The result was a web over which trade might scuttle to devour bad feeling and war. Securing the first rope to the Pole always required a swim. In time, the Pole appeared shorter and divers were needed for this operation. It was no longer as high as the sea was deep. Its summit was no longer level with the ocean’s surface. The general fear was that the Pole was shrinking, or was being drawn through a hole in the seabed by an unknown agency. Only later was the alternative hypothesis that the sea was rising given serious attention. Various ideas were suggested for why this might happen. Increased rainfall was dismissed as an explanation, because the rain came from the sea in the first place. Melting icecaps and the arrival of extra water in comets both seemed more reasonable.
The truth was less catastrophic. Each time a vessel put to sea, it displaced a certain amount of liquid, a quantity equal to the volume of its hull below the waterline. In the early years of the Pole’s existence, when there were no ships, it probably reared high above the surface of the sea, waiting for its first visitor. Pterodactyls might have used it for an occasional perch. Then ships were invented, but they hugged the coasts of lands far distant from the Pole. By the time they were able to cross the open ocean, there were so many of them and they were so large that the waves lapped around the top of the Pole. But at least it was still out of the water and could be glimpsed. Ancient mariners must have seen it and thus it became a rumour. When Caradoc Weasel discovered it for certain, its top was flush with the surface of the sea.
Now that explorer blinked, for the absence of other ships around the Pole was remarkable. His vessel steered close to the spot where it should have been, to secure a line, but nothing was there. The Pole had gone. The empty sea was now no more mysterious at that one point than at any other on its broad expanse. There was no reason why ships should not gather without the Pole, which really served no more than a symbolic function. But it appeared that the symbol was crucial. It was a reference point. Without it, the ocean offered nothing to tie knots on, save for dolphins and driftwood. But those were not stable. If trading ships gathered here without the Pole, they would be sure to look menacing, even if they acted in the same way as before.
An international search was started to locate the missing Pole. It might have been rotten inside and dissolved all at once, but everyone believed it had been stolen. There was no hard evidence for this, but it was the general feeling. The search was abandoned after a decade. Trade continued at the East, Front and Back Poles, but these locations never seemed as colourful as that of the West, even though the Poles were identical. Students were eventually blamed for the theft, though none were ever convicted. There is a college in a town somewhere whose students had chopped down the tallest tree in the world. They liked playing ambitious pranks. It was probably them. They denied it, of course, but their long fringes kept falling over their eyes, a most unlikely thing to happen in a town which has so many barbers, nearly every shop displaying a short length of striped pole.
The Inflatable Stadium
Captain Marlow Nothing made a big mistake when he fitted wheels to the hull of his ship. Nobody warned him what might happen because he always sailed alone. He wanted to roll his vessel onto beaches during storms to protect it from huge waves but the first time he attempted this procedure the anchor cable broke and he kept going. He had to keep his hands on the rudder wheel to steer his sloop between the dunes, so he wasn’t free to furl his sails. Soon he found himself speeding along a winding road and by the time the sun went down he was far inland.
The storm continued during the night and the lanterns dangling from the rails of his ship swung like drunken stars in rum bottles, casting a hopeless glow over the fields to starboard and port, fields of tall grass that rippled like waves so that it almost seemed to Captain Nothing he was still at sea, a sea that had grown hairs and needed a shave. Lost in these ripples like soft icebergs were worried sheep who bleated disapprovingly as he passed, but the Captain mostly kept his eyes on the road and did not pay them much attention, for he wanted to avoid an accident. His vessel wasn’t insured.
When dawn came the force of the wind began to abate, but the ship had built up such momentum that it would not stop for several hours after the air was calm. So far Captain Nothing had observed few signs of habitation and none of sentience, for he was in Wales, but now he entered a village of small black cottages named Cwmwysg and although the hour was early a few shops were already open. One of these shops was owned by a man called Dewi Gutstuff who was famous for selling the largest sausages in the locality. He was in the process of hanging his specimens from the awning over his window when the ship suddenly appeared and crashed right through his display.
It did not stop but continued to trundle onwards until it left the village on the far side but now the deck was strewn with sausages. Dewi ran after the vessel
but it quickly left him behind and he abandoned the chase. He had lost his masterpiece, a sausage fourteen feet long, and for years afterwards he complained bitterly about how pirates now operated on land as well as sea, insisting that the foodstuffs of every village were in danger of abduction and ravishment by misplaced buccaneers, but nobody believed him. Meanwhile Captain Nothing glutted himself on the smaller sausages, for he could not manage the really big one, and was surprised to discover they were filled with cheese and herbs rather than meat.
His vessel left the road on a particularly sharp bend and rattled over grassy hills, almost coming to a pause on each summit but then slipping over the crest and building up speed again. The hills grew smaller and rounder but it was after sunset before he finally stopped. He had rejoined the road and crossed a stone bridge and now found himself on the outskirts of another village. A large bonfire blocked his path but his wheels scattered the blazing logs into the damp grass. He ground to a halt, climbed down on a rope ladder and wandered the deserted streets. In the highest window of the tallest house a curtain twitched and he shivered inexplicably. Then he noticed a tavern without a name and he pushed open the door and stepped into a room full of strange fuss.
In many ways it was a normal tavern, with tables and chairs and a bar serving beer and whisky, but the people who drank there had an uncanny look about them and they were arguing with a man dressed in a series of elaborate waistcoats who wore a timepiece on a chain in each pocket. When the argument lulled the ticking was abominable. Captain Nothing strode to the bar and ordered a drink and now he was the centre of attention, all heads turning to survey him with narrow eyes that weren’t inscrutable, though he wished they were. He sipped his beer and nodded at the company but it was a long while before anyone spoke to him.