Nowhere Near Milkwood

by Rhys Hughes

  I left them to it and paced my office nervously, keeping one eye on the hourglass that dangled from the ceiling on a cord of braided hair and the other eye on Lola Halogen's impressive cleavage. If I did not complete my task within the time allotted to me by the President, I would be demoted and placed in stocks in the market square of the miniature village he had built out of spent matchsticks in one corner of his overgrown roof-garden. This was a prospect I did not relish. The President is a fair shot with the ugli-fruit crossbow.

  To ease my mounting agitation, I determined to pay the matter no further heed and resolutely avoided contacting either of the Professors to check on the progress of their respective schemes. Thus the first I knew of the success of both was that morning before the President's deadline when I awoke to find myself lying in the centre of one of the walls of my bedroom with various knick-knacks and tasteful objets d'art lying in great profusion all around me. In short the wall had become the floor and the floor had become the wall.

  I will skip over the ensuing chaos that reigned a full month after this peculiar discovery — the details are both too painful and too wearisome to recount. Suffice it to say that the natural order of things all over the world had altered. It seems that Professor Warp and his rival, Professor Woof, had both completed their gravity machines and had switched them on simultaneously. A strange thing had happened. Instead of cancelling each other out, as might have been expected, the combined manipulations of natural gravity had produced a force that exerted itself sideways. Anything that had been caught out in the open at the time had instantly plummeted laterally, parallel to the ground.

  It was a laborious process adjusting society to this new state of affairs. For some reason — which was never adequately explained — the Professors insisted that it was impossible to turn their machines off. So we were stuck with a world in which a trip to the corner shop required scaling a vertical face by way of finger-holds and toeholds that had once existed as mere cracks in the pavement. The solution, of course, was to carve steps into this endless precipice we now all existed on. But everyday life was still an exhausting process, all ups and downs. A bit like life before the change, I suppose.

  Visiting the President was the most hazardous venture of all. He had chosen to build his latest tower on the very tip of an exceedingly straight and narrow peninsula that jutted far out into the Coughing Sea. To scale this peninsula required the cutting of exactly thirty-nine million steps, and the erection of a bannister longer than any that had existed since the Supreme Roger accidentally fell into a machine which forced rusty trams through a pinhole to make wire for tightrope walkers. I would guess that this bannister was even longer than that.

  It required astonishing stamina to ascend these thirty-nine million steps — though it was great fun sliding down the bannister on the way back. What made the journey even more dangerous was the fact that all manner of objects were flying around through the air; pedestrians, ships, apples. All the things that had not been indoors or tied down when the great change had taken place. Such objects fell endlessly around the world, circling the planet on average twice a day.

  Surprisingly, it was not Dr Celery who formulated the clever plan to save us from the menace of lateral gravity. It was myself — and Lola Halogen, of course — after a lengthy erotic session with a bottle of henna and a mouldy Cheddar. The two gravity machines were located in the catacombs of the University. Perhaps their proximity to each other was producing the bizarre effect. Possibly the removal of one of them from its inverted twin would nullify the anomaly. It suddenly occurred to me that, using the President's new tower as a pulley, we could hoist one of the mechanisms up to his end of the peninsula, leaving the other behind. There were arguments between the Professors after I announced my scheme to them. Neither of them wanted their machine to be the one that was moved. I settled the dispute by tossing a coin.

  It was a one-sided coin — though never let it be said that I am unfair — and when professor Woof chose Heads, Professor Warp had no choice but to choose Sides, which was an unlikely prospect from the outset. And so it was Professor Warp's device, the one that lessened gravity by a factor of ten that was attached to the rope and yanked away from Academia and towards political turpitude. The fact that this machine was also considerably lighter than Professor Woof's may also have been a contributing factor in our very real delight that Professor Warp had chosen Sides.

  Imagine, if you will, the scene of the great haul; the strange many-faceted gravity machine of one of our greatest scientists being pulled up the monstrous staircase by the members of the Police Department (how Satsuma Ffroyde grumbled!) with steady jerks and a sea-shanty. It bounced on each step and threatened to shatter into a billion fragments. Luckily, it did not. I had earlier scaled the thirty-nine million steps up to the edge of the peninsula with the length of rope between my teeth and had looped it over the President's tower. As the machine rose steadily higher, a peculiar thing began to happen. The force of the sideways gravity slowly began to decrease.

  We now know that the simultaneous switching-on of two such radically different devices in such close proximity to each other had set up a Magnetic Latitude Effect, whereby gravity had started to tug in a direction diametrically opposite that of the planet's spin. As we forced the machines apart from each other, the vortex set up by them broke down and they began to operate as originally envisaged. Thus, at the University, lecturers and research students were flattened into the second-dimension. As Professor Woof's machine neared the end of the peninsula, the effect grew steadily more dramatic. Eventually, when the device had actually reached the President's tower, something truly unexpected and bizarre happened.

  I have mentioned that the President's tower stood at the end of the absurdly straight and narrow finger of land. I have perhaps neglected to add that the University lay at the other end. Thus the two gravity machines, both struggling to bend the laws of physics in different directions, were soon operating at maximum potential. The thirty-nine million steps carved into the peninsula comprised the longest continuous staircase that had been constructed during the crisis (which is why it had been chosen for the separation experiment.) Unfortunately, the peninsula was geologically very weak and it snapped off — the University end staying firmly attached to Earth, while the President's end flew up and crashed against the moon (now much closer than it had been in ages past.) Thus we were left with a ladder to Luna.

  It is pleasant up here. We do not worry about having enough air to breathe — an ample supply followed us up. We can commute back and forth whenever we choose. I prefer to stay here for two reasons: it is generally quieter and there is an almost ceaseless supply of cheese. The President has built a new tower on the dark side. One day I may be invited there to tea and cribbage. The most lasting effect — as I have already hinted at — is that our natural body rhythms have altered. They now rely on the phases of the Earth. When she is full, I throw back my head and howl. When she is new, I sleep with a silver coin under my pillow and dream of merciless elks with eyes wide as craters.

  The Impossible Mirror

  I am a reflective man. I never used to be, it's a condition that came over me recently — like a dizzy spell. Sitting on a piece of driftwood in the centre of a bubble snorted from a nostril of Neptune, I have little to do but gaze at the concave walls of my prison and recollect the circumstances which led me here. It's a deep ocean and I have a long way to go before I break its surface and burst into freedom.

  To pass the minutes of the ascent — not mine, which are barbed and can only be passed with difficulty, but yours (which happily are at least greased) — I sometimes chant aloud my story. Few fish have heard of my name or exploits. I have done a small number of remarkable things. I am Titian Grundy, Prefect of Police, catcher of miscreants blue-handed. (In other dimensions, the colour of crime may well be crimson. I do not intend commenting on these alternative cultures. In our society, the hue is indigo and the cry is salty).

 
; It all began two years ago. I had just arrested the full moon for the crime of pouring honey on troubled seas (outlawed since my beekeeper wife ran off to join the Elk Liberation Army) when I was summoned by my old friend, the President. He had cut himself shaving that morning; his reflection had skipped out of the frame of the mirror. He wanted me to do something about it. "Jump into the mirror and apprehend the delinquent image," he cried. I told him that mirror-worlds were beyond my jurisdiction. He wrapped his fingers in my hair and tried to force my head into the silvered circle. My brow cracked the glass.

  Finally, he conceded the futility of the operation. Because he has my prejudices, my toasted brutality, I did not complain. Indeed, I promised to launch an immediate investigation and offer a reward for the return of his image. He pulled his long nose and nodded, while I mounted my chariot and made my way back to the Police Station. The tortoises strained in their harnesses; before the sun had set in the Glib Ocean, I was sitting at my desk, lecturing my colleagues about the strange occurrence.

  Amazingly, all had suffered similar experiences. In some cases, reflections had thumbed noses at their owners and made other rude gestures. "Why did no-one mention this to me?" I demanded. My colleagues shuffled their feet and admitted they had been scared of looking foolish. After all, if a man cannot control his own reflection, how can he stake a claim to his fate? There was no answer to this. So I wondered why I had been spared such an affront during shaving. Then I remembered: I have a beard.

  I called for a mirror and angled it under my jaw. To my utter consternation, it showed a blank. "What is the meaning of this?" I roared, in my liquorice voice, black and very sweet. But, of course, there was no meaning; for logic had fled along with the reflection, doubtless mounted on its shoulders. I called for a cup of blue-green tea and, having received a particularly fine blend, dipped my nose towards its seductive wavelets. Yet even in these turquoise shallows, my handsome visage was not available. I was aghast.

  I ordered a thorough search of the entire building. "Seal all the doors and windows! Make sure the reflections can't escape." I raised the cup to my lips and the entire beverage cascaded down my chin. Surprising how much we rely on an illusory kiss, the meeting of mirrored lips and real, to guide rim to palate! Nonetheless, dripping tea and authority, I stirred my orders and sugared them. My colleagues bounded into action: it did not occur to us that the capturing of images so ephemeral requires handcuffs made of uncle-of-pearl.

  While they searched, I sketched portraits of myself in the excessive margins of official reports and fixed them over the redundant mirrors. They were a poor substitute, but the alternative was hollowness, a dented identity. As I wielded pen and scissors (assisted by Lola Halogen, my glowing secretary) my most competent colleague — Dr Celery, the Police Surgeon Specific — returned with a heavy book cradled in his arms. I drummed the desk with my fingers. "The reflections are in there?" I inquired. "Well that makes sense. Traitors always turn to literature to justify their perniciousness." I was about to launch into a tirade further condemning the aberrant reflections, and drawing comparisons between various criminal activities and an appreciation of the arts, but Dr Celery stalled me with a shake of his tubular head.

  He told me he had searched the archives in vain — the reflections were elsewhere. But while flicking through the musty collection of prohibited volumes in the darkest reaches of the basement, he'd chanced upon an interesting explanation for our dire circumstances. I urged him to share this insight and he dropped the tome before me, splitting it open like a giant clam and thrusting a wrinkled finger into its yellowing depths. I peered through the cloud of dust at the indicated passage and read aloud:

  "In those days the world of mirrors and the world of men were not, as they are now, cut off from each other. They were, besides, quite different; neither beings nor colours nor shapes were the same. Both republics, the specular and the human, lived in harmony... One night the mirror people invaded the earth. Their power was great, but at the end of bloody warfare the magic arts of the Yellow President prevailed. He repulsed the invaders, imprisoned them in their mirrors, and forced on them the task of repeating, as though in a kind of dream, all the actions of men. He stripped them of their power and of their forms and reduced them to mere slavish reflections. Nonetheless, a day will come when the magic spell will be shaken off..."

  I fell back in my chair and gnawed my knuckles. It was obvious that this ancient chronicle (for such it was) spoke truth. The Yellow President had existed over ten millennia ago, the sunniest ruler of the Spectrum Dynasty. The ordained time, when mirrors would once more become disobedient, was upon us. This was a calamity of ludicrous dimensions. I appealed for advice. Should I rampage through the cities of the world, smashing each and every mirror with a toffee-hammer? Should I order the immediate cloaking of all reflecting telescopes? Should I proclaim against ice?

  Before I could receive an answer from either Dr Celery or Lola Halogen, the telephone rang and I found myself listening to our own President. He was no longer my friend, he claimed, and wanted me to return his chrome watering-can. I asked the reason for this enmity. He bawled that my reflection had appeared in his mirror in lieu of his own, but dressed in his clothes. I was thus an outlaw of the lowest order: a linen thief. Before I could stammer an apology, he rang off.

  Dr Celery nodded sagely and dried my tears with one of his flapping cuffs. "It seems," said he, "that the reflections are already tired of rebellion and wish to return to their owners. But they've lost their way and can't remember which mirrors they belong to." And to emphasise his words, he picked up the looking-glass I'd called for and gestured at it. I found myself meeting the gaze of someone unknown to me, dressed in the uniform of a Prefect of Police. At once I was in a froth, roaring at him: "Impostor! Usurper! You'll get solitary confinement for this deception!" Heedless of Dr Celery's protestations, I instructed Lola Halogen to lock the mirror into a filing-cabinet and swallow the key. (Her mouth was too dainty for such a morsel, so I completed the task).

  "But where is the President's reflection?" I demanded. "How can he comb his hair or pick his nose by gazing at me? I'm competent at neither operation. He'll grow annoyed and I'll be demoted again." I was frantic with worry. Dr Celery told me not to fret — we were, he insisted, all in the same bathysphere. There was probably no logical order to the jumbling of mirror-images. The President's reflection might be an unimaginable distance away, in any kind of mirror — suspended on a wardrobe door perhaps, in the boudoir of a widow, beyond the Pallid Colonnades; or gleaming in the burnished copper disc of an Amberzarian Potentate; or else, on one of the countless Aracknid islands, burning blackly in the smoky obsidian altar of some Sideways Priest, polished to virtue by his singular sleeve.

  With Dr Celery's encouragement, I began to consider these, and other, types of reflecting surface as possible hosts for an endless procession of unknown faces. But what of warped mirrors? Would they distort the psychology of their unwitting guests? After all, an image that expects to appear in a harmless medium, such as the base of a saucepan, might be mentally injured by swelling instead in the convexity of a wok. The Police Surgeon Specific advised me not to dwell on arcane details. It was more important to think of some way to reverse the situation (pun charged, clubbed over the head and refused bail).

  The lost reflections, it seemed, would never be able to find their way home without help. There were literally millions of mirrors scattered across the silvery globe. How would an image know which was the right one without entering each in turn? By the time the problem sorted itself out on its own, the original owners of the reflections would be dead and future citizens would have to endure, on their walls and in their bathrooms, an interminable frolic of tenacious ghosts. Naturally they would refuse to put up with this and, in protest, neglect to pay their taxes. Our comfortable regime would rot at the seams, the springs of the judiciary no longer able to support the cushion of the executive.

  But what was the best way of re
uniting populace and reflections? Although I credit most of my best ideas to Dr Celery, it is Lola Halogen who is the intellectual heavyweight of my Department. She suggested we collect every mirror in existence and fuse them into one single gargantuan specimen. The images would be able to mingle freely and arrange themselves in alphabetical order; the real citizens could then be called upon, one at a time, to claim back their prodigal twins in a glittering identity-parade.

  There was one problem. Such a mirror would shatter under its own weight. At this juncture, Lola widened her eyes in disappointment. As I started to drown in her cobalt gaze, I grasped a straw of inspiration and hauled myself, spluttering, onto the shores of wisdom. "The ocean!" I cried. In response to Dr Celery's puzzled frown — the man is a veritable allotment of expressions — I merely trawled through the synonyms, wriggling my fingers like the tentacles of a squid. "The briny deeps, the damp abyss, the watery locale! The snowy heights!" (I must apologise here; somehow an antonym has slithered in).

  I stood up and pirouetted on my toes. I elaborated on my sodden utterances. The ocean is the greatest mirror in existence. Instead of trying to join together a multitude of looking-glasses, we simply had to cast them back into the melting-pot of all reflections. Then the lost images would be able to float out of their geometric prisons and beach themselves at the very feet of their concerned owners. Enthused with my vision, my secretary and the Police Surgeon Specific joined me in a swift tango.

  The following weeks were spent in a wash of activity. With the President's grumpy blessing — he refused to entertain me, but not to collaborate — the laws regarding bounced photons were changed. Any item that did not absorb light, but cast it back whole, was deemed illegal, possession of which became punishable by death. Immediately after this legal reform, an amnesty was issued: the owners of these items would be able to dispose of them, no questions asked, in the official dumping site, namely the Sea.