by Rhys Hughes
Thumbelina smiled indulgently. “Very good. So we are shipping magma to an unknown destination. Where’s the one place that might require such a substance, Neil? Who could want an unimaginable supply of molten rock? Take your time with the answer.”
“I really can’t decide, Thumbelina.”
“Having a few problems extrapolating your fantasy? That’s generally the way with dreamers. It’s no use retreating into alternative worlds if you won’t work out all the details. Even castles have kitchen sinks. How can I respect someone unable to plot his own escapism? Come on, that’s a poser with an obvious solution.”
Neil burst into tears, a welter which liberated his eyelid from its oubliette. “Mapping isn’t my job. You’re the navigator, I’m here to keep it all together, oversee the business.” He experienced a sudden surge of confidence. “And go down with my vessel if need be. I don’t know or care where we’re going. I have no idea what the magma is for, but I intend to make sure it gets delivered safely. It’s a stressful time for you, but I insist you master your emotions for the sake of a successful docking. It would be awful to run aground in the mouth of the harbour. I must try to work out who my radio-officer is, in case you desert us and we need help from the coastguard.” The distorting lens of his grief trickled away and he saw her anger. “I’m sorry…”
She was at his side in a single step, snatching the bowl out of his sweaty fingers and gesturing at the corridor. “Go to your room at once!” Meekly, he obeyed, head lowered.
Inside the broom cupboard he seethed; it was too early for bed. Her enquiry strummed his fretted curiosity like an uncut thumbnail. “Why are we transporting fire across the cosmos?” He felt he might know if he had some peace to order his notions. The parties would have to cease. At the rear of the room slept a stepladder; he yawned it under a trapdoor which led to the attic. His landlord had sealed it when dividing the residence into units. There were bolts and a screwdriver. He balanced on the rungs and twisted, his wrist strengthened by months of manipulating giants and centaurs. One bolt fell free; then another. Harmonies pulsed through the grease on his head, plaster dust fighting dandruff in his hair. One less Entropy Party running meant the balance of forces had shifted toward the pulverising end of the music spectrum.
While he was working on the third screw, the whole trapdoor fell in and knocked him aside. He gripped the ladder as a reveller dropped past, groaning as he connected with the floor. Faces peered over the edge; the noise was cut and polite applause revolved round the sanctum like a damp joint. Neil hauled himself into the attic as the last entropist departed onto a fire escape, locking the door behind him. Now the room was empty, glasses, ashtrays and antibiotics littering the stamped carpet. Neil was trapped, unable to return the way he had come, with that body leering up at him. The melodies had pounded an exit in the slates; he eased himself onto the gables, where he could smell the city, wrinkling below like the frown of a dog that sniffs him in turn.
Far away, in the direction of Cassolette Street, books were burping from a chimney, as if a household of cerebulimiacs had gorged themselves on learning before a mirror discouraged digestion. Neil read singed hope in the scene: what good were printed words now the Earth was nearing its terminus? Those clever fellows had doubtless realised the truth, just as he had. Perhaps they were members of his crew: stokers and engineers. He picked his way across the tiles, greasy with smoke, toward the stacks of his Eastern neighbours. The Western had shut themselves down; the others would require brute encouragement. Climbing onto the pot, he dangled his legs, soot tickling his knees. “Warmer than an…” he began as he gushed along the flue and into the grate. “…Alchemist’s hatred of fishermen,” he finished, amid the saurian anthracite.
This was a slightly more relaxed debauch. Young things read Mishima on chocolate-stained sofas and listened to Meredith Monk. Jumping out of the hearth, Neil stumbled between bulwarks of cushions. Something hissed through his pocket; an ember. His tight trousers ripped as he kneeled to watch the coal roll under a chaise longue. It was stuck fast. He went to fetch a jug of water from the toilet, but someone had filled the cistern with brandy. When he drifted back, helplessly, the couch was blazing and its occupant had become an unnourishing silhouette, like a kebab bought through a curtain. “I’m sorry,” he muttered. Already the celebrants were packing away their fashions. Somebody smothered the loser with a poncho, a cosy no less gaudy than the flames.
He gathered a dozen pillows and followed the carousers out the back into a weedy yard. There was a single party left to sabotage. He tripped down the stone steps to the door of the basement flat and sealed all the ventilation shafts with the cushions. Before long the music ceased and a bolt was drawn back; the cyanotic survivors were exhaled in a shuddering pant. The wineglasses inside were completely drained of air. A solitary figure did not move; the suffocatee. Neil’s legs folded, not with guilt, but because this sudden tranquillity gave him the answer to Thumbelina’s question. He finally knew where Earth was going and why they were taking lava to it. He rushed up his own stairs and cried out: “We have to alter course!” He barged into her quarters.
She was no longer there. His navigator had abandoned her post. With a set jaw, he fumbled among her possessions: a silk stocking, a portable loom, a pulley for lowering oneself into high-heeled shoes. Lying beside the gramophone was a leather notebook. Neil had always craved to study a girl’s diary. He opened it, disappointed to find a professional log. The final entry was a brief scrawl: HAVE COMPLETED CHECKS AND AM GOING FOR A DRINK. He hurled the book against a wall. How dare an officer adopt such a cavalier attitude to work? He would seek her out, reprimand her before insisting she put the world into reverse. But where would she be sipping her drink? He had no doubts it was The Indigo Casbah; he secured his bag of pewter figures and raced out, one hand thrust deep into the sack, the first time he had played on the hoof.
He entered the tavern and searched for the lounge where the college magazine was edited. It took him even longer than he anticipated. It was impossible for him to conquer the maze without relying on his mnemonics, but the lead battles which represented each twist and turn, and which he enacted before every venture into the depths, had been transformed by an omission: the griffin he compressed into an advert. Without this monster his judgement was invariably erroneous. Only by chance did he stumble on the room and table where the publication was prepared. He approached the editor and politely enquired as to the location of her proofreader. With a sneer behind schedule, she denied the existence of this occupation and rejected his groin with a fist. “You’re the one who distracted me with a growl!” He clutched his pain away.
He teetered into a bar and ordered a numbing pint. As his eyes came back into focus, he recognised Thumbelina sitting in a corner with other females. He took his drink over and croaked his message: “We must try to turn the planet round. It’s Hell we’re off to! We’re delivering magma to the other place!” She regarded him with mild disapproval. Her colleagues were dressed in similar clothes; it was obvious now she had been wearing a uniform all the time. “You’ve been dallying with me, Thumbelina, but I need you to be serious. You’re our navigator. As captain of the world, I order you to plot a course away from Hell. Aren’t you listening to me? A dishonourable discharge awaits if you disobey. Do you want to trade with the devil? Let him buy his brimstone elsewhere. I won’t conduct business with despotic regimes. Answer me!”
She waved a languid hand. “Very commendable, Neil, but you’re in no position to command anyone. You’re a cabin boy. A rather naughty example to be truthful.” She swirled her cocktail. “I can’t envisage a promotion for you now, I’m afraid. Quite the opposite. You’ve been slovenly beyond belief: you were supposed to oil the continents, but the tectonic plates make a dreadful sound when they move. And you forgot to polish the Alps. The real captain will be annoyed.”
Neil raised his sack and emptied the contents into his mouth. “Just a cabin boy?” He coughed metal fragments
. “So who is in charge? It’s not Michael, is it? Please tell me…”
“She’s not here at this moment. She’s gone to buy some roses from a florist’s. She likes them thorny.”
Swallowing his obsessive past, Neil fell on his knees, clutching at her ankles. “Let’s plot a mutiny! We’ll talk to all the crew members, if we can discover who they are. We’ll convince them to join us. How can we just go along with this immoral transaction? Selling lava to Satan! Time to grasp the demon by the sting and make a stand…” He noticed her lips curling downwards and relaxed his grip. “You won’t help? You’re loyal to that redheaded bully? What do you mean, you can’t steer the planet? But if you’re not a navigator then…”
“A Custom’s Officer. Earth docked months ago.”
Neil fell back, careful to avoid spilling his pint. He stood with a sigh, straightened his shirt and leaned forward. “What’s going to happen to the good people when we disembark? Do you keep the nice ones as well? There could be a problem with my passport, I don’t recollect where I put it. I wanted to work hard, but if I’d realised my position it would have helped. Will I be disciplined?”
“You were clear until you suggested a mutiny.”
He tried to ignore the implications of her answer. “If this captain won’t work with me again, I’ll apply for a post on another planet. If we are transporting fire to Hell, presumably Saturn is delivering clouds to Heaven? I’ll take any job, however menial. We can’t all be in the pay of the devil. What about simple compassion? It exists. Once a female smiled at me on a train. Who was she?”
“A stowaway, Neil. That’s why we boarded Earth, to root them out. A few hide on every voyage. Romantic fools. Incidentally, Saturn is taking circles to Hades. It’s a barge.
“I’ll organise them into a rebel army. Virtue can still defeat sin. I’m a natural commander. Wait and see. I’ll form battalions of righteous souls to oppose your employer.”
“That won’t be easy,” Thumbelina chuckled. “Not every stowaway will support you. Divide humanity into good and evil, then rate everyone on a scale of one to ten in that category. You’ll see that good folk who fall below five on their scale are actually closer to evil than to the summit of good. Thus they’ll throw in their lot with Satan. In other words, the mildly saintly will fight you.”
Neil frowned. In the frothing head of his pint he inscribed a gauge of morals. “This also applies to the mildly evil, who are closer to good than to the devil. So the battle will be between the pure and the soiled on one side, and the demonic and half-decent on the other. Troop numbers will therefore still be equal.”
“You haven’t got time to recruit followers. Distinguishing the nice from the nasty these days is, I’m afraid, no easier than telling student from jobseeker. Both are poor.”
Neil raised himself up to his full height and spoke through gritted and carious teeth. “You can’t subjugate the noble qualities of the race. I still believe in the future. Things can change for the better, I won’t give up my optimism.” He gave a weak clenched-fist salute. “Satan’s just an establishment running-goat!”
“Hadn’t you better gambol to the employment centre? I don’t know if dropouts are entitled to benefit, but you might as well apply. A lick of despair should calm you down. By the way, the invisible lines which link the centres form a layout of this pub’s other dimension: intoxication. I won’t explain how; I see the captain of the world returning. She’ll want to have words with you herself.”
Slotting his drink in a jacket pocket, Neil scampered from the room in abject terror. It was essential he form a partisan group immediately. He must seek out the fanatically good and the moderately evil; only they would band together to resist Lucifer. What was it that Thumbelina said? The difference between saints and sinners was the same as the difference between students and jobseekers? In that case he should categorise every drinker in The Indigo Casbah. He spiralled upward, crouched through cool nested chambers and emerged on the rope bridge where he first mistakenly decided he was captain of Earth.
Halfway across, he found his path blocked by an amateur astronomer, peering through the warped skylight with a glass as a lens. Neil gripped his shoulder. “I need to know whether you’re a student or…” The fellow whirled and he found himself gazing into the bandaged countenance of the drinker who fell through the rotten slats. Before he could retreat, Neil was seized around the neck and lifted high over the drop. He clutched at his attacker’s ears, screaming and sobbing. A ripple shook the bridge; a cord snapped somewhere. Notes vibrated along the length of the span. The remaining slats clapped. Then, with a minor arpeggio, the hemp structure collapsed, propelling them down.
(iv)
When he opened his eyes, he assumed he was still in the pub. He held his drink; it was full, but scum had congregated on the surface. The air was musty, it clogged his throat. He glanced round and saw a place dominated by an ordered chaos, which contrasted untidily with the chaotic order of The Indigo Casbah. He guessed he was inside an employment centre. Had he made his way here after the accident? The fall had broken his memory. He squirmed on his uncomfortable chair and turned to his neighbour. “Have I been here long?” He inhaled sharply as he recognised his assailant, even more heavily bandaged. “I didn’t snap the bridge deliberately. It was an example of frayed workmanship.”
The man opened his mouth, his lips anticipating a word that seemed to suggest seasons rather than hours, but before he could vocalise it, a loudspeaker burst into action: “Luis Rey to Reception.” The fellow leapt up and hobbled toward a desk where he was greeted by a stony-faced woman and conducted through a narrow door at the far end of the room. Neil sat and waited, examining his thumbnails. There was something wrong with the lighting. Fluorescent tubes seemed to be signalling to him, flickering a series of confusing or insulting messages. He faced a wall with circular windows, each looking out on unrelieved darkness. No, there were needles of light beyond, tiny and remote.
He unbuttoned his jacket, revealing his ribbon. It had turned black for some unfathomable reason. Muzak slushed behind his chair, punctuated by shrieking children. Standing in agitation, he crossed to Reception. A thousand uncomprehending eyes followed his motion. “Can you tell me when I’ll be seen?” he asked. The woman dipped into an enormous book, fingers smudging columns of names. Pages flapped; a second volume was consulted. He had the impression the furnishings were utilising his frustration, as if the plastic was moulded from congealed anxiety. The woman reached the final page and grimaced horribly.
“Nothing this century, I’m sorry.”
The fake apology minced his nerves. “What do you mean? I’m about to be cast into Hell. If you don’t get a move on, I won’t be in a fit state to complete the forms.” She dismissed him with a giggle and he slammed a fist on the desk, with little effect. “I demand my basic rights!” Unable to regain her attention, he flung the contents of his glass in her face. The consequences were startling. She seemed to dissolve before his eyes, shrivelling like a snail. Her wig slipped from her head; stubby antennae fenced the air. Neil retreated, clawing at his ribbon. “You’re not meant to be real. Vampires are just a symbol!” This was worse than college. He fled toward the nearest corridor.
Reaching the end, he entered an identical employment centre. Weary, unshaven claimants drooled as he loped across the room and down a second corridor into a third employment centre. He hurried through a succession of repeats, leaving doors swinging behind him like the throats and hopes of the ultimately bored. He was caught in an eternity of mock-welfare, a cosmic postponement. He staggered toward a seat and regained his breath. How many employment centres comprised this nightmare? Did they loop back on themselves? Had the government taken lessons in trigonometry from the planner of The Indigo Casbah? While he twitched, a quartet of jobseekers clustered near him began to sing.
Neil studied the crooners. They were the celebrants who had died in the Entropy Parties; he recognised the little cuts, the broken neck, the s
moking ruin and the cyan bloat. He staggered up to a window. The specks of blurred light outside were not, as he had assumed, city lamps or even stars; they were galaxies. The building was resting on nothing, absolute emptiness. He glanced to the right and saw Earth hanging in space over a gargantuan funnel. The funnel narrowed to a pipe that led into the side of the linked employment centres, as if to channel the dispossessed away from their mother. At first Neil imagined this was how he had arrived to take his place in the infinite queue. But as he stared, the real purpose of the arrangement became apparent.
Slowly, with an ineffable grandeur, the planet swung open along its axis. The operation was smooth and silent. Behind the widening crack, an incredible but homely glow seethed with excitement. As the two halves of the globe moved apart, the liquid fire poured into the waiting funnel in a stream. Soon the world was drained of magma; hinged at the North Pole, the hemispheres closed and the planet cast off, ascending rapidly in the void. Neil watched it until it was the size of a goblin’s conscience. He rejoined the four singers. “This isn’t the first time I’ve gatecrashed a party.” They ignored him, concentrating on finishing a madrigal. Even in damnation he was fated to be left out. When he tried to mime along, they crumbled his silence with knuckles.
Far away, at the end of a million-mile corridor, a belly rumbled. A tidal wave of brimstone was sweeping toward them. Running and completing forms were pointless now; perhaps they always had been. No use lodging a complaint either. The lava was coming. Neil decided to look for Michael. There was a slight chance he was here; he had been the lover of the real captain of the world. One big argument and she might have set him adrift on a comet or one of the other lifeboats. Before going, he may have been able to snatch a few items from her cabin: a sextant, beard or bottle of rum. With Michael anything was possible. Hands in pockets, Neil paced in the opposite direction to the oncoming magma. Strangely, he felt cold as he awaited the official inundation.