by Rhys Hughes
At the back of the audience, among the non-dancers, a man squinted through a monocle and twirled his moustaches. Then he also twirled his moustaches and squinted through a monocle. For he was none other than Lord Doublestuff, who did everything twice. He wasn’t really enjoying this music, because his tastes were more conservative, and also because his tastes were more conservative, but he felt inspired by the performers, so inspired he reached down to pat the head of a monster that stood near his leg. Then he patted its head.
“Tell me, Baddie TwoShoes, shall we go backstage after the gig and chat to this fine pair of musicians? They might be able to help us with our schemes. Or maybe we can help them with their schemes? Or maybe they can help us with our schemes!”
Baddie TwoShoes fully extended a blue tongue.
Resembling a footwear komodo, in other words two huge shoes joined sole to sole, with grips for teeth and extreme halitosis, Baddie TwoShoes had an aversion to subtle innuendos. He didn’t think, didn’t joke, what did he do? Eat Goodies mostly…
“Which schemes?” Baddie asked.
“The destruction of the Applied Eschatology Agency! That’s the first one. Followed by the destruction of the aforementioned Agency. That’s the second scheme. In any order!”
“I remember now,” said Baddie TwoShoes.
“So do I. So do I…”
“Let’s do it then. The giant foot’s quite cute.”
“And I’m rather taken with the burnoose-wrapped bathroom mirror on the drums. Ha ha! Ho ho!”
“Are we groupies yet?” asked Baddie TwoShoes.
* * * * *
Twisthorn was mildly piqued to see that Mr Gum’s head was still sticking to his left knee as he boarded the dragoncopter for the flight to Chicago, that wonderful town. He had tried to remove it five times already but the gunk oozing from its severed neck was proving to be a remarkably strong adhesive. He ordered Hapi to dislodge it for him. The giant hand snapped its fingers and said, “Heeeey!”
Nothing happened to the head but the golem’s kneecap disintegrated and he slumped to the ground.
“Numbknuckles! How can I walk now?”
“Sorry, boss! I missed.”
“The head of Mr Gum is exactly the same size as your vanished knee. Why not utilise it for a substitute?” suggested Abortia. “It fits perfectly into the hole. Let me help you.”
“Much obliged, Miss Stake. Yes, that’s better. Almost as good as new. The blood of Mr Gum is an astounding glue. But I’m worried about what will happen when it decays in there and becomes a skull leering from the midpoint of my leg, horribly.”
“Your lifespan won’t be that long,” Abortia reassured him. “You’re a stick of dynamite, remember?”
“That’s right. And growing more unstable every day. Thanks for not letting me forget. It’s a weight off my mind! I’d hate to have a skull for a knee, but a fleshy head’s okay.”
“Look at it grimacing in there. Ugh!”
“Maybe he’ll give a lecture to my thigh,” joked Twisthorn, “on why it shouldn’t use any adjectives.”
“Tee hee, Mr Bellow, you’re so satiric!”
Twisthorn squeezed his face to do an impression of Mr Gum. “The rules of good writing are immutable. In other words they never change and can’t decay. Show, don’t tell!”
“Ha ha! I almost believe your knee is alive!”
“I appreciate your appreciation, Miss Stake, but we’re wasting time on excellent humour instead of progressing ourselves to Chicago. Let’s get into the dragoncopter pronto!”
Breath O’Dicks and Marvin Carnacki unhappily went in first and sat at the back. Abortia and Hapi followed. The golem came last, kicking away the rickety ladder as he entered.
The passenger compartment was small but Twisthorn went to the front and took the controls. He had taught himself to fly without crashing too often and now felt confident he could get the craft in one piece, two at the most, to the USA, or at least as far as Ireland, where great cosy pubs sell malty dark beer. The dragoncopter was one of his own inventions and he was extremely proud of it, despite the doubts of every engineer who’d had a proper look at the machine.
“Up we go! Hang on tight!” he called.
He pulled back on the control column and spikes came out to jab into wakefulness three juvenile dragons riveted by their left wings to a central hub on the roof. These beasts began flying in tight circles faster and faster until the contraption shuddered vertically into the sky. Lurching, sizzling, screaming, the dragoncopter increased its velocity and the golem turned it skilfully towards the west.
The spikes retracted but periodic jabbing would ensure that the flying reptiles didn’t slacken their efforts. The golem had learned the hard way how to regulate this jabbing. Too much and he might kill his own rotors, resulting in a lethal plunge…
The dragons were captured in a Welsh forest.
Twisthorn hated Wales. It was part of Britain but the people who lived there thought of themselves as somehow different from the English. They kicked balls that weren’t round and ate weeds from the sea. They were all potential traitors. And smelly.
They didn’t even worship the Union Jack flag! For they preferred to pluck harps or eat chips! Best not to think about it. Luckily Abortia was able to provide a distraction.
“Look at that down there, Mr Bellow!”
“Yes, Miss Stake, it’s Hyde Park, an expanse of greenery in the midst of our megalopolis. Well spotted. The green of its greenery contrasts with the general smoky greyness.”
“No, that’s not what I meant. Look who is inside the park, sitting on a bench, eating sandwiches!”
“A yeti… It’s MeMeMeMeMe U!”
“He’s relaxing, boss. That’s not very fair, is it?”
“No Hapi, not fair at all. He’s a dastard. Cress and onion sandwiches, I bet, or even blue cheese!”
“Despicable. The French have won already.”
“Don’t ever speak like that, Hapi. We can’t give up, we mustn’t forget the point of our existence. British interests are the true ones and we serve and intensify them like spears of fresh asparagus stabbed into tall glasses of Pimm’s after polo matches.”
“That analogy doesn’t hold, Mr Bellow.”
“Hold your tongue, missy, or I’ll hold you—in a squeeze that will snap all your undeveloped bones!”
“What’s Pimm’s, boss? An upper class refreshment?”
Twisthorn nodded didactically.
Abortia scowled but said nothing and so they flapped out of London in resentful, almost total silence.
Indeed the remainder of the journey wasn’t much of a social occasion at all. As land was replaced by sea, Twisthorn raised a pair, maybe more than a pair, of trinoculars to his vision. This instrument had one lens for each normal eye and another for his inner eye, an innovation designed to help him peer further into astral dimensions but one that turned out not to work very well, or at all.
“Keeping watch for Enid Hans,” he explained.
“What’s that down there, boss? I think it’s Atlantis, the lost continent, newly risen from the seabed!”
“Don’t interrupt me, I’m busy,” said the golem.
* * * * *
Somewhere in Limbo, two men faced a television screen. One of them adjusted a portable aerial, twisting it one way, then another, holding it above his head, then near the ground. Finally he was satisfied, nodded and sank onto a beanbag.
His companion was already seated on a sofa, but now he leaned and squinted at the popping static. “It made no difference at all. I still can’t discern a single damn thing.”
Mark Anthony Zimara shrugged. “You won’t get better reception than this up here, trust me. I’m happy with the result anyway and I’m looking forward to the documentary.”
Professor Shylock Cherlomsky grunted and sipped his grey beverage while chewing a grey nut. “What documentary? It’s a blizzard. Flakes of grey on a grey background.”
“On the contrary
, it’s Richard Dawkins on Evolution and its relevance to Atheism. Tonight he’s denying the Afterlife, which always comes as a relief. I can’t wait to meet him for real if he gets here. Not to mock but to become his devoted pupil.”
“This is so boring! What else is on?”
“Just a crime drama. Something about Ynch Short of the Yard and his efforts to clean up the Hampton of Wolves. Clichéd nonsense, if you ask me. I refuse to switch over.”
“Are you telling me there are only two channels in Limbo? What kind of backwater is this place?”
Zimara sighed and shook his head.
“You shouldn’t have got yourself cryogenically frozen. If you’d died in a proper way and gone off, then you wouldn’t be here. Limbo is only for those who can come back.”
The professor clenched his jaw angrily.
“None of this was my choice! Someone froze my cadaver without my permission. Probably Twisty.”
“Ah yes, your pet golem. A clay oaf.”
“He’s not an oaf! I ordered him to be clever and he obeyed. Would an oaf do that? Only a non-oaf could agree to be clever without mistakes. I loved him. Still do. He’s the light of my life—without the light, because that’s far too hazardous.”
“Without the life too,” remarked Zimara.
“I suppose you’re right…”
The professor’s expression was so lugubrious that Zimara felt a pang of guilt. He cleared his throat and said,“Listen, there’s a story-telling night at the amphitheatre.”
“Oh yes?” mumbled Cherlomsky.
“Let’s go down together after the documentary.”
“Thanks. I’d like that. You’re the light of my life too—the light of my afterlife, I should say, which is more important. And you never or rarely smell of rancid olive oil.”
Zimara rose from his beanbag and sat on the sofa next to Cherlomsky. Neither moved for several minutes. Then knees accidentally touched as they shifted position at the same time. Muttered apologies, flushed faces. Then hands strayed closer, interlocked, and pheromones drifted through grey air in gay grey clouds.
“Tell you what. Let’s go down now…”
* * * * *
In his cavern deep below the evil city of Strasbourg, the ultimate French schemer had no television to watch, but he didn’t need one. His throne wasn’t comfortable enough for an indulgent evening in front of the tube anyway. Half his spare time was occupied trying to develop and control the rumour-generating powers the Walnut Whip Helmet had imparted to him, and reading Proust occupied the other half, in braille—the Walnut Whip Helmet had no eyeholes.
He read Proust because Proust was French.
French people often do French things. That’s what makes them so evil and untrustworthy and grim…
Yin and Yang are the primary forces of the universe, the duality that governs the actions of Nature and its Children, including Mankind. Light and dark, good and evil, male and female, hot and cold, cool and square, up and down, left and right, this and that, funky and soulless. In balance each half of the duality contains the other half. In every yin a speck of yang; in every yang a speck of yin. When this hallowed law is violated the powers of unhappiness stir.
The Walnut Whip Helmet… Chocolate and nuts…
No balance there. No yin meshed with yang, yang meshed with yin. No harmony. Absolutely not! Disharmony, blockage, asymmetry, chaotic whirling of French madness…
Nuts with chocolate. For the love of purity, NO!!!
From this nasty imbalance, from the stress it exerts on the fabric of spacetime, the Walnut Whip Helmet sources its unholy gift—the gift to make people believe rumours.
But République Nutt still hadn’t mastered it.
It was tricky in the extreme!
He sighed. He was unable to spread rumours with the accuracy needed to guarantee the destruction of the Applied Eschatology Agency. The ray of rumourisation that he beamed from the crown of his headpiece wasn’t tight enough. It was diffuse, a wide cone, so that by the time it eventually reached London it lacked sufficient persuasion to deliver the killer blow. The most it did at the moment was muddle things up a little bit. Not good enough, not by a long baguette!
At this rate it would take another fifty years or so to train his mind to the point where he could make a rumour-beam as tight as a laser. So was there an available alternative?
Yes there was. He could try to entice his enemies closer, to persuade the golem and his comrades to enter France and come near to the city of Strasbourg. But how to bait such a trap? Twisthorn wouldn’t be likely to cross the border without at least one reason so convincing that even the Queen would want to follow!
Then the answer came to him. A music festival!
A music festival devoted to French acts like Magma, Daft Punk, Deep Forest and Jean-Michel Jarre. But why not include foreign groups popular in France but not in their own lands, like Gong, Matching Mole and Soft Machine? He currently had enough rumour-power to spread the rumour of a music festival, and musicians and audiences would gather, and then the rumour would fulfil itself.
République Nutt rubbed his hands together fiendishly. He would beam a priority rumour to Lætitia Sadier of Stereolab and thus entice her band to headline the festival. He chuckled with wicked glee and with an ironic appreciation of the problems of having a name with a diphthong in it. Did æsop have a fable about that?
* * * * *
Twisthorn and friends reached Chicago with a single working dragon and crashed down into the middle of Daley Plaza, where the climactic scene of the awful Blues Brothers film was set. Half a dozen bystanders were crushed to death beneath the fuselage of the wrecked dragoncopter. Ah well! The golem tumbled out through the glass of the cockpit, cutting his cheeks, while his passengers followed in more orthodox fashion, jumping onto cracked concrete ground.
Marvin Carnacki twisted his ankle as he landed.
“He’s hurt, boss!” cried Hapi.
“If he can’t walk then leave him behind,” barked Twisthorn. “I refuse to subsidise malingerers.”
“I’ll manage somehow,” whimpered Carnacki.
“Come on,” said Twisthorn.
They headed west along Washington Street, hurrying in the direction of Upside Downey Jr’s secret hideout, which as everyone knows can be found in Little Italy. As they passed the doors of a pub, Twisthorn jerked his thumb at Breath O’Dicks.
“Go in there and get supplies for the team. I don’t need food or drink, but Abortia and you do, so does this limping fool. Buy it with your own cash but keep the change.”
“Thanks a lot,” huffed Breath, but he went inside. He came out empty handed but with a mouth full of news. “Guess who’s inside? Hellboy! The good demon I told you about.”
“I’ll smash him!” scowled Twisthorn.
“Why not make friends instead, boss?” suggested Hapi.
“Please do,” urged Abortia.
“I’m stronger than that loser!” growled Twisthorn.
“But our agencies could work together for the greater good and for a new era of peace and love…”
“Hruunngh!” screamed Twisthorn.
Waving his swordstick high, he rushed through the doors and clattered down the steps, for it was a subterranean pub by the name of Cardozo’s, while his companions waited uneasily outside and strained ears to make sense of the muted sounds of struggle that floated back up at them. Five minutes passed and Hapi was on the verge of going down to check the situation for himself when Twisthorn emerged with a pained expression. He staggered and almost collapsed, but then he leaned against a wall and slowly regained his senses.
He still held his kpinga but a blade had gone.
“That makes seven now, boss!” began Hapi, but Abortia cut across this trite observation with a gasp.
“Your horn is missing! Was it snapped off?”
Twisthorn wheezed, nodded and croaked, “Yeah, but you should take a look at the other guy. He came off far worse than me. Hellboy! What a jo
ke! Nancyboy, more like!”
“Did you bash his nut in?” asked Hapi.
“Messed him up real good. His strutting days are over. That over-smug bipedal boiled lobster won’t forget to step aside for Mr Twisthorn Bellow next time we meet on the street!”
Suddenly a figure stepped out of the entrance of the pub, hailed a cab, climbed in it and was driven off. He was a big red demon, unscathed, and with a spiral horn tucked into his belt like a sword. He didn’t even glance back as the cab roared away.
Hapi and Abortia and Breath and Carnacki all looked at Twisthorn and silently demanded an explanation.
The golem gritted his clay teeth, winced in pain and finally waved his fists angrily. “His injuries are internal. My wounds are superficial. So the winner was me. Do you understand? Me! You slimy rotters, traitors all of you, insolent little scumbags!”
Nitroglycerine squirted out of his eyes.
* * * * *
Cherlomsky and Zimara sat on the back row of the grey amphitheatre on the hard grey stone while the grey storyteller delivered his tale in a grey voice. There were maybe thirty other grey souls in the audience and most seemed enthralled by the performance. The professor couldn’t discern any reason for their enthusiasm.
He shifted position, yawned loudly, fidgeted with a grey bag of sweets and popped one into his mouth, cracking it between his teeth and spitting grey splinters, annoying his friend in the grey process. “Be quiet!” hissed Zimara. “I’m enjoying this!”
“Boring! All of æsop’s stupid fables!”
“They aren’t stupid,” objected Zimara. “It’s the moral that makes each one special, not the plot or characterization. Ah, the next is a favourite of mine. Please remain silent.”
Cherlomsky wrinkled his nose but said nothing. Propped on a tripod in the centre of the stage was a severed head that looked vaguely familiar. It couldn’t be Walt Disney, could it? Yes it was. The professor now recalled that Mr Disney had been one of the first cryogenically frozen folks in the world, but to save money just his head had gone into liquid helium, which explained why it was in Limbo.