by Rhys Hughes
“You better had. Otherwise I’ll thrash you with this.” And he reached down and picked up a long pole. It was slick with blood. He held it high and continued, “This is the deed pole I changed my name with and it did many dark deeds today!”
“A small misspelling,” Abortia said tactfully.
* * * * *
Arsehair Plucker, Sappy Ever After and Highly Contrived Name sat in a room in a building in the city of Moonville and exchanged whispers. At the door they cast frequent glances, as if they expected a frightful person to come through it abruptly.
“Well I’m just going to tell him to his face. I simply refuse to go. We all know what treatment robots get when they arrive at their destination. Not one has ever survived!”
“It’s outrageous! First he makes us, then he gives us sentience, then he expects us to submit to being crammed inside a box and mailed halfway around the world to some Applied Eschatology Agency that we’ve never even heard of, just so we can do battle with a golem, an aborted embryo and an ectoplasm extruder!”
“What if the postman loses us in transit?”
“That would be far better than arriving, believe me. I’ve been doing a bit of research. We don’t stand a chance against that Twisthorn Bellow or whatever he calls himself!”
Suddenly the door opened and a perfectly bald man with a lunar smile and a cloak covered in crescent moons glowered down at the gossiping trio and shook his fist.
“Mutiny in the ranks, eh?”
“Not in the ranks, but in the banks, the circuit banks!”
“But I am Frabjal Troose!”
“We don’t care who you are. You might be Ringo Starr and we would still resist you. We absolutely refuse to be mailed to London! We are on official cybernetic strike!”
Frabjal Troose swished his cloak.
“You haven’t heard the last of me. Wuh-hu-hu! I’ll be back!” He span on his heels and turned to leave, then paused on the threshold. “Just wait a moment. I live here. This is my city and my palace. I can’t come back because I’m already here!”
“We’re afraid so,” chorused the robots.
“Bah! Foiled again!”
* * * * *
Losthorn indicated a box that stood next to the X-ray machine. It bulged ominously and seemed ready to burst, almost as if it contained a powerful bomb that had already gone off—in slow motion. But the cardboard sides held and it remained a potential rather than kinetic kind of expansion, like a big bang on lunchbreak.
“Looks excessively heavy,” said Abortia.
“Indeed, Miss Stake.”
“And the stamps are…”
“Yes. After delivering it, the postman made a joke against the French, as he always does. Maybe I should ask Lord Scarydung to ask the Queen to consider knighting him. Dnarrettim is his name but Sir Dnarrettim has a pleasanter ring about it.”
“What was his joke?” pressed Abortia.
“Merely that the French government is scheming to invade Britain by sending the whole of France through the post. Then when the parcel that contains it is opened, it’ll spring out and cover our own land and we won’t be able to get it back inside.”
“Has anyone mailed an entire country before?”
“Not to my knowledge.”
“A tricky operation, surely?”
“Yes. First there’s the issue of how many stamps are needed to pay for the transportation of such a hugely heavy item. Billions—more than have been printed in history!”
“Any other inherent difficulties?”
“Well, the French scientists are having problems trying to compress all the geographical features of France into one box, but are confident they’ll crack them soon—the problems, not the features! For a test run they have apparently decided to send a small piece first, the Lascaux Caves in fact, complete with the 16,000 year old paintings that make them so famous in the annals of prehistoric art.”
“I enjoyed that joke,” said Abortia.
“Yes, Dnarrettim is an authentic comedian. But there’s some bad news too, I’m afraid. By an unlikely coincidence his joke and reality happen to be exactly the same thing.”
“Do I laugh or cry? I’m confused!”
“Me too. It’s a dilemma. Both the sniffer and scanner confirm that the box contains the aforementioned cave system. If I open it, the Agency will become just another subterranean chamber in the devilish Lascaux honeycomb, but if I don’t open it I’ll think about it all night and won’t be able to get to sleep. Not that I do sleep—but you know what I mean. It’s proving to be a headache!”
“Why not just open it a fraction?”
“Enough for a peep, you mean? The pressure inside is too great. The moment I tear off the brown paper and slit the masking tape it’ll spring out like a Jacque-in-le-Box. I ought to return it unopened to the sender, but no name is written on it.”
“That’s against the Geneva Convention!”
“Yes it is.” Losthorn nodded and stroked his glazed chin. “What’s our official position on Geneva?”
Abortia spoke with difficulty. Her smile was false. “They’re our allies now. Against Singapore…”
“Look, Miss Stake, the parcel is opening itself! Clearly the cardboard sides are breaking under the stress. That’s solves the dilemma for us. No point standing clear—the Lascaux system is larger than all the buildings in the compound. But switch the electric lights on. The caves will be in darkness and we mustn’t allow our enemies to deprive us of our sense of vision. The extra cost can be written off against tax. Brew some coffee while you’re at it, will you?”
“The kettle’s in the kitchen and will take at least five minutes to boil. I’ll never find my way back here through the labyrinth when the water’s hot! Let me stay with you!”
“Too late now anyway. The parcel…”
With a groaning sound, the box broke apart and the compressed caves suddenly expanded around them. The displacement of air made them reel and started the light bulbs swinging on their cords, so that weird shadows were cast where previously there had only been bizarre shadows. Abortia steadied herself on the golem; and the golem steadied himself on Abortia. As a result, they both fell over.
“Look at that painting. It’s coming alive!”
“Yes, Miss Stake, clearly the sending of the cave system was only one part of the experiment. The French government must have utilised magic to impart movement to these pigmented outlines, probably ancient spells and antique occult unguents.”
“And butt naked ritualistic dancing.”
“That too. I’m interested to note how these two bison are snorting at us in a most menacing way.”
“Now they are charging us. Incredible how they demonstrate rules of perspective that weren’t used again in European Art until the 15th century. I believe Picasso once remarked that painters had ‘learned nothing new’ in all that time. Watch out!”
“Yes, Miss Stake, but although I have respect for the vitality and force of these depictions I don’t regard them as heritage pieces to be preserved at all cost. So nothing will stop me defending myself with my bare fists, both my clay and flesh one.”
There was an eruption of dust as the golem flung himself into the fray. Visibility was reduced to nothing despite the glowing bulbs. Finally the dust settled and Losthorn stood alone in the centre of a mound of rubble, his chin angled heroically.
“What happened, Mr Bellow? Did you win?”
“Once again, it seems.”
“And this was the crisis?” Abortia asked. “The one you mentioned so urgently on the phone?”
“Oh no, Miss Stake, this was just a living prehistoric painting that died because I pulverised the cave wall it was daubed on. The crisis I referred to earlier concerns a forthcoming music festival in France, in the vicinity of Strasbourg. Every act due to perform is French or makes French style music. Can you imagine!”
“Dreadful! How did you get this news?”
“In the form of a rumour.”
<
br /> “Then it must be accurate,” fretted Abortia.
“Lætitia Sadier is headlining.”
“With Stereolab or her other group, Monade?”
“Not sure yet. The support acts lined up include Orange Blossom, The Science Group, Etron Fou Leloublan, Univers Zero, Olivier Manchion, Les Boukakes and Sibyl Vane.”
“Impossible! Univers Zero are Belgian!”
The golem leaned closer until his chemical breath stung Abortia’s eyes and made her squint. “Do your ears need medical attention? The criterion includes French style music.”
“Ah yes! But meaning what, exactly?”
“Anything superior to what the British play, I suppose.”
“Are French things always better?”
“Yes they are. That’s what makes them so dangerous and why we hate them with so much passion.”
“I’m sure Etron Fou Leloublan and Univers Zero played together at the first Rock in Opposition festival, back in 1978 or thereabouts, organised by members of Henry Cow—a seminal art rock collective who displayed amazing integrity by consistently refusing to bow down to the capitalistic demands of the commercial music industry. But that was before my time, of course. I’m an embryo.”
“Come, Miss Stake, let’s find a way out of these caves before the lights fail or we catch a chill…”
“Right behind you, Mr Bellow!”
* * * * *
The ethnic yeti who had made Hyde Park his home for the past three or four weeks puffed out his cheeks and sighed. Children had attempted to throw him a loaf of bread.
Every day the same thing happened. Did they think he was some kind of duck? Well he wasn’t!
MeMeMeMeMe was tired of London, bored with the greyness and the ant-like scurrying inhabitants.
He wanted to pack his bags and leave.
One thing held him back…
“I don’t have any bags!” he lamented.
That was the biggest obstacle to his imminent departure. How can one pack what one doesn’t have?
So he remained on the wooden bench that served as his rough bed. He picked up the hurled loaf, fingered it, realised it was stale. And he’d run out of cress. It was terrible…
Then a radical idea came to him.
“I can leave without bags. I can travel light!”
He suddenly leapt up and danced clockwise around the loaf, his hairy hands upraised. “Oh yes!
“Why didn’t I think of this before?” he demanded.
“I don’t know!” he replied.
“Who said that?—Oh, it was me!”
“Was it really? Yes!”
He stopped dancing and looked at the sky—at the sun hidden behind the smog—to get his bearings.
Then he started walking towards the east.
“I’ll be like Marco Polo and Jack Kerouac—on the road, hitching lifts and getting into scrapes along the way. It’ll be the adventure of a lifetime. I might even meet some girls.”
Then he sneered out of the page at you.
Yes, you—sitting there!
“Not to do sexual things with—I’m a yeti, not a human—but because girls might be able to put me in touch with female yetis! You have a dirty mind if you thought otherwise. Don’t try to plead innocence! I know what readers are like. Depraved beings, that’s what they are! All of them. And you’re the worst of the lot!”
Isolation had started to drive him mad, that was the truth. It was good he was finally leaving, for the sake of his mental health, but it was a very long way to Tibet overland.
Yet a journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step. That’s what his professors taught him when he was a student in the lost kingdom of Guge. A wise old saying.
But Tibet is somewhat further than 1000 miles from Britain. Closer to 5000 miles. He would have to repeat the wise saying five times. He felt confident he could do that…
Walking in a straight line would take him through France. How would he cross the English Channel from Dover? He didn’t have any money for a ferry ticket. Maybe another monster would step in to help. That seemed the most probable outcome.
* * * * *
Breath O’Dicks sat counting coins in the counting room. It was his gloopy ectoplasm fingers that were doing that task. His flesh fingers were turning the pages of a novel by some writer named Philip José Farmer. The novel was called The Other Log of Phileas Fogg and was an exciting and clever story, but Breath was confused. The log hadn’t played a part yet. Plenty of airships and intrigues, but no logs. Not even a twig. æsop’s story about a log remained the only one in Breath’s experience to actually feature a log. Why should that be the case?
Losthorn entered and frowned deeply.
“Did you steal that book from my private collection? The penalty for pilfering is brutal castration.”
“Um… It wasn’t me. It was your archenemy.”
“République Nutt, you mean? Yes, I heard that rumour. He has always been capable of doing things that he doesn’t do. That’s how fiendish he is! I’ll let you off with a caution.”
“Thanks, boss. Say, what did you do to your finger?”
“It was my idea,” said Abortia, who had also come into the room. She squinted at the piles of coins.
Losthorn held up his left hand, the hand that had once been a sentient being by the name of Hapi Daze. The missing little finger was no longer absent. A metal replacement had been grafted on, a replacement that had a little head and constantly moved and clicked its tiny jaw. It was the end of the robotic tapeworm that had emerged from Backside-in-Gear. With a smirk, the golem demonstrated how it could curl up and grasp pencils and bones and even bite pears.
“I knew it would come in useful eventually!”
“No you didn’t,” said Abortia.
“Will you introduce me formally?” asked Breath.
“Sure. Breath O’Dicks—this is…”
Breath waited patiently…
But then Losthorn paled and nitroglycerine droplets pushed themselves through his cracked pores.
“What’s the matter, Mr Bellow?”
The golem cleared his throat and rasped, “I forgot to give it a name! I have been wearing a nameless tapeworm all this time. For the sweet love of Shylock Cherlomsky!”
“Quick! Give it a name now!” shrieked Abortia.
“Help! My mind has gone blank! Where’s my deed pole? No, that only makes names for me. Help!”
“How about Halfmast Pigspringer?”
“Too sly! Try again!”
“Timmy Wiggle? Salami Hook? Barbary Zimpf? Gutsy?”
“Wholly inappropriate!”
“What about Flimflam Ciggy?” cried Breath.
“Yes, yes, yes, perfect!”
The release of tension was a palpable force. Losthorn stumbled to the table and sat on it, scattering the coins everywhere, knocking many off so that they fell and rolled into corners inaccessible because of scary spiders lurking there on cobwebs.
“Oh really!” huffed Breath O’Dicks.
“What do you need so much cash for?” asked Abortia. “Did you take it all out of the swear box?”
“Yes, but honestly not for my own benefit. I’m arranging a funeral for Marvin Carnacki who died in the explosion of the golem’s original hand in Chicago. There’s not enough to pay to bring his body back now, which I suppose is fortunate because it was vaporised, so we’ll have to have a symbolic service instead.”
“Chicago!” spat Losthorn bitterly.
“Be reasonable, the city had good points too,” said Abortia. “Think of all the sights we nearly saw, including the very first skyscraper, just a few inches high. So vibrant!”
“I brought it home with me,” confessed Breath.
“Did you?” gasped Abortia.
Breath nodded nonchalantly. “I tripped over it when we were leaving Upside Downey Jr’s hideout. Put my hand down and uprooted it, popped it in my pocket. We’re not allowed to wear clothes, so I made the pocket out of slinky ecto
plasm.”
“Show me!” commanded Losthorn.
Breath rummaged in his gloopy pocket and brought out the building in question and stood it on the table. It was an incredibly innovative object that superbly demonstrated the enormous leaps forward that architecture, engineering and urban renewal had taken in America in the final decades of the Nineteenth Century.
It was only twenty floors high but the frame was made of steel and the windows featured small panes that could be opened at will to regulate the ambient interior temperature.
“Because this was the very first skyscraper in the world, the builders had nothing to reference it against, hence its low elevation of three and a quarter inches,” explained Breath. “Subsequent examples were taller and wouldn’t fit in any pocket.”
“Not even in a kangaroo’s?” frowned Losthorn.
“Unlikely,” stated Breath.
The golem picked up the skyscraper, angled it for Flimflam Ciggy to sniff, rattled it, closed one eye and peered through the tiny windows at the terrified office staff within. There weren’t any of those, of course, because microscopic people would never be able to secure authentic employment in an administrative role. Then he returned it carefully to the tabletop and stroked his chin empathically.
“Let’s use this for Carnacki’s tombstone!”
* * * * *
The beers slipped easily down throats and the mood turned giggly, erratic and vague. Lord Doublestuff summoned a waiter and called for yet more beer. Then he summoned a different waiter and ordered more beer. With beer in pairs came a singular drunkenness. Even Lord Doublestuff wasn’t immune to the effects of the accumulated alcohol. His double vision was developing double vision.
Ruby dubDub raised one of her full glasses and clinked it once against the glasses of her friends, twice against the glasses of Lord Doublestuff, then she drained it without a pause, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and belched loudly.
“Not very ladylike,” she said. “Fortunately I’m no lady. I’m a monster instead. Just like you…”
“I’m not a real monster,” said Lord Doublestuff, “but I’m monstrously wicked, plus I’m wicked.”
“Good enough for us,” stated Ruby dubDub.