Twisthorn Bellow

by Rhys Hughes

  * * * * *

  Enid Hans flapped above the lower slopes of Mount Olympus, swooping and chuckling as he reflected the light of the setting sun. He occasionally rubbed his palms together in glee, but never for more than a few seconds at a time, as he needed his hands to sustain lift. He turned northward and whistled a mischievous tune.

  “I can do anything with these hands of mine! That’s what makes me so versatile and dangerous. Enid Hans—to strangle a righteous golem! Enid Hans—to trip a mighty god!”

  “Yes, anything,” he repeated. He resumed his cruel song as the sounds of divine rage receded behind. “Enid Hans—to refuse a refund on goods you sold them! Enid Hans—to fill them full of fears! And when you feel nobody wants to know you…

  “Enid Hans—to make them pay in blood!”

  He would be back in Prussia before morning. He was looking forward to a strudel and white wine breakfast. Maybe an arm-wrestle match. Who could defeat him in combat?

  Nobody, nobody at all! Ha ha ha!

  THE CLANGERS OF PARIS

  Bonjour, my readers! How are you? Please allow me introduce myself. I am The Eiffel Tower. If you haven’t yet seen me in the flesh—in the iron, I mean—then I’m sure you’ve seen photos of me. I’m an elegant and very tall world-famous landmark.

  Did you know that a penny accidentally dropped from my summit will develop enough force to kill an innocent bystander on the ground? In fact that’s just a rumour. Pennies aren’t legal currency in Paris; and the figures are all wrong anyway. Whoever invented that rumour doesn’t know about mass, velocity and inertia…

  But that’s mostly irrelevant. The days when I was the highest artificial structure in the world are long past. There are taller towers in Malaysia, China, Taiwan, Canada. I even hear that one of the Gulf States will soon possess a building more than twice my altitude. Progress? It all depends on your æsthetic outlook.

  Already I am starting to like you.

  Please call me Eyeful. Less formal than Monsieur Tower.

  Consider me your friend.

  Shall I say something about my background? I work as an antenna and also as a newsreader for Radio Paris now but my career has been a varied one. In short I’ve enjoyed more than a hundred and twenty long years of notable and exciting activity.

  Let me rephrase that statement…

  I am honoured to claim that during my lifetime significant things took place which my size, shape and location facilitated—things that otherwise might not have been feasible.

  I don’t want to take credit for everything that happened on me or under me or from me, I’m not that arrogant, but certain discoveries couldn’t have been made if I wasn’t there.

  For example, the first detection of cosmic rays…

  Yes, that incident took place way back in 1910. Theodor Wulf was the scientist responsible: he measured radiant energy both at my base and my top and detected a difference.

  The energy at my top was stronger because my summit is closer to the void of space than my bottom.

  Though I was twenty-one years old at the time, I hadn’t outgrown the callowness of youth and I imagined that because the rays were detected on me, they must belong to me.

  For months I revelled in my newfound wealth, dearly wishing I had hands to stack the cosmic rays into bundles and utilise those bundles as girders to make another tower.

  I craved the companionship of a female edifice…

  Still do, in fact. It has been quite a lonely existence, No matter! I can’t complain too much. There have been many advantages to my condition. I am a happy tower in general.

  Don’t fall into the trap of assuming that because I’m fixed firmly in the ground my outlook must be regional and narrow. On the contrary, I have always taken a keen interest in the wider world. Thanks to my work as a broadcaster I’m acutely aware of what’s going on elsewhere, even in lands on the far side of our globe…

  Plus I’m in the perfect position to overhear gossip from travellers and tourists who climb up and down my steps or saunter on my levels. And the clouds sometimes bring me news too. I don’t always understand what they tell me, often it’s just a garbled pitter-patter, but occasionally I learn many things that I shouldn’t.

  Take this example. I’ve long known that an Agency exists in London dedicated to annihilating everything French. It is run by a clay man who calls himself Twistoff Bellow.

  This fellow is on the verge of deciding to take a leap of faith and bring his struggle to my own nation, in other words to do something he pledged he never would—enter France!

  I feel trepidation. Not for myself but for him.

  For he is doomed to lose…

  The French are the best. He will be destroyed!

  The only possible outcome.

  * * * * *

  When monsters die they don’t go to Heaven, Hell or Limbo, but to the planet Happenstance, specifically to the Mediocre Utopia, which exists between the Spiffing and Not So Good Utopias. Look closely and you can see how the monsters gather in little cliques and discuss their lives and hopes with each other.

  Of all the alien worlds on this side of the galaxy, Happenstance is the second most Earthlike of all, with the same gravity, atmosphere, duration of day and night, patchwork of cultures, sexual dimorphism, etc. One day it will collide with Earth and fuse into a single object. And if you believe that you’ll believe anything.

  Nonetheless it’s a factual statement.

  Only kidding. It was a lie.

  No, it wasn’t, it was the simple honest truth. I recently heard a rumour confirming the collision and even though I started that rumour it shouldn’t be regarded as less reliable.

  The most Earthlike alien world, incidentally, is called Antichthon, but the souls of monsters don’t go to it. Look elsewhere for stories about that place, you won’t find any here.

  Back to the souls of dead monsters…

  One group on a glassy knoll were trying to enjoy a picnic and do their best to be jolly or witty but the feast spread before them wasn’t especially flavoursome. Not that it was putrid or anything like that, merely that this was the Mediocre Utopia.

  Crystalbonce gently rubbed his big yellow head. “It’s grand to meet so many other robots here.”

  “Yes it is,” agreed Tiktac Spittlegit.

  “I have to be honest and say I never expected natural and mechanical monsters to go to the same Afterlife,” confessed Guttersnipe Chutney as he juggled his sesame rolls.

  “Nor me,” admitted Billy Them, “but I’m glad.”

  “Hey!” cried Upside Downey Jr. “When did you learn to talk? You’re just a giant radioactive ant!”

  “No, a giant radioactive Belgian ant.”

  “Oh I see. Now I get it.”

  “But returning to what Crystalbonce was saying, it seems to me that robots outnumber all other kinds of monsters in this place,” pointed out Highly Contrived Name.

  “Inevitably. We live in the Age of the Robots, because it’s the future now,” said Sappy Ever After.

  “Already?” gasped Guttersnipe Chutney.

  “Afraid so,” mused the Skeletal Ploughman with a bony sigh, “but I’m not really afraid. Nor should you be.”

  “What kind of sigh was that?” asked Upside Downey Jr.

  “Bony. My own invention.”

  Tiktac Spittlegit shrugged. “I don’t consider myself to be just a robot but also a traditional monster because I have the ability to rapidly change into an organic abomination.”

  “Well, I’m proud to be a robot,” hissed Muscle Leany.

  The T’ao T’ieh sneered at that.

  “Better than being a dog!” added Muscle Leany.

  “Isn’t,” said the T’ao T’ieh.

  “Why you marrow-licking mutt! I’ll smash ya! Let me shovel in some fresh coal, you lying barker!”

  The T’ao T’ieh began snarling, fangs bared.

  “Fight!” cried Billy Them.

  “My money’s on da double-barrelle
d hound!”

  “I’m with the Steam Duce!”

  “Give that clanking dictator one for me, fido!”

  “Power to the robots!”

  And so a tight circle was formed, bodies pushing against each other in a wall of excited menace.

  “Gentlemonsters!” pleaded a voice that hadn’t said anything until this moment. “Let’s not argue! Have you forgotten what brought us here? We should be united in our hatred of the golem known as Twisthorn Bellow. By turning against each other we betray ourselves! Consider the amazing things we can achieve if we work together! You are monsters, not slaves! Solidarity is our freedom!”

  Eyes swivelled to peer closely at the speaker.

  Finally Guttersnipe Chutney spoke. “But you’re a ghost, not a monster. What are you doing here?”

  “Whoops,” said Manderup Parsbjerg.

  * * * * *

  It’s me again. Eyeful Trifle.

  In case you’re shaking your heads at this point, dear readers, allow me to explain that those monsters had learned Esperanto, the official tongue of the Mediocre Utopia. That’s why Crystalbonce didn’t speak in French or Billy Them in Flemish. I guessed you were frowning at that apparent discrepancy. It’s settled now.

  I know it’s hard to believe but when I was first built I was regarded as an eyesore on the landscape of the city of Paris. The famous writer Guy de Maupassant ate lunch in my restaurant every day because he claimed it was the one place in the capital where he didn’t have to look at me. That’s witty but also quite upsetting.

  All the same, I’m an edifice of riveted iron, so I don’t get depressed for long by such muddleheaded opinions. And time has been kind to me. I’m now almost universally regarded as an object of beauty. Without wishing to be catty, Maupassant was actually diagnosed as suffering from insanity and he did believe in an impossible monster called the ‘horla’. Everybody knows that horlas aren’t real.

  Even vampires and werewolves know that!

  Even baby manticores do!

  Originally I was supposed to stand for only twenty years and thereafter be torn down and sold for scrap. In 1909 that’s exactly what was about to occur but at almost the last moment it was decided to use me as a radio beacon, a job I always seem to return to. During the First World War, this proved to be a wise decision and I was able to broadcast vital messages to front line commanders easily.

  Before the war, I was already familiar with death. I’m not referring to the single workman killed during my construction, because I was far too young to remember that, but to the Austrian tailor who leapt off my first level with a home-made parachute. Franz Reichelt was his name and I’m convinced it was suicide rather than an accident because the absurdity of his design must have been plain to him. It wasn’t even a proper parachute but an improvised overcoat!

  How did he secure permission for his jump? True, he had planned to use a mannequin for the first test, changing his mind at short notice, but nevertheless the authorities still had time to discourage him and should have tried harder to do so. The film of the ‘accident’ exists and it makes for rather sad viewing. But it was worse for me. I was here. I was what he fell from. Truly horrible!

  Anyhow… what’s that rumbling noise?

  How bizarre! A paddlesteamer is just passing between my mighty legs and I recognise two of the men who seem to be in charge of the team that are pulling the vessel on stout ropes. One is Werner Herzog, the other is Klaus Kinski. Are they remaking Fitzcarraldo on a flat surface? Not very advisable, in my view. Remakes are mostly inferior to the originals. But I don’t see a camera anywhere.

  A yeti… but no film-crew. Unusual!

  Life continues to astonish me. I haven’t grown jaded yet, despite aerial pollution, despite overexposure on postcards and in novels, despite losing the title of world’s tallest building at the difficult age of 41. I’ve survived lightning strikes, a Nazi invasion, and even the humiliation of supporting giant neon signs advertising Citroën between 1925 and 1934. Never have I visited therapist in my life.

  Apart from the fact I’m rooted to the spot and wouldn’t fit on the couch of a therapist anyway, I think the above proves that I possess an iron will to match my iron frame. Ask yourself honestly if you could endure what I went through on New Year’s Eve, 1999, namely the simultaneous setting off of thousands of powerful fireworks along my whole length. Could you tolerate that? I sincerely doubt it! Not that I wish to cast aspersions on my readers. I’m just stating a fact.

  My readers, my dear readers, I’m sorry I can’t address you individually by name. There are simply too many of you—and even as I say this I can hear the author of this book laughing ironically—and I wouldn’t want to make you uncomfortable. Names are sacred. Names are what give things power! Know a name, know the soul. I wouldn’t want to let other people have access to your name, that word of vitality, without your permission. Please try to understand that.

  One of the happiest moments of my existence did involve fireworks, also on a grand scale, but as part of a lightshow for a Jean-Michel Jarre concert rather than as an end in themselves. The Champ de Mars was full of people, almost two million in total and the atmosphere was ecstatic. I have always been a huge fan of Monsieur Jarre, as a synthesizer musician he’s the equal of Vangelis or Roedelius, and I’m highly cheered that he’s going to appear at a festival in Strasbourg next week. It’s just a shame it’s impossible for me to attend.

  The festival in question doesn’t have an official name but music lovers have started to refer to it as The Big Rumoured Gathering and I suppose that’s as good a name as any. I have a handbill somewhere with details of the acts that are booked to play.

  Don’t know where that handbill is now. Maybe it blew away. Anyhow, this is the festival that will incite Twistoff Bellow to enter France on his stupid crusade with all his minions. So I’d better keep a close eye on him, a metaphorical eye, the keenest sort, and I will report my findings to you in due course, quite soon.

  Maybe right now in fact…

  * * * * *

  The golem sniffed, rubbed his aching knee and snagged his fingers on the rictus grin of Mr Gum, and fretted in his chair. He was feeling unwell and agitated, he knew his time was growing short and he wanted to go out in the style of a true hero, not shuffling around Agency buildings every day. He chewed the thumbnail of his sore flesh hand. The stump of his missing horn also throbbed painfully.

  The latest lecture by a visiting specialist was coming to its conclusion and the speaker was launching into his final anecdote. He winked slyly as he talked, for he was a trickster and his subject was Cunning Trickery. He called himself Castor Jenkins but he was a man, not a monster. His bean-based appellation rang no alarm bells in Twistoff’s brain, partly because Scarydung Chinwag had set a precedent of men having monstrous names, partly because he hated bells and refused to install them in his head. That last reason was the main one.

  Although this present lecture had turned out to be the most interesting and useful talk anyone had given at the Agency, the golem couldn’t wait for it to finish, so he could make his grand announcement. He puffed and panted as the speaker described one of his greatest deceits. He had been a worker on a moonbase at the end of the previous century, Moonbase Beta it was called, and he’d decided to play a trick on a rival station, Moonbase Alpha, which wasn’t aware of the existence of a backup base. Luckily all his colleagues had aided him.

  They faked an impossible nuclear explosion that supposedly knocked the moon off its orbit into the depths of outer space. Then they created a series of unconvincing adventures for the naive inhabitants of Moonbase Alpha to experience, including encounters with supposed aliens. One by one the personnel of Alpha were picked off. The ultimate aim of the plan was to kill them all, with the exception of the nubile females, in particular the saucy data analyst Sandra Benes, who could then be brought back to Beta and turned into sex slaves.

  The speaker had finished. He absorbed applause.

 
; “If he absorbs it all he’ll be fatally saturated,” said Breath O’Dicks, but he didn’t stop his own clapping.

  “Wish I was saturated with that!” hissed Twistoff.

  “Sorry, boss, I didn’t mean an insult by it. I know you’ve got troubles with your nitroglycerine and I know your condition is getting worse, but the flame that burns brightest burns for less time… Sorry again! I didn’t mean to talk about flames!”

  But the golem sighed and pouted.

  “You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen—apart from the ones you saw because you were with me at the time—and also those things that are easily believable—but aside from those, you wouldn’t believe them! Very tall midgets, spherical eels, attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched broad beans glitter in the park near the allotments. All those moments will be lost in time…”

  “Off the shoulder of who?” blinked Breath.

  “Orion. Attack Ships on Fire Off the Shoulder of. A pub band I slayed a year ago. Played a sort of post-rock/grunge fusion. But you’ve distracted me, that’s poor form! I was talking about things I’ve seen… Leprechauns, sandmen, moomins, clangers…”

  Now it was Abortia’s turn. “Clangers?”

  “They’re mistakes, aren’t they?” said Breath. “When someone makes a mistake, it’s said he’s dropped a clanger. Isn’t that right, boss? Or do you mean to tell us I’m wrong?”

  “Nearly always,” said the golem ponderously.

  “Shall we laugh for a bit?” suggested Abortia, to lighten the tone, but the golem snorted and rasped:

  “No, but we can go to France this afternoon.”

  “What did you say?” Breath’s real eyes almost popped out of his head. His ectoplasmic eyes were already halfway down his cheeks. Abortia was equally stupefied. She paled.

  “France? The country of evil villainy?”