Get Lucky

by Hugh Macnab

imagine the effort required to set up and run such an amazing place. He was so involved that only when Bb thought-shouted for him to stop, did he realise that he’d gone too far. Turning, he saw Bb hovering some distance behind him, outside a large flashing building. Not lit with flashing lights, the building itself was flashing – and brilliantly coloured at that. Red, blue, and green he recognised. The others he couldn’t put a name to.

  Bb indicated the building and disappeared inside, shouting over his shoulder. ‘Come on.’

  Afraid he would get lost, Shylock thought-accelerated too fast in his panic and overshot the entrance banging head-first into a large inflatable transparent bubble. Cursing, he turned and started back for the entrance more carefully.

  ‘No need to thank me!’ said a voice from behind.

  Surprised, Shylock turned to see who had spoken.

  ‘I mean, I know it’s my job and that, but a little courtesy never did anyone any harm now, did it?’ said the diaphanous safety-balloon. ‘Just because it’s my job to prevent injury through thought-miscalculation, doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings just like everyone else.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Shylock, embarrassed by his lack of thoughtfulness. ‘I didn’t realise you were someone.’

  ‘Oh fine!’ objected the crystalline vesicle. ‘Now you add insult to injury!’

  Suddenly aware of the attention he was getting from everyone around, Shylock apologised as best he could, but his victim was fast working himself into a frothy state. Small bubbles were breaking out all over his outer surface and a foamy spray was issued with every further word.

  ‘Look,’ said Shylock, in his most placatory tone. ‘Please don’t get in a lather. I didn’t mean to shake you up.’

  ‘J…us..t (pop)..doi…(pop)..ng my..(pop)..job,’ the inflatable said.

  ‘I know,’ said Shylock. ‘You told me…’

  But without any warning the air-bag burst with a loud BANG!, spraying everyone within range with a clear gelatinous goo, including Shylock.

  To his surprise, a loud cheer went up from the surrounding crowd as they slipped into a wild licking-frenzy, tongues and other nameless organs flicking out at the nearest sticky residue and frantically stuffing it back into their assorted orifices, as he watched astonished.

  It was Bb who interrupted him. ‘Can’t take my eye off you for a moment, can I?’ he asked, rhetorically. ‘Come on. I want to show you my favourite business.’

  Shylock followed Bb into what appeared to be a saloon, complete with swinging doors and a long bar down one side of the room. The room was crowded. Life-forms of all shapes and sizes were packed in, some on top of others, all inter-linked but at best like pieces of mismatching jigsaws - all watching the activity at one familiar small round green-baize table. Before he could say anything, Bb signalled to him to be quiet and watch. The room fell into an absolute hush.

  At one side of the baize-covered table sat a small dragon, a puffy white cloud and an elevated number one. With a pack of cards at the other, stood a remarkably good impression of the mad-hatter! Around Shylock’s own height, the card-dealer (a shifty eyed, dodgy character if ever there was one) wore a brown long-tailed jacket over a dark green waistcoat and a white ruffle-necked shirt. He was sporting an over-large, polka-dotted bow tie and a tall cylindrical (creased in the middle, and generally much abused) grey hat.

  Tall hat had placed a card face-down on top of the green baize and was waiting for one of the members of Infinity Resources Inc. to say something. The silence was absolute. Shylock couldn’t hear a single breath, apart from his own. Even Bb’s tongue darted in and out of his mouth, licking creamy goo gobbets from his coat, without a single slurp.

  Mass was the first to speak, and when he did he uttered a monotonically phenomenally long string of numbers. In fact so long, that Shylock had time to have a full eight-course dinner (which Bb ordered for him) and return just in time to catch the end.

  …one, six,’ finished Mass.

  Still absolute silence from the crowd, although Shylock felt he could cut the excitement with a sharp blade of grass.

  The mad-hatter, slowly lifted the single card and flipped it face-up onto the table revealing an amazingly long number which although too big to fit on the card, somehow still managed to reveal itself in entirety. Bb explained that as each person read the individual numbers, the following digits were automatically revealed to them, and sooner or later everyone would get to the end – some quicker than other’s (an opportunity many took for side wagers).

  ‘Now Jonah will read it aloud for the mind-blind,’ explained Bb

  ‘Jonah?’ Shylock asked, surprised.

  ‘That’s right,’ replied Bb, with a gleaming smile. ‘One of my better …errr, arrangements’.

  ‘Jonah works for you?’

  ‘Well, let’s just say we have a tax-free arrangement. I thought that as he has to record everything that happens anyway, and after all, he is all knowing - I thought he might enjoy pulling up random-infinite numbers for the lottery,’ Bb explained. ‘Besides, he’s probably the only person around here with sufficient memory to store real infinite numbers anyway.’

  ‘This is your lottery, as well as everything else?’ Shylock asked, flabbergasted.

  ‘What do you think? Neat isn’t it…and profitable too! I run a lot of it with franchises,’ Bb grinned. ‘Now, let me see…what was it you were looking for again? Ah, yes! Ice-cream. Come on old friend. Let’s go…tune-in!’

  Before Shylock could even reply, Bb reached into his mind, intertwined thoughts, and whisked him back out into the cacophonous fair-ground - rushing him headlong through a heterogeneous gallimaufry of carnival, festival and market-place.

  This time when Bb stopped, it was so suddenly that Shylock’s thought-momentum literally ripped him free and hurled him a fair additional distance before he could regain control and return to where Bb hovered, patiently waiting. He was standing underneath a large fluorescent Mr. Whippy sign. Shylock noticed the familiar sign with relief. At last, he was beginning to get somewhere. Of late, he was finding it harder and harder just to simply remember what it was he was looking for and why. Even thinking this, it took him a few moments to recall the twins and the Sandworm.

  ‘So,’ Bb, was saying, indicating the ice-cream parlour. ‘My part of our tip-top and most excellently-profitable arrangement. Two cones with chocolate flakes - on the house. Now, if you no longer have need of my services, I’ll be off’.

  Mr Whippy

  Entering the parlour, Shylock immediately slipped and lost his footing, landed on his amply protected rump and slithered to a halt at the far side of the ice-coverd floor.

  Looking around dazed, he felt as if he had been transported to the North Pole with ice and snow everywhere…and the air so cold, that his teeth were already chattering uncontrollably and his nose rapidly freezing over.

  Rubbing his nose with considerable enthusiasm, he examined his surroundings in more detail. Above him, the ceiling arched high into a dome carved from solid-ice, embellished with most-intricate tutty-fruity ornamentation. To each side, the walls were decorated with multifarious flavours…strawberry, vanilla and chocolate ripple he recognised, but the others - one of which formed a proboscidiferous extrusion which stretched out and sniffed him all over - were unusual to say the least.

  Realising he had a transportation challenge ahead of him if he wanted to get to the serving counter at the other side if the room, he thought of himself as wearing snow-shoes, and magically they appeared – on his hands! Cursing under his breath, for he didn't want to offend the walls (he was slowly, but definitely, learning), he made a mental note to be more precise with his future thoughts, and to prove his point, thought-moved the shoes to his feet.

  Standing, he managed to shuffle across the treacherous ice-floor to the counter where he was immediately greeted by a tall red plastic spoon. ‘Can I take your order?’ it asked.

  ‘Two cones please,’ Shylock asked, totally un-phased by the
appearance of a talking spoon, which - if he’d taken time to think about it – may have worried him.

  ‘Sorry, no cones left. Will tubs do?’ asked the dispensing utensil.

  Shylock nodded his consent. The spoon bent in acknowledgement, then turned to the ice-cream dispenser immediately behind itself. ‘With or without chocolate flakes?’ it asked, twisting it’s handle around.

  ‘With, please,’ Shylock replied, reaching over the counter and helping himself to a handful of napkins and some small plastic spoons in preparation.

  ‘HELP, HELP!’ cried the spoonettes.

  ‘KIDNAP, KIDNAP!’ yelled the serving spoon, turning and dumping Shylocks ice-cream tubs on the counter in alarm.

  ‘THIEF, THIEF!’ shouted the walls, in harmony.

  HEAVY, HEAVY!’ howled the ice-floor under foot, not sure how it could add to the already extensive list of accusations.

  Panicking, Shylock immediately released the spoonettes, and grabbed the ice-cream tubs from the counter.

  ‘OUCH, OUCH!’ cried the spoonettes as they bounced on the ice below.

  ‘OUCH, OUCH!’ screamed the ice.

  ‘THEIF, THEIF!’ hollered the wavering red spoon. ‘HE HASN’T PAID!’

  Amazed at how difficult it was to run in snow-shoes, Shylock shuffled as quickly as he could towards the door, pushed it open and without turning back, yelled above the cacophony of cries. ‘PUT IT ON Bb’S TAB!’

  Armed with the ice-cream, he thought