by Steve Aylett
I spent days trying to prove that the creature had survived and was thriving in the surf, but all I found were thousands of eels. The eels were made of soft glass and were almost impossible to see in flowing water. Only their eyes gave them away, and those rare occasions they started singing. And when they sang, they would close their eyes. I told the local authorities about it and they just looked at me like I was mad. I even showed them photographs, which I stuck on the police station wall and pointed to with a stick, but the Chief of Police instantly shouted: ‘Get those things off the wall!’ And I had expected to be treated like a saviour.
I didn’t leave, but got bored sitting there so I started making a thin wet sound like a burning banana skin. This kept me amused for eleven minutes and then I shouted something in impatience. I think it was ‘Oh, god, let it end!’ or that kind of thing. Maybe ‘God I want to kill everyone!’ or like that. Several people looked aside at me like a wall of turbots.
During this whole time with the jellyfish, eels and police, I was supposed to be writing the opening chapter of LINT. Remembering this, I left the station and immediately saw a happy dog. From the flapping of its ears I thought the dog was running toward me but I realised it was just tossing its head up and down to send its ears flapping – it was looking eager and aglee having just discovered this crazy trick. It stopped as I approached, and I knelt down, putting my right eye directly against the dog’s. That’ll let him know, I thought – then became aware that the hound was sniggering to itself. ‘Ah you’re not worth it,’ I said aloud, straightening up.
‘I am,’ the dog whispered, looking up at me. ‘And you know it.’
And I thought, The abyss conceals.
At home, I looked at the screen. A mistake requires a minimum of two moving parts. A bug like a fingernail tremble-walked along the sill.
Three weeks later I was stumbling through smoke and the flopped bodies of three hundred swans, the sky filling with rejuvenated pteranodons bent on revenge. You take your life in your hands when you write one of mine. Should you look down at your own boots kicking through black coins, or up at the horizon patrolled by lies with bright yellow fins? Watched always by a red frog like a beating heart? The distractions are geometrically infinite, years of it receding. But you can leap over it. Riding on a lion whose jaws want you.
WHISPER
When I get bored I go up to a stranger and spin them to face away from me so I can count the disks in their spinal column. ‘Do not fear me,’ I whisper, ‘I am counting.’ Some strangers weep into their hands, some run - some cannot run fast enough to escape me. ‘Do not run from me,’ I whisper directly into their ears, ‘I am counting on you not to run. Do not fear me. I am counting.’ Some punch my face and stand over me, breathing hard. When I track them down and appear upon their doorstep I whisper, ‘Do not punch me, I will fall. Do not run from me, I am counting on you not to run. Do not fear me, I am counting.’ Some call the police and have me arrested and placed in to a prison. When I find them years later and stand at the foot of their bed, I whisper, ‘Do not call the police, they will arrest me. Do not punch me, I will fall. Do not run from me, I am counting on you not to run. Do not fear me, I am counting.’ Some club me to the floor, bind me with steel cable, set fire to me and roll me into garbage. When I return in their old age, a barely human remnant, I whisper, ‘Do not club me to the floor, bind me with steel cable, set fire to me and roll me into garbage, I will be harmed. Do not call the police, they will arrest me. Do not punch me, I will fall. Do not run from me, I am counting on you not to run. Do not fear me, I am counting.’ To understand, surely, is to forgive?
THE RETRIAL
Jeff Lint’s interpretation of Kafka’s The Trial was that the guilt felt by K - and depended upon by the state - derives from his having allowed the state to become so powerful in the first place. K therefore ultimately accepts his punishment.
In Lint’s story ‘The Retrial’, K feels no such guilt because he allows no such influence and storms into every circumstance like a berserk Touretter, somehow spanning the most chasmic beartraps by sheer velocity of mischief.
Lint’s K is a classic Lintian hero - individual to the point of parallel-dimensionality. In his novel Jelly Result Lint would portray the maintenance of oppression by automated human patch-and-repair, those dependent systems simultaneously and constantly preying on the life force of its maintainers. This is Lint’s idea of hell and he revels in the hero’s disengagement from it. His attempt at an Asimovian short, ‘The Robot Who Couldn’t Be Bothered’, portrays a robot whose apparently faulty inactivity is discovered to be the result of ‘eleven million nodes of personal consideration’. The entire second half of the novel I Am a Centrifuge is taken up with a volley of justified sarcasm so detailed and complete as to have its own visible lungs and nervous system. The hero in Lint’s story ‘Bless’ awakes one morning to find that he has no tentacles. Alarmed, he dashes out to discover that nobody else has any tentacles either and all claim in bafflement never to have had any. As Michael Hersh has observed, the metaphor points up ‘a moral or ethical sensibility which, unheld and unrecognized by anyone else on the planet, is not communicable’. In most Lint stories this sensibility is that of honesty and independent thought.
In ‘The Retrial’, Joseph K visits the zoo one morning to be greeted by two warders, Franz and Willem, who tell him he’s under arrest. He laughs good-naturedly, asking to see their underwear. They refuse, and this lack of reciprocity - their assumption that he must obey their commands while they need not obey his - is what seems to spark K’s apparently uncooperative attitude. An Inspector is stood scowling nearby but since no introduction or instruction is given and all is left to some unspoken assumption, K begins to shudder in place like a dodgy steam tank, his convulsions building as though toward some terrible outburst. At the apex his head sags like a bag, splitting to release precisely eleven scorpions on to the ground. K himself collapses like a rotted scarecrow and soon, kicked and scattered by the fleeing crowd, is no longer really in evidence. He is at the court, kicking the outer wall of the Usher’s cabin. ‘“I’m naked”, he thought, almost amazed: “First being born, and now this. No trousers for me.”’ When grabbed by K, the Usher sees that the complicated epaulets on K’s shoulders are actually the skulls of rabbits. He pleads with K to get off, that he has his own troubles, but K is adamant about doing what he sees as his duty. Finally four under-ushers try to pull them both out of the cabin but are foiled. The scene cuts to what appears to be several days later, as the Usher lays inert amid a jumble of steaming wreckage. There is a strange slamming sound as the Usher’s eyes start open.
Thus begins a course of what Jean-Marie Guerin has called ‘ecstatic disregard’ in relation to memo-level fascism: ‘Without this undercurrent of beatific irreverence it is impossible to pin down Lint’s Joseph K’s complete lack of need or desire to become involved with the processes of oppression. It should be noted also that the “berserk stenographer” style in which Lint relates the story is important in allowing these situations to actually appear less philosophically interesting than they are.’
Lint’s K tells the story ‘Beside the Law’, in which a man from the country comes to the door seeking admittance to the Law, but the guard says he can’t come in now. So the man constructs a precise replica of the door and locates it beside the first one, placing a sign above it for ‘$20 a blowjob’ and waiting for trade, which is brisk. Finally, when the guard at the first door is about to die, he asks why people stopped coming to his door. ‘That door could be profitable only for you,’ the man from the country says. ‘And now I’m going to close it.’
Like Kafka’s K, Lint’s has a mind of his own, but unlike that K, he has a breathtaking intuition for the lateral response: a sort of laser-guided effrontery. When asked where he was on a particular evening, K replies: ‘Well, I’ll tell you - if you have any money?’ Outraged, the Magistrate’s response is cut short by his perceiving what seems to be a mere sheaf
of undulating bacon fibres where K had previously been standing.
Anyone who has actually broken official protocol will know that at best it sends its agents into a sort of contentless whirl which does not have the vibrancy of honest panic, nor even that of genuine surprise - they seem merely to swerve from familiar bureaucratic rails onto some of the minor, less used branches of evasion. Nothing is ever changed, admitted or learned. Yet in the world of ‘The Retrial’ some effect can be had; perhaps by the sheer diagonal intensity of K’s responses. Consider the cathedral scene - while you or I might merely windmill our arms and puff our cheeks out a bit, K delivers a roundhouse to the priest by detonating into a perfumed cloud of dandelion seeds and buff-coloured smoke. The priest, who had been ‘smiling like a warship’ only seconds before, now crouches on the floor like a spider, ‘karking and keening’ - he seems to have been both deafened and confused by the blast.
Recent critics have suggested that the satirical accesses of Lint heroes are a result of intense tetraneutron activity, supposedly explaining their combination of precision and apparent chaos. Hypercomplex satire operates by applying social rules in the ‘wrong’ contexts such as those of logic, morality or honesty, and the four-prong tetraneutron cluster (the four neutrons of which will arrive simultaneously if fired at a carbon target) would seem the perfect structure for it - all the more entertainingly so as the phenomena’s existence is doubted. If you tweak the laws of physics to allow four neutrons to bind together, all kinds of chaos ensues (Journal of Physics, vol 29, L9). It would mean that the mix of elements formed after the big bang was inconsistent with what most people now believe and, even worse, the matter created would be far too heavy for the current model to cope.
The theory stated in Lint’s story ‘Death by Fred’ is that ‘sabotage is best accomplished by channelling bad luck’. In Lint, until you’re an individual, you’re not in contention. This is why Lint could never write about the sort of characters that appeared in other people’s books. Almost every scene has a sort of surreal exultation to it.
At the moment his case is due to be heard, K is watching the lions at the zoo, his eyes full of tears. Two men approach and, their arms entwined with his on either side of him, begin to walk him through the city. K begins smiling, the grin seeming to become broader than his face. Finally they arrive at an abandoned quarry. The two men take out a butcher knife and begin passing it to each other in a threatening manner. He is apparently supposed to take it and plunge it into himself. But without aid of the knife a red ace of hearts blooms at his chest and spreads quickly to stain his entire body and head. He has become a pillar of blood in the shape of a man, which soon becomes semi-transparent. It fades until only his Cheshire-cat grin remains, a miniature sunset which whispers echoing as it disappears: ‘Like a god!’
VOYAGE OF THE IGUANA
In the course of researching my unpublished novel Velvet Dogs I heard tell of an elderly gentleman who had in his possession a collection of ancient ship’s journals - first-hand records of the great days of sail – and resolved to seek him out and ask him if he would lend me some money. The hermit-like figure which greeted me in a Bristol attic some months later was nothing if not eccentric, as he sat in a corner stroking a dry fern. ‘This is one of my few remaining pleasures,’ he explained in a whisper, and embarked upon such a rampant fit of coughing that I feared he would expire then and there; he soon recovered, however, and told me the details of his life until I could barely see. Bringing the conversation around to the subject of finance I established that he had in his possession a full eighty pounds, and offered to invest this sum in porkbelly futures. One of the items he removed while kneeling to search through an old oak chest was a thick, leather-bound volume such as I had originally heard tell in connection with this slavering gentleman. Taking up and leafing through its autumnal pages, I immediately recognised its likely value. At my questioning its authenticity, however, the ancient man took sudden umbrage, producing an antiquated musket the size of a water buffalo. As I took my leave he blew a hole in the roof and a shaft of sunlight burst through, at which the old man hissed and threw an arm across his eyes. A month later I attempted to return the journal and to collect my eighty smackers but found the hermit’s house boarded up, and learned from a neighbour that he had been dragged to an asylum hollering that he was inflatable. Thus I inherited the text which is here entitled Voyage of the Iguana.
The log relates the events of the most undisciplined sea voyage in maritime history. Captained by a Samuel Light Sebastian in 1808 for the East India Company, it was rarely mentioned with anything less than hollering ire and stabbing daggers. An 1815 Naval Chronicle alludes to ‘Master Sebastian’ in an article entitled ‘Damnable Treachery’, but this probably refers to a later incident. The maudlin voyage of the Iguana surpassed any other for aquatic entropy - Havanans still speak of the ‘kennel’ which floated into the harbour in 1808, and their name for Sebastian cannot be translated.
It was his first log, though his second voyage as Captain - the first was that of the Phantom in 1807, which he boarded as Midshipman. When mutiny broke out and the Captain and Mate were set adrift in a barrel he took over the Captaincy in a daring stroke which apparently involved plying the crew with sixty gallons of rum and then wearing a bonnet so that everyone aboard mistook him for their mother. Bringing the ship into Blackwall Harbour he received a hero’s welcome and a commendation from the Board of Control, who in blind gratitude formally promoted him to Captain a year later.
As Captain of the Iguana his main occupation seems to be throwing empty bottles at passing Hammerheads, which he constantly asserts are ‘sneering’ at him. His term is characterised by languid indifference and a startling ignorance of seamanship - he was frequently known to give the order ‘Bows full to stern’, a manoeuvre which would entail sawing the ship into two equal halves and folding it into a sandwich. A short time into the voyage he seems uncertain as to the ship’s destination, cargo (tea probably) or name - the easygoing First Mate Leggahorn voices the opinion that ‘if we cannot remember it it cannot be important’. The crew ‘discharge pistols’ at each other, make parting remarks while leaping overboard, are attacked by cannibals and hallucinate rampantly. Most remarkable is the fact that they never thought seriously to take over command.
Many questions remain unanswered. What was the ship’s course? How could it make half the journey without ballast? What was so horrific about the native ritual performed on August 7th that it caused Sebastian and the First Mate to black out? And most intriguingly, where did Sebastian keep his log? - he seems never to be parted from it. Few clues are yielded by maritime records - Sebastian’s name seems largely to have been struck out of history. On returning to England in March 1809 he was frantically demoted to ‘man without honour abode or employment’ and it seems to have been a full two weeks before he was once again at sea, as Captain of a 54-gun store-ship which Lord Cochrane commandeered and deliberately blew up to surprise the enemy.
Steve Aylett
27th May. SSW. Sailed out of Bristol harbour with a fair wind. Introduced myself and First Mate Leggahorn to crew, who responded with mirth. One man stood peeing over rail throughout. Second Mate Forfang interrupted my speech by yelling an obscenity, at which crew erupted into laughter. Morale high.
28th May. SWW. High winds. Leggahorn lost his hat and seven men restrained him from leaping overboard to retrieve it. Remarked to young apprentice Batch that nothing excused such behaviour, at which point all eight men stumbled back and trampled us underfoot.
29th May. SSS. Heavy seas - Mr Byron continually turns his back on wheel and leans laughing at activities of crew as course deviates. Leggahorn and myself forced to separate Forfang and bosun fighting at entrance to saloon - Forfang hammered my head repeatedly against door as big sea came aboard and lifted Leggahorn and bosun on to the fore yard. Everyone swore like the devil. Mr Byron remarks that the incident will provide me with something to tell my grandchildren.
31st May. SSW. Drenching thunderstorms, big sea aboard, funeral for bosun marred by returns of body. Mizzen-boom sail blown to ribbons. Went to question cook as to hull damage, but he had the gall to say it was not his concern. Spirits raised by Forfang, who is still celebrating yesterday’s fair weather. Sent first mate aloft to look for funny clouds.
1st June. SWS. Ship snugged down, lower topsails, fore staysail, reefed fore coarse and spanker. Crew fighting on deck. Leggahorn told us at dinner an amusing story about man who was eaten by a panther. Giving bosun seven lashes for firing musket on deck but wind blew him overboard.
2nd June. NNE. Spoke to Forfang in my cabin about morale, but swinging lantern which struck head upset his mood and he pursued me about the table, until in a position to dash my head upon it, with access of loud laughter. Have determined to indulge in draughts tomorrow. Leggahorn seen hollering obscenities on the topgallant footropes.
3rd June. NNW. Trouble in galley due to lack of food. Stray barrel below burst and flooded passage with rum, at which crew fought to lie down, gurgling and yelling obscenities. Leggahorn and myself strolled deck in coats and seaboots, sat down to play draughts. Pieces vanished instantly upon opening case. Struggle getting back to cabin through men in passage.
4th June. NNS. Ventured above with ship’s dog, which flew overboard on being released for exercise. John Tunny tells me through blur of waves that it is a bad start to a voyage when one cannot tell where ship ends and sea begins. Agreed with a laugh, at which he took offence and waded away.