“Good day, Prime Minister of Giggles!” I said just loudly enough to put a crack in his facade.
He stepped quickly to whisper in my ear, “Not here, uncle. Not now. Please?”
“Of course. Of course.” I gave him reprieve, although I should have let him beg. “How does this fanciful day find you, Mr. Tsue.”
“Just well enough, Uncle Arthur.” He gestured to my umbrella, “Holding up well?”
“Oh, yes, indeed. Quite the envy of my colleagues.” I held up my umbrella with great pride. I turned to Geraldine, I asked her, “Geraldine? Have I ever told you about my umbrella?”
“Only once or twice this month so far, doctor,” Geraldine feigned a smile.
“Indeed, I do tend to show it off,” I explained to Mr. Tsue. I held my umbrella askew to show Geraldine the bottom of the handle, nearly knocking my nephew in the face, his name carved in an intricate pattern on its stub, Tsue, “This is Dominique, pardon me, Mr. Tsue, my nephew who crafted the blade of my umbrella. Quite the craftsman.”
“Oh, nice to meet you. Quite nice work, there. Interesting design.”
“Nice to meet you,” Mr. Tsue cracked, the corner of his mouth breaking just ever so slightly. “Uncle, Rotterdam would like a word with you.”
“Well, he can come over and talk to me, then,” I said flatly.
“He sent the message with me, of course,” he gave a look to Geraldine.
“I was on my way to find Professor Smalls, anyway. Good day.” Geraldine said as she gave a polite bow and was off into the crowd.
“You certainly do know how to dazzle them, Mr. Tsue,” I laughed. “I introduce you to a pretty girl and you want to talk business? Business from that bumbleheaded buffoon, no less? For shame.”
“Uncle Arthur, please.”
“People are going to begin thinking I’m associated with that ninny the longer you stand here, you do realize? Make it quick.” I said to him dryly, the joke being that Rotterdam and I looked fairly alike aside from the fact I was gray and he was red-haired. It was like having that evil twin so often amused about as an excuse for petty wrong-doings. Except these petty wrong-doings were instead greed-fueled theft and pillaging.
“This is a legitimate proposal. Rotterdam would like to hire you to lead an expedition into Northward Territories-”
I interrupted him abruptly and quite rudely, “What makes you think that I would be interested in working for that malcontent, devious, lying, wretched-minded, snivel bag?”
He stood for a moment, at a loss for words, but not for long, “Uncle Arthur, please do hear me out, the reward is substantial.”
“I don’t care about the pay. I refuse to work with or for that vile man.”
“I think we both know that your retirement won’t be long-lived. Is that what you really want? You want to retire?”
“Of course not.”
We both stood in silence. I relinquished a truth that was all too obvious, finally aloud, verbally, to a direct question. I had heard the sentiment from so many others that I finally felt that I had enough, and to confide in Mr. Tsue was a release.
“Then lead the expeditionary team. It’s merely surveying-”
I cut him off again, “No, thank you, Mr. Tsue. Must I remind you the man has tried to kill me?”
“Fair enough, uncle. If you change your mind, which I hope you’ll do, please contact me,” Mr. Tsue handed me his business card for easy referral.
I gave the card a brief once over, “Oh, quite the fancy-dancy showman,” I blatantly mocked him.
Mr. Tsue pursed his lips and refrained from saying something rude in return. Instead he took a breath, “Good day, uncle.”
“Toodles, my dear, boy!” I shouted as he walked off, “Toodles, indeed!” I hoped to embarrass him something terrible. That’s when I felt his eyes on me like daggers upon my flesh, Rotterdam, across the garden staring at me with such disdain. I gave a little wave, a twinkling of my fingers and I then moved on.
I made my way from University Square over to the adjoining garden courtyard where they were serving further refreshments along with tea. I took a cup and saucer for myself and brought it to the servermaton. The servermaton was designed to look like a butler or house servant, a tuxedo molded and shaped from copper and brass, nearly seamless looking. What the servermaton presented in beauty and design, it lacked in functionality.
I held my tea cup to the servermaton, “Seavenly black, please.”
“Indeed, sir.” The Servermaton held its arm outward as if it were holding a pot, it extended its ring finger and began pouring my seavenly as it cricked its wrist joint downwards. Then it veered to the right. I followed with my cup. And it veered back to the left. And I followed with my cup. Then it abruptly jerked back to the right and back left. I stepped back until it regained its composure.
“Settle yourself!” I gave a stern whisper to the malfunctioning automaton servant, “You’re making a spectacle of yourself, now.”
The servermaton evened out and I filled my cup. It rolled on to the next guest, a large, burly old gentleman, “Tea, madam?”
I strolled the garden grounds of the courtyard with my cup of seavenly. For the years I’ve spent on The University campus, I’ve always found the garden a soothing place of solitude and contemplation. There’s the faint sweet smell of the flowers, the open air of the courtyard, the architecture of the school, it was all modeled to give a feeling of somewhere far outside the metro. Just beyond these walls and offices and classrooms, a vast metro overcrowded and downtrodden, the difference between night and day.
Marie Haverthorne Courtyard sponsored by GreenWorks in affiliation with The University Department of Metro Beautification, I do believe there was a sign somewhere in the courtyard that relayed all this information and more. We simply referred to the area as Haverthorne Courtyard, or just the courtyard. I reference official MetroWorks metro maps for the surrounding metros when I write: there wasn’t another courtyard for quite a distance. It seemed apt to just call it the courtyard and not by its full given title after Marie Haverthorne (named thusly after she threw a fit to her father, Mayor of Haverton, George Haverthorne, because her sister Eunice had her name on more places around the metro than she- history does have the power to shame the guilty, does it not?).
In the far corner of the courtyard was a group of revelers, unfamiliar with the courtyard, there for the day’s festivities, admiring the carnivorous plants. A daft fellow in the group felt the need to poke and prod the largest of the flowers, the Farnickle Toothy Begonia. A large maldeviantized begonia, the Toothy Farnickle was a strong, beautiful, radiant flowering spectacle with purplish leaves, speckled with little white ovals, the petals one of a variety of vibrant colors.
The Farnickle stood about the height of an average adult-man. It stood with its mouth level to the man’s eyes, this particular flower stood with yellow petals which began slowly turning darker into a thick orange and then a deep red. The large bud at the center began to protrude ever so slightly, ever so slowly, most probably unnoticeable to those taken with the man’s tomfoolery as he wagged the flower by its long stem, thick and strong like a pipe, but flexible. (Prepared in the correct way, a stem can be tempered into a state of strength greater than the average steam pipe, though harvesting the flower is terribly dangerous).
As the man-child shook the flower, he turned to smile and guffaw to a lady. Perhaps this woman was his wife, I wasn’t certain. She seemed as daft as he, cackling and laughing as the dope shook the flower and made a funny, but dopey noise. The group watching along laughed politely at the man’s antics. He wasn’t from The University, nor was he an adventurer sort, but he looked to be from some hive within BureauWorks.
I stood there, at a distance, with my seavenly. I knew the man was toying with a deadly, maldeviantized plant; there was a sign, firmly posted in the ground, “Do NOT meddle.” It was quite clear. The sign itself was free of brush, painted white with black lettering. The message itself was quite
clear, as well. Do not meddle. Three words. Right to the point of the matter. If you were planning on meddling, interfering with the order of things, intruding in or on another’s business or affairs, just do not. Do. Not. Meddle. The sign was simply there to remind people that they should be on their best behavior. (It suddenly struck me that perhaps this man was a banker or a land baron or a politician and not someone from BureauWorks, someone daft enough to feel entitled to be at their worst at all times?)
As the man meddled and as he turned his head to smile at the woman, the Farnickle Toothy Begonia snapped to life quite literally. Within the fraction of a moment it took the bud to protrude just slightly, the plant reflexively sprung-to. The flower, not having eyes, sensed the man’s top hat to be his head. The Farnickle was able to sense its surroundings with fine, microscopic hairs covering its entire form. The hidden bud, that which hides the toothy mouth, has a concentrated mass of these fine hairs, different than stereoscopic vision and quite advantageous.
The Farnickle Toothy Begonia snapped to, tearing the man’s top hat from his head and chewing it into a wad of saliva-soaked hatting material. The saliva of the Farnickle broke down matter like acid, tearing and obliterating fibers effortlessly. The daft fellow was quite taken aback and his lady friend screamed a short, but awful, shriek.
I chuckled as I tried cooling my cup of seavenly by blowing on it. The daft fellow straightened his jacket awkwardly as he embarrassingly looked to the crowd laughing at him, now sincerely and uproariously. He used his fingers to smooth out his matted hat-hair.
“Leave it to a fool to taunt a bloodthirsty flower,” a woman’s voice sounded from behind me. I turned to find the woman who was sitting with Rotterdam, the young blond woman who must have had quite possibly the worst taste in companions.
“Hello,” she was quite striking and I found myself stunned for but a brief moment, “Indeed, yes. And believe it or not, this was a tamer strain of flower. How awful one must be to retrieve the beast from the tame.” The woman smiled and I introduced myself, “Monocle, Dr. Arthur Monocle.” (A point to young men, if introductions have not been made, introduce yourself while she’s smiling.)
“Oh, pleased to meet you, I’m Dorothy Shelton. I actually do know who you are, Dr. Monocle. I do think everyone here knows who you are.” She was quite a pleasant woman.
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t presume. I did see you, though, sitting with my cousin, Rotterdam.”
“Yes, I’m here as his guest,” she said rather vaguely to my chagrin. “I just came over and wanted to let you know that I’m a beloved follower of your work. I admire you very much.”
“Really? Have I had you in any of my classes? Surely I would have remembered your face.”
“No, no, Doctor, I took my studies in Southland. Besides it was during a time when you were away from teaching that I was enrolled.” She held a petite umbrella to shade her from the sun and would twirl it from time to time, almost hypnotically. “Which reminds me, Sir Doctor, I’m quite interested in your lecture series this summer.”
“Well, it is tentative, I am sorry to say. I hope you didn’t have your heart set on attending.” I dryly said.
“Oh, that is too bad. You don’t think you’ll be lecturing?”
“I am uncertain at this juncture.”
She carefully collapsed her umbrella and allowed the petite thing to hang from the wrist of her left arm as she took my hands, rattling my cup and saucer, “Well, it really was quite a pleasure to meet you, Dr. Monocle.” She held each of my hands firmly before she took off. It was slightly awkward as I was about to take a sip of tea. In my left hand, a saucer; in my right hand, my cup of seavenly. “I do hope you will continue through with the series.”
“Well if I do, then I hope to see you there.” I smiled. I did so want to ask her what she saw in that hideous cousin of mine. What kind of guest of his was she?
“I must be off,” and off she fluttered away back to Rotterdam.
My hands now free, I attempted another sip from my cup only to be bumped from behind by the servermaton. My tea went flying from my cup and I nearly fell face forward.
“Seav-en-ly, for you to-day, sir?” The servermaton asked in a broken tone.
“No, no thank you,” I patted the wet spot on my jacket. “I’d rather you be far away from me.”
“Cer-tain-ly, sir,” The servermaton rolled away, “good day.”
I reached into my jacket pocket and removed the envelope I had put there earlier. Fortunately it wasn’t terribly wet, neither was my little pocket notebook. I gave the envelope a quick once over again and I almost opened it there, but reconsidered as the band began to sound noting the end of intermission.
I would have liked another cup of seavenly, dearly, but the time called to send off the young lads into the mysterious world. The Bewilderness, as I so amusingly referred to the art of the exploration of the unknown in my book, Bewilderness And You, A Traveller's Guide. Into the great unknown, the spark that lights within us all.
8
Few copies still exist, but The Bewilderness & You, A Guide for Traveler’s was a concise cataloging of the world in which we live, but rarely see. Paraphenomenon was a topic greatly covered in this book, the subjects ranging from flame manipulators to those who claimed contact with the dead to automatons acting out of their programmified parameters. Although there was a focus on strange flora and fauna, as well; animals, plants and flowers, which are rare to our eyes as metro-dwellers and just peculiar in a general sense of the matter. The Bewilderness was a great work of the strange and fantastical.
Before you claim me a quacktankerous old fool, I’ll have you know without a doubt, that I am a debunker, first and foremost. You may claim spirits, but I’ll prove a shoddily framed window that produces a gentle breeze, but one strong enough to push a door closed. There are those who claim powers of the mind, powers which can move objects without physical interaction, and I’ll show poorly staged magic tricks with the use of thin wires and magnets. And there are those who tell stories of maldeviant or underdwellar encounters that turn out to be nothing more than outrageous exaggerations bordering on racially implicit fabrications, and at times, flat out lies, maldeviants being an easy target for those prone to a tall tale.
In fact, a great deal of the book was devoted to maldeviant cultures, including that of maldeviantized underdwellars.
Maldeviantism was indeed a strange affliction, so it only seemed suited for Bewilderness. Most medical doctors believed heavy, inner-metro pollution was the cause of maldeviantism. It affected all animals great and small. I suppose, lifeform mutation, would best cover it, but never call a maldeviant a mutant, like a slur to their ears. The term, freak, was also a term of slander.
Maldeviantism ranged from the minute in appearance to the strangest of talents, talents that seemed based in paraphenomenon. Sometimes three eyes. Or extra appendages. Maybe less appendages. Tentacle appendages. Malformed features. Maldeviant traits also include a great temper at times. They also tend to be prone to violent outbursts, are usually distrustful and dishonest, and often a bit dastardly. Then again, so can be the most gentlemanly of men.
While appearance varied greatly among individuals, the talented and gifted were few and far between. The clever and crafty, often times tricksters, it was sometimes hard to distinguish between a faker and the real thing. Those I have come across who had so-called talents were not very interesting, to say the least. Bums who would claim great feats of splendor only to produce a ho-hum show of simple stage trickery.
Now, it must be said, all underdwellars are maldeviants, but only some maldeviants are underdwellars. An underdwellar being that which lives below the surface, from the sewers to the work tunnels, to the metros of past which were built on top of. There were underdwellars who have carved out their own underground tunnels beneath the countryside. Underdwellars living in old mine shafts. At any time in your travels, there could be a colony of underdwellars right below your very feet.<
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Now, I do consider myself a man of science and history, a man of world studies, the arts and the humanities, but I will be the first to step forward and examine that which is labeled as paraphenomenon. I do suppose there were always many aspects to that which I studied which involved paraphenomenon in one way or another. It is that which is strange to be that which I find so alluring.
Unfortunately only a few copies of The Bewilderness were printed for use as a textbook and most of those copies have been lost to time, or eaten. And, as it happens, I lent out my only copy to a student some many years ago and haven’t seen it since. Haven’t seen the student either, for that matter. University Press sponsored by PrintWorks doesn’t have a master to reprint from either. My field notes for the book is all I have left, but those have been out of order and out of date for ages. Perhaps sometime in the future I will take it upon myself to rewrite Bewilderness, perhaps turn it into a weekly piece for The Gazette.
Through exploration, I knew mysteries would be solved while new mysteries would arise. I was envious of these young men on stage. I wanted to go with them. I wanted to fill entire volumes with discoveries. I hoped for them, the sense of wonderment that filled my being.
9
The page is such a daunting task. Reminiscing and remembering. Strolling through old journals and field notes, it takes a melancholy turn, veering into realms long forgotten. Everything becomes a reminder of something else. Odd associations and ideas long lost can plague a recollection.
Alas.
I was caught somewhere between here and there when I heard my name called and the audience politely applauded. Harold gave me a further nudge to awaken me from my daydreams. I stood and acknowledged the crowd with a gentle wave of the hand. I sat back down.
“Napping were we?” Harold whispered to me.
“I suppose my mind was elsewhere.”
Spectacular Moments of Wonder with Dr. Monocle: That Certain Gentleman Page 8