by L. T. Hewitt
The Fez Journeys On
L. T. Hewitt
Also by L. T. Hewitt:
NOVELS
The Fez (2012)
POETRY
Black or White Checks (2012)
The Fez Journeys On
By L. T. Hewitt
Copyright 2013 L. T. Hewitt.
Chapter 1
“Wow,” said the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack.
Three of his friends had just vanished. That would generally be a sufficient reason to say ‘wow’ at the very least. But that wasn’t the most shocking or wowable part; the Space Chicken knew how the Fez worked. The reason for his interjection towards no-one with ears was that the person he had expected to open the Fez had joined the ranks one of those who failed to do so.
It all added up perfectly, he told himself. One letter different from being a future leader, but he was just an average Joe, albeit an alien one. Dave Gray, the Space Chicken’s companion for the journey to the Fez. David Gratton, the dystopian leader. It was widely accepted that they weren’t the same person, and (peculiarly) they weren’t. Dave Gray was a completely unspecial alien. It’s a shame; he would have made a good Prime Minister.
But it wasn’t like that, the Space Chicken thought. This wasn’t a good thing. Quack had told him that this future leader David Gratton was a bad person. Or at least a bad leader. But they were essentially the same thing. What Quack said is that he’ll bring about a new country. While improving the country and making a new one would usually be a good thing, David Gratton was actually going to replace Britain. It would not be a ‘new’ country so much as a new country. So the Space Chicken had to stop Gratton before he gained the power to create a new country. And, apparently, the power was stored within the Fez.
If I could stop Gratton, thought the Space Chicken, perhaps Dave Gray could become the Prime Minister instead. But he was gone. Dave Gray had pressed the wrong button and had been transported home. It was all a big, sudden shock. And the Space Chicken needed to tell someone about it.
‘I’m shocked,’ he shared telepathically with his son, Fred Jr. As usual when he was lost, he was lost for words, so he said the obvious. 'I'm shocked. You don’t seem shocked. Are you?’
A crack appeared in Fred Jr.’s shell. A sign of confusion and, possibly, shock.
‘You’re not hatching, are you?’ the Space Chicken asked excitedly.
‘I am constantly hatching all the time. It may take several weeks or even months before I fully hatch.’
‘Oh,' the Space Chicken sighed. The shock he was presently engaged in was quite tiring, and he had been hoping for some nice relaxing elation instead. In times of great peace, he sought distress. 'I’d better ring Quack and see if He has any problems to trouble me with.’
‘That is rather pessimistic.’
‘Well, I’m not solely asking after his issues,’ the Space Chicken explained. ‘I’m going to trouble Him with my problems as well as asking about His. Holy Sock, how selfless do you think I am‽’ he exclaimed, offended.
Fred Jr didn’t respond and the Space Chicken falsely took this to mean he had succeeded in his side of the discussion, as he had observed in many others facing ignorance.
“Hello,” he said aloud over the phone. “It’s me, the Space Chicken.”
“Ah, hello. How are you?” Quack responded.
“I’m a little confused.”
“How, pray tell, exactly did you get confused in trying to find somebody?” This may have been too melodramatic. To a god’s mind, it could never have been dramatic enough. Life, after all, is the drama which gets in the way of being.
“I thought Dave – you know, normal Dave – was David Gratton. He’s not.”
“Well, you can just carry on your search," Quack said simply. "Oh, and if you get the chance could you also stop a man known as Michael Rowland Daffodil?”
“Flipping Quack, Quack! How am I meant to stop all these people? I only rang You up to ask where to go.”
“I was just saying,” He justified. “For now you can just loiter around the Fez and I’ll give you further instructions later. You shouldn’t come across either of the people I have asked you to search for now,”
He hung up. The Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack looked at his son. Fred Jr looked at his dad – or at least would have, had he any eyes, so performed the closest gesture possible, which wasn't very close at all. ‘I guess all we can do now is wait.’
Chapter 2
It’s a well known fact (amongst teenagers) that parents of teenagers are annoying. Regardless of whether or not they have done anything wrong, the parents will be blamed of any and all ills present upon the surface of most planets. This is excluding, of course, those celestial bodies which consist many of plant life, and the moons of Joi which are solely inhabited by the more ignorant and careless of all creatures, ladybirds. Moving these set scenarios aside, we are left with a great many worlds where parenthood is the sole target of most angst.
Clint and Clein arrived at their house in Carpe Yolu. The two seventeen-year-olds had a chance to break free from their lives of cohabitating with their irritating parents. They were both very disappointed that they hadn’t pressed the right button on the Fez. They had two shots at success – more than most people – both of which were arguably just for one person. In fact, there could be great debate as to whether Clint’s pressing of a button followed by Clein’s attempt gave them an unfair advantage. The question of whether that was one attempt each, or one combined effort for two chances possessed by one thinking mind formed the basis of a whole academic module in the Philosophy/Statistics course at the University of Darrkwonn, Atheia. It wasn’t strictly unfair, since everyone had as many attempts as they liked to seek down the Fez and to push a button, and Clint and Clein – even though they were intelligent twins with identical minds and bodies – had soldiered each mass of flesh they possessed (henceforth, otherwise and formatively referred to as a ‘human body’) forwards in parallel motion. Regardless of whether the two twins were defined as one person or two, their mother had undeniably given birth to two bodies, both of which (seventeen years later) had walked towards the Fez and collectively used two of the twenty fingers developed from their parents’ offspring to make an attempt to open the Fez.
The debate is entirely flawed, however, as there is neither a rule by the Fez Society nor a physical restriction which prevented each person from making more than one attempt to open the Fez when they visited. You could quite easily and acceptably, for example, spread out your body to enable you to press all the buttons your front side allowed. This is quite difficult when the Fez is moving away from you, but if the Fez is coming your direction, you can quite easily stand there, spread out and allow the force of several dozen people all pushing the Fez a metre at once crush you and prevent you from being able to comfortably exist for several days. The only problem this might present is that your pushing at many buttons simultaneously would (assuming they were all the wrong ones) send the Fez at least ten metres back in the direction from which the majority audience of the Fez was pushing, resulting in all those people being pushed into the Fez and into each other. As a direct consequence of all these people crashing front-first into the Fez’s buttons at once (assuming none of them press the right button), the Fez would then fly off a few kilometres in the direction in which the first inconvenient pusher had been standing. Needless to say, if you want to push a button on the Fez, but don’t want to anger thousands of people, it’s best just to follow the crowd.
Clint and Clein were considerably angry, although they themselves had only pressed two buttons and had managed to anger nobody but themselves. They moped around for a while, in a manner typical of sullen teenage boys, before d
eciding to moan a little at a friend – the route commonly chosen by people aged under… by people of any age.
"And then we got sent all the way back home!" Clein cried, as though it were the most indignant thing anybody had ever heard of. Percietta, on the other hand, had heard plenty more indignant things, but played up to Clein's emotions for the foolish sake of friendship.
"Oh, sounds bad," said Percietta.
"It's stupid."
"Sounds it."
"Rubbish."
"Who, me?" asked the offended schoolfriend.
"No, 'it'."
"What?"
The intelligent twins both sighed at their own lack of cohesion. "The fact that we got the wrong buttons is rubbish, because it means we got sent…" That was when Clein had the idea. The marvellous idea, which would go on (as many seemingly trivial ideas do) to shape the whole world. And, being his intelligent twin, Clint had an idea, too. The very same idea.
Clein put down the phone. "Do you think it will work?" he asked his twin, knowing exactly what the answer would be.
"I can only hope so."
Chapter 3
Waiting is an essential part of life. We wait before making any big decision. Or, at least, we should. When we enter a shop and choose which item to buy or whether to buy any at all, we are given a queue which (much to the shopkeepers' dismay) allows customers time to think and evaluate our choices. As we wait for food to cook or hair to dry (or, unfortunately often, the adverse), we have time to think about everything. Sometimes to think about cooking, but mainly about roughly everything in general. And on 85th Quinquomber 2042 – just like the customary cooking pauses in restaurants he hated so much, but which allowed bother-makers and eaters the vital time to think or do – the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack had to wait.
"It seems we spend a lot of our time waiting," the Space Chicken sighed. "Don't you agree, Fred Jr?"
'It is an essential part of any undertaking.'
“I suppose. I just wish waiting served some purpose.”
‘It provides one with time for reflection.’
“I suppose.” The Space Chicken sighed again. “If you knew where David Gratton was, you’d tell me, right?”
‘Certainly; that is to say I would co-operate providing I were certain my telling you would be of absolute benefit to the opposing party and to yourself.”
“Ah.” The Space Chicken frowned. “So, you probably wouldn’t tell me if you knew?”
‘It depends entirely upon the fulfilment of the criteria I just specified within the circumstance.’
“Ah,” the Space Chicken said, nonplussed again. “So, would you tell me if you knew?”
‘I may inform you that I know, if I ever do.’
The Space Chicken was by this point almost entirely perplexed: he would have been completely bewildered were it not for the fact that he could still remember most of the alphabet. “Do you know where David Gratton is?”
‘No.’
“I’m not sure I believe that. Ah, who cares? I have faith in you.”
‘That appears to me to be rather foolish. Faith proves nothing.’
“Faith means that we know Quack exists and can be trusted.”
‘The fact that I know Quack means I know Quack exists. If I did not know Quack, I may suspect He did not exist. Even then I would need evidence, for faith can be foolish in any direction. If I had no evidence for or against any being beyond this universe, I would be forced into remaining ambivalent. This is the case with those beings beyond the realm of gods. God, for instance; the notion of an ultimate creator has (in this world) no evidence in support or against. Thus – whilst I may certainly form an opinion based on guesswork – to make a definitive claim that a God does or does not exist would be incredibly foolish, and render me a fool.’
The Space Chicken looked at Fred Jr blankly. “I’m too tired for this. I’m always too tired for this. Can I just have a hug?” Fred Jr obliged.
Just then – like a fieldmouse tap-dancing its intrusion into a dinner party which soon becomes both disgusted and impressed with the talent on display and the relevance of formal art at a fancy dinner, leading to an overwhelming level of awe, crushing the disgust, and subsequently overthrowing the whole working of the organisation at tea in favour of a greater focus on art and wildlife, all because of a simple idea and a dash of waiting – a quiet voice began nearby the prophet and his son. “Excuse me.” They looked around and saw a large, togaed, blonde, curly-haired lady with standing next to them.
“Yes, Oprah?” the Space Chicken responded. He was quite shocked to see her there. However, the number of shocks that day had already exceeded its limit, with the result that his voice would have ended the sentence in an upwards squeal regardless of whether it was a question or not. “What did you want?”
“Have we met somewhere before?” Oprah asked the Space Chicken melodramatically.
The Space Chicken sighed and attempted to shake the confusion from his head. He wasn’t very successful in doing so, but was vastly entertaining for anyone watching. “Maybe we’ve met, maybe we haven’t. It depends on whether we’re talking about your timeline or mine.”
“Well put. I’m glad someone understands me.” She calmed her tone from the level of opera teacher to that of musical sales assistant – a very minor change usually, but significant when you hear the two contrasted. The latter tone is usually preferable, surpassed in terms of vocal madness among people with melodramatic voices only by that of the enthusiastic cellist. Combined, the range available to such people makes up the tonic trio. “I am Ms O. Piano. I have been travelling around with my septet of musicians from the land of Humm.” She gestured to the ‘people’ in robes behind her. “We were looking for a vehicle in which to further our voyages to distant lands.” The Space Chicken frequently remembered his resentment towards his mother’s excessive use of speech, and the memory cropped up again every time Oprah used an unnecessary description in place of a word readily accessible in the dictionary. “When such luck we discovered to be bestowed upon our very selves! Here before us was the magnificent specimen which is your deluxe 2040 Speedvan F81. Are you currently in the possession by which this automobile is your own?”
“No,” the Space Chicken said abruptly, before the women found another opportunity to throw in description of something right in front of him. “By all means, take it.”
With that, the Humnian Musicians gave their greatest thanks (which they referred to as their ‘heartiest’), climbed into the Speedvan and set off into space. The Space Chicken resumed with full force what he had been doing: waiting around and half-heartedly looking for David Gratton and now Michael Rowland Daffodil.
Chapter 4
Clint and Clein packed their bags with lots of food and promptly began to put everything they owned into two identical suitcases. They thought about this. Did they really want to lug all their possessions around with them, when they could just return here to get anything if they needed it? They took most of their things out the suitcases again, deciding they would come back and visit. As is the way with packing for travels, this process took an unmeasurably long period of time, extended primarily by the hypnosis of identical items passing back and forth before their eyes and by the tremendous boredom of allowing oneself to reach such a state wherein one questions whether or not clothes are a necessity. They put a large quantity of their possessions back in again. They then took it out a further few times. After mixing things up a bit more, they eventually decided what to take and what to leave. ‘We’ll come and visit’ was soon the philosophy. They concluded upon taking only the necessary things. This was a strict rule, bent only to include their conjoined-twin teddies, Julian and Stella.
When they reached the hallway, they were stopped. A plump woman with messy brown hair and big, vacant yet interested eyes stood before them, looking lost and bewildered. She moved quite gracefully for her size and appearance. This woman would take the news of their departure hardest
of all.
“Where are you going?” she squawked, scrunching up her dress and staring through to the back of their skulls as she spoke.
“Mum,” said Clint, “we are going away to find the Fez.”
“You’ve just bin!”
“No, that was just a trip,” Clint scoffed. “This is an expedition. We are going away to search for the Fez permanently.”
“You mean yer leaving ‘ome?"
"That should actually be literally ye're," Clint said, attempting to scoff.
"Actually, it should be you’re,” said Clein.
“But yer too young!” Oprah cried, making the same mistake again, under the forced belief (since she could not comprehend what Clint and Clein were talking about) that no subordinate conversation had occurred.
“We’re seventeen! Most people leave home when they are our age.”
The scholar Krakennorm once performed a series of studies into the variety of reasons why boys and their mothers so easily get into arguments. He looked into the psychology behind trivial annoyances, he analysed childhood development and the onset of adolescence as a springboard for disagreement (with a particular focus on the nature of opinion-forming in the teen years as a significant factor in argumentative passion), but most importantly he sat in living rooms and at dinner tables while families bickered over slouching and eating habits (i.e. ‘don’t slouch at the dinner table’ and ‘don’t have bad manners in the living room; that’s what dinner tables are for’).
Krakenorm’s research appeared to be a great success, but as the document neared its publication, his mother found it and was not best pleased. She feared the work would portray her in a negative light. Instead of acting rationally and releasing an opposing paper (as most parents would), she confronted her son and asked him why he was such a waste of space – an irrational concept, of course: in an infinite amount of space, none can be said to be wasted. Failing to provide an adequate response, Krakennorm the son promptly got into a heated argument with his mother, inevitably eating the research paper and asking, “Is this what you want? Is this what you want?” It wasn’t. The whole debacle ended up being pointless, succeeding only in contributing to the vast wealth of uselessness in the universe. And, even then, any countable amount of uselessness in an infinite amount of space is only noticeable in high concentrations. It also resulted in the latterly popular phrase and one-time dictionary entry ‘arguments: some mothers do have them’.