The Fez Journeys On
Page 17
The Space Chicken looked vacantly back at him. “There’s nothing left to do but for you to get back home.”
Quack made the sharp inhalation of one about to reveal the news that the oven may have, in fact, not only been left on but left in an unlocked house filled with greasepaper. The Space Chicken frowned, scowled and glared through his eyelids.
“What is it?” he caesered – a Glix’n word uncommonly used but commonly needed, meaning ‘to say with acerbity and a scowl’.
“I wouldn’t get too excited just yet,” said Quack.
“Why not?”
“There’s a chance your journey may not be over.”
“Why?”
“The jam wasn’t the only fruit.”
“Is jam a fruit?” asked Clint.
“Well, I guess we’d best set off for the next fruit,” said Dave.
“Do you not want to stay with us?” asked Two.
“Of course I’ll spend time here. I just need to go with the Space Chicken to get the fruit.”
“Can I head off straight away to search for the further fruit?”
“No,” said Quack. “They need time to mature.”
“So what do I do? Wait around until the fruit needs to be located? Why can’t it be located now?”
“You’re very inquisitive.”
“You’re omniscient.”
“Very well. You can do what you like. Try to find some morals.”
“I have morals. I have gods.”
“Find more.”
“More morals or more gods?”
“What do you think?”
“Do You need morals or restrictions?”
“Now you’re thinking.”
“Are morals included within restrictions?”
“It depends how you look at it. The most universally accepted moral is that we shouldn’t kill people. But still many people disregard that. That’s a restriction, in a sense. It restricts your freedom to murder. ‘Freedom’, ‘equality’ and ‘liberation’ are all things I support. They don’t equal a vindication of immorality. Allowing people to murder each other would be restricting the right to life. With every supposed ‘freedom’ there also comes a restriction of the opposite. We just have to pick which side we want to be on.”
“Generally I’d say morality is the best option.”
“Yes, but how can we determine what’s moral? Popularity certainly isn’t the way to go. If everyone said it was all right to kill people, would that make it right? The general attitude is that killing’s only bad for humans, but is fine for food and sport.”
“But that’s why You’re here, isn’t it?” asked the Space Chicken. “To teach us right and wrong.”
Quack shook His head. “That’s the way it used to be, but not any more. I can’t be the one to determine right and wrong. That must be decided by the individual and approved by the thoughtful group.”
“But You created morality.”
“No. Gods create life and worlds. Morality is the creative decision of a created mind.”
Quack switched off His phone. Quack switched off.
Chapter 60
The Space Chicken and Dave lay alone in confusion atop the Fez.
“Who can I trust, Dave?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“You can trust me.”
“But I’m alone. I’m not like the rest of these people. Quack’s gone now. Am I just meant to die?”
“No, you’re an independent being.”
“But I was created for Quack.”
“No, you were born, just like anyone else.”
“Quack had a Chicken, called Margery, which laid a nest of Eggs. They then hatched in another dimension to this one and the resultant Bulls, Hedgehogs, Pigs, Dogs and Chickens are what became us prophets. I was brought into this universe in the orbit of Glix.”
“I know the feeling. I’m an alien, too, remember.”
“Hardly. I’m far more foreign than you are. You were born in Britain and you still live in Britain.”
“Yes, but it’s a different Britain.”
“Hardly.”
“I’m from a very foreign land,” said Dave, slightly taken aback that after having spent so long denying foreignness, he was now being forced into claiming it.
“What’s different about it?”
“They drive on the left.”
“Quack told us popularity isn’t the way to determine morality,” the Space Chicken mused to himself. “But how else can we decide? I know what’s right, or at least what I view as right, but how can I know they will agree without using the determiner of population.” Then it hit the prophet. “We can use our minds to influence others. If we know something to be right, we should passionately encourage others. There doesn’t always have to be just one leader. Everyone can lead if they have something to say that others can learn from.”
“But why do you need to?” Dave asked. “This world seems perfect. I don’t see why you would change anything.”
“There are dark secrets here, Dave.”
And just like that, the paranoia started up again. Dave’s innermost fears were awakened as he became aware there really were things to be afraid of. He wanted to ask what this meant, but felt he couldn’t. He was ashamed to be afraid, and vice versa.
“What do you want to do, Dave?”
“What?”
“When we’ve completed these tasks. This one task of finding more fruit, now, I suppose. In fact, we have no directions or instructions for that anyway. We have completed the tasks Quack set us and he wants nothing to do with us. We’re now free to pick anything we like.”
Dave hadn’t considered this. There always seemed to be something to be done. The idea of him making an independent decision seemed more alien than the foreign planet on which he was currently located.
“You can go home if you like.”
That really struck him. He hadn’t thought reverse-extramigration possible. He thought about it every day, but it hadn’t struck him as a possibility.
“I suppose so.”
“Great. We’ll leave when you’re ready.”
Chapter 61
The next day, Dave, the Space Chicken, the Great Oak Tree (with jam), David Gratton II, Clint, Clein and Old Man Tales awoke on top of the 5x5 metres square which made the roof of the Fez. They each silently decided that it had become rather cramped.
Clint and Clein’s plan was to start pushing people off. Everyone else declared a desire to split into different groups, so they went with that instead.
It is a widely accepted fact that nature is beautiful but also hilarious. All the wonders of greenness aesthetically pleasing, but wouldn’t be half as entertaining if it weren’t for the way the world seems to be comically inconvenient wherever possible. For instance, whenever a toddler happens to be running along whilst eating an ice cream, the juxtaposition of advanced mathematical mechanics and the biology of sub-metropolitan undergrowth creates a reverse gravitational thrust which lifts that one paving slab just in front of said infant in an upward motion by exactly one trip. There is a study at Dogsbridge University into why this happens, but – thus far – no-one has managed to complete the course without wetting themselves.
Another example of where the comedy of nature may come into play is in cramped spaces. For instance, if a small area is largely populated, this has a way of throwing a big fish in there.
“I don’t know if anyone else is awake,” said Dave, “but there’s a very large salmon watching us.”
“Oh, yeah,” said the Space Chicken. “He’s my brother.”
“Your brother?” several people asked.
“Yeah. Hi, Sammy!”
“Hello, Space Chicken,” the Super Salmon glugged.
The Space Chicken’s phone rang.
“Could you tell Dave,” said Margery, “that in this instance ‘Salmon’ is a proper noun?”
“Wait,” said Clein, as the Space Chicken loudly ignored his
mother, “is Sammy the Space Chicken’s brother?”
“Yes.”
“Then why doesn’t he have the same sort of name?”
“Sammy and the Space Chicken are both just nicknames,” the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack explained.
“So, does Sammy have a full name like your official one?”
“Yes.”
“So, his actual name is the Paternal Super Salmon of the Scared Quack.”
Just then, Sammy swam deep into the water. Bubbles emerged in a trail above him. He grew to elephantine size, then laid a huge Egg on top of the Fez.
“Yeah,” said the Space Chicken to the already nodding Dave, “we really need to leave.”
Chapter 62
In the deepest blues of the infinity between and beyond night and day, a small, pious Egg flew down to the planet hanging below.
Eir thoughts were with em, the sole voice which acted as a bridge between the solitary Egg and the rich, gloopy galaxy glittering, shining and flowing with life. In the noble eccentricities of life, the universe and everything, e was no longer a body against the cold, but a drop in the universe.
Bodies generate heat. When I look down upon Glix, I see an overall coldness: the average of millions of inadequacies. This is not inherent. I begin to feel nothing is inherent. The Big Bang which created this vast, glowing universe of which I have seen little required laws of the sciences which have not been seen since. How can one presume to know an inherent ‘truth’ or to believe there to be any inherent truth when we have seen so little and know not if the questions we ask have answers or are even real, logical, sensical questions?
I have lost all my individuality, but gained the universal personality. I see now that a personality is not defined by the distinctions of a single lifetime, but by the collective structure of all history. The kind and the bitter, the cruel and the loving, the hot and the cold. All add up to an infinitely wise and benevolent creation. Neither the heat or the absence of it in history is to be valued or gloried: only to be learnt from and observed. No state or race will claim ‘we did this’ or cry ‘we did this’, but ‘this happened: how may we help all because of what we now know?’ When time has come not to a still or a stream but to a state beyond which time is contemplated or considered, when all the creation of the universe is connected and informed by a universal personality, when that is when we will ask not who, why, when, where or if, but instead will say so. Beyond good and evil is not far enough. Acceptance is key.
And all at once e was content with life, at peace with life and in harmony with the universe. The sense of complete embracement with all e knew and saw – and did not know and could not see – flowed over and enveloped em.
This is what I want everyone to feel, e thought. If only I can use the cognitive functions provided to me by the forces which created my very being to elevate all of life to this infinite bliss of embracement, to accept and invoke the universal personality, then there will be nothing left to ask of this universe: so we will know how to go beyond asking questions to a point where what we now foolishly call fact and fiction becomes an answer we cannot currently begin to conceive the question of – for there is no question, but a world beyond which we can only now call a ‘world’ for we have no complete knowledge of the world and thus no conception of the ‘world’ beyond.
When I look down upon Glix, I see an overall coldness. Bodies generate heat. This is not inherent. The heat we see depends upon the heat we choose to give.
When the Egg returned to Glix and regained eir name and place, eir father asked how it was. The Egg could answer only that, ‘It was.’
Chapter 63
Dave, Fred Jr and the Space Chicken set out on a valiant journey to the British mainland. In days of yore (on Dave’s Britain), these voyages had been noble quests. On Glix, in 2042, Britain was still very yore. However, the Galline and paranoid trip was not so majestic. They painstakingly attempted to steer their ship across the sea, failing in just about every way possible.
They spent a week trying to navigate. There were arguments, discussions of the wheel, then the hearty trio set off towards Britain.
When they reached mainland, they set about making plans for Dave’s future.
“So, Dave,” said the Space Chicken, as they wandered along the Luc coast. The gentle breeze of the sea air was not the harshness they had suffered on the boat, nor the comfort of being inland, but the wavy reminded that they stood between two radically different worlds. “How do you propose we get you home?”
“Well, I don’t know, really.”
“You must have made plans for getting back.”
“I just assumed that I never would. I began to accept my life here.”
“If you managed to make it here in the first place there must be a way to get back.”
“Okay. Well who could help us with that?”
“We’ll have to check.”
They set off for some of the Space Chicken’s previous work. They were confronted with a variety of options about how to go about rehousing Dave.
The Space Chicken tapped out an ancient melody on the wooden portal. The door opened.
“Hello?” said Jordan Sprot, although this was neither a question, nor a suitable situation in which to be terrified.
“Hello. Do you remember me?”
“Oh, Quack’s Sock! You’re the Chicken who cured my acne.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” said Dave. “I thought you were a prophet sent by the gods. What happened to burning bushes and breaking bread?”
“Are those particularly admirable things on your planet?”
“More admirable than acting as a faux pharmacist.”
The Space Chicken glared at Dave. “I wasn’t acting as a faux pharmacist. I was a faux pharmacist.”
“Where’s your friend?”
“Jordan? I don’t know.”
They followed him inside and discovered him asleep across the sofa.
“Um…” said the Space Chicken. “Can we come in?”
Jordan woke up. “Sure. Whatever.” He resumed his slumber.
“We need to talk to you about interplanetary travel.”
Jordan looked up and flapped his hand lazily. “Tomorrow.” He fell asleep again.
The Space Chicken and Dave stood uncomfortably for a while. “Is there anywhere we can stay?”
Jordan snored. Dave poked him.
“Is there anywhere we can stay?”
“Upstairs,” said Jordan Sprot. “There’s a toilet next door to the bedroom. Don’t confuse the two.”
“Space Chicken,” said Dave as they laid in their room that night, “where is Quack?”
“He’s in the sky.” The Space Chicken was almost asleep. “But not really.”
“No, where’s He gone? Why won’t He speak to us?”
“He gets confused about things.”
“Why?”
“Because His mind is in so many parts. Gods’ brains don’t work in the same way as the human brain. They are split into different sections, all confusing and contradicting each other. The part of Quack’s mind He uses to communicate with us isn’t the same as that with which he would, say, speak to a teenage boy. He’s confused. Gods created this world, but it has outgrown them. The future belongs to the people.”
Dave thought about this. “You’re wrong,” he concluded. “That’s exactly how the human brain works.”
The Space Chicken smiled and turned onto his back. “Quack set us particular tasks. Find the Great Oak Tree. We’ve done that. Merge the jam sandwich and the Oak Tree. Done that. Stop David Gratton from opening the Fez. It has left Britain. Then He left. Now we can focus entirely on you.”
“I suppose. I can go home. Then everything will be back to normal. When we revert to the original, all our problems are solved. No Dave. No Quack. No issues.”
Chapter 64
“Arthur,” said Quack, “do you understand how a god’s mind
works?”
“I doubt it.”
“It’s sort of segmented. Things don’t always happen in the right order.”
“Let me help with that order: I just finished scattering the pieces of a philosopher and I’m not far from ending my course.”
“What I mean is that things I don’t know don’t correspond to my whole mind,” Quack explained to Arthur, who hadn’t asked. “I have some things in my mind that I don’t fully understand when I’m talking to you.”
“How do you think I feel?”
“I’m sure you feel the same. There are a lot of people with more than one identity on their mind. It’s just I have the ability to compartmentalise.”
“What’s your point?”
“If I seem a little strange, then all is well.”
“What do you want?”
“I want you to help with the Great Oak Tree. I don’t know what it is, but I know why it is important.”
“Is that it? Find a tree?”
“No. I want you to follow David Gray. He, the Space Chicken and two intelligent twins are to travel around Britain. I want you to follow them, find out what they’re doing and obey my every word when I tell you what I need. Follow David Gray. And when you reach the end, your training will be over.”
Chapter 65
“So what’s to happen to our group?” asked Dave. “I’ve barely had the chance to reconnect with the twins.”
“I suppose that’s it,” said the Space Chicken. “Our paths crossed with theirs, but we’re separate from now on. The same goes for Mike. The twins have gone off to lead their own life.”
“Hopefully they’ll open the Fez.”
“We know they’ll open the Fez. They’re not coming back to Britain until they do.”
“Space Chicken, who’s David Gratton?”
“Forget about it, Dave.”
“No, I want to know who he is.”
“He’s a man that Quack said would open the Fez and bring about a new world. But that won’t happen now.”
“But I thought you said we can’t rely on Quack.”
The Space Chicken sighed. “I don’t know.”
“How do you know the twins won’t bring about the new world instead?”
“I don’t know. But the legend says that David Gratton opens the Fez and, in doing so, brings about a new world.”