Fantastic Metropolis

Before she reached the door, she stopped and asked: “So what’s your real name? Is it less comfortable than your pseudonym?” Glancing at her elbow, she was shocked to notice a few unravelled strands. Alleneal was trembling, chomping on nothingness.

“My mother was startled, Ms Sting. She was carrying me at the time. The monkey came from behind a curtain in the Repertory Theatre. Some say there is no link between the incident and my condition. Our family has a noble heritage. We have dominated Birmingham for generations. The Rattle clan is respected and feared. I pluck my face every day: soon I will try electrolysis. The surface of the moon is devoid of laughter. The gravity of my problems has been lessened.”

Standing up, clutching the flag behind him for support, he mustered every ounce of dignity and announced: “I am Simian Rattle, Conducator of Lunarhampton.” He sagged and wept into the woodworm, unaware or uncaring that Melissa had already departed.

Outside, the rain had stopped falling. Globules of moisture drifted sideways over the pavements. At last the sky was clearing: ribbons of cloud strangled denticulated peaks. Bouncing toward her convertible, delirious as a bubonic puppet, Melissa desperately tried to laugh, while a million heliographs flashed from crater rims.

(v)

To reach escape velocity, she knew she must never take her foot off the accelerator pedal. The mountains merged into a wall, a grey tongue. Her ears played a staccato rhythm: pressure was leaking from her improvised canopy. She had picked up one of the flapping sheets from the aeolipile and wrapped it round her chassis. She hoped the fabric was tough enough not to burst. Speed and style were the vital factors. Overhead, despite the sun, stars burned in a black sky.

On the horizon, at the end of the road, a movement caught her eye. A tiny object was bounding towards her, growing larger at an astounding rate. Each leap was the width of despair. At last she made out a human form. It had a bucket on its head, connected by a length of hosepipe to an oxygen cylinder. A syringe glittered in a wrist. It was the squeegee merchant, charging with drawn sponge.

They connected silently, his body rotating over her bonnet and off at a steep tangent. He left a soapy smear across her windscreen and she watched in her mirror as he gyrated into outer space, stretching a palm to accept payment. One way of clearing them off the street, she thought. But she made a symbolic movement toward her pocket. It was too late: he was already an orbital beggar. An inverted meteor, harbinger of failure, he vanished in a subsidised explosion.

The speedometer was exhausted, lying horizontal on its right side, but her velocity increased. There was less friction, less of everything here. But now she knew she would make it. If a city wants to tug at your elbow, be firm with it. Do not permit yourself to be bullied. The music of the spheres washing in her head, Melissa allowed herself to dream of an asteroid shaped like a fake Gaudi house. It lay out there somewhere, in the void, beyond the adventures that awaited on the alien worlds of Redditch, Bromsgrove and Kidderminster.

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“Lunarhampton” was originally published in The 3^rd Alternative #12.

Rhys Hughes has written fiction for as long as he can recall, and persists in attempting to become the most prolific author in Wales. His tales are usually linked in story-cycles, which in turn connect to form a giant WHEEL, a conceit which permits him to indulge his love of literary tricks and games to the limit. The turning of this wheel also provides electricity for isolated pastoral communities. If he was forced to declare his favourite authors, he might respond with the following names: Italo Calvino, Milorad Pavić, Jorge Luis Borges, Stanisław Lem, Flann O’Brien, Vladimir Nabokov and Jack Vance.