Fantastic Metropolis

1

Early one morning the dead bodies in our boarding school cemetery flew to the moon. We had easy chairs with far too much breathing room squibs instead of the sake and blanched tiffin. I hate having to wait for the future Micetto explained during the occupation Kiljoy was here. When they landed a sunburnt young woman in a loose blouse and a Black eyed Susan led the travellers to the giant Boppy. She salaamed while two headless whifflers burst into tears. Punjaub gave me a nudge and whispered none of their dirty staring could undress her. Alas! mutineers are cutting free our tethered space carriages so she hurried out. This greatly displeased Boppy. More wonderful gloom fell on everybody. When the music passed away the dolls began to dance all round the fossilized creature with outstretched arms we dead were very frightened. Reading this afterwards however I couldn’t help laughing it was so ridiculous. See when you die in the 21st century your ghost is used as a cloud substitute. Above the falls millions of sluggish trout pollute the loch like tourists worked over by brass knuckles in June they woke from the long bad dream without remembering a smattering of parrot. Another plan to lower the world. Brock. Look carefully about for the hero of playground thirty seven. In a sortie through the barricaded line that amputation of a mind brought back a snowball from hell. Oh if I had only known where to begin. The writer now covered by sea anemones had lost one eye somewhere in the Greylands—it often washed ashore at night with a weather beaten wooden doll known as Miss Delamere. Listen to the waves hiss across the restless sand she is caught in the under tow. Many hours lived and died before the surf left her lodged head foremost in Mermaids rock. When two hermit crabs started pulling her pigtail she had to resort to the written word. Well you can hear what actually happened.

2

I can tell you are rather fond of water logged yarns. Ay said one. Ay ay! from the other.

The sea swept in extracted the old doll gave it a Mohawk and dropped it at the end of this sentence. However home spun this string of nonsense may appear it lives on—the loveliness of the lemonade dawn was lost upon Polyphemus now galloping by our HEROINE the stick. What can she do? Though half in and half out of the salt water framed in a tangle of seaweed a murdered nurse is in no position to save Miss D. Two coral harpies are dining.

That is true said the pretty one say grace. Sometimes—I—I gently call her by name. No! Yes I have wondered what you know what is the good of all this gluttony? Hush hush! The fact is dear we cannot help thinking.

At this moment a sea lion surprised them by springing from Davy Jones locker with a roar. It bounded down the shore and befell our friends thick and thin. Ten minutes of violent bleating soon chummed the deep water until the khaki sharks were at her service. A blizzard alighted and the body was taken away.

I may have to remain unseen for a century or two Miss Delamere reflected I must keep smiling.

3

Mute books littered the island thousands of them. Miss D— longed to talk to Boppy about the poet’s earthly ties! Happily the skull of a reader lying beside her had overheard the whole shaggy dog tale.

eh? You cannot expect me to explain away the confusion. When I am writing a book I get lost.*

The sun rose from the drink and set about another day in silence. At half past seven the Great B— arrived in the flying fox. He dejectedly lit up a coffin maker cigarette as he glided over the water searching for her. Suddenly a thousand parakeets anxiously marked the whereabouts of the stick. Boppy splashed down. With one bound he was at her side. It was the aged puppet’s turn to be impatient.

Scoop me up carefully with that pith helmet and get going I have foreseen a press gang of blind Venetians approaching. Bah! keep still. They are a quarter of a mile off. How far is it to the treasure? It lies nine hops from the end of sobered up river. Look here yemstchik† I have been thinking that nothing will do. I only want to be immortal if it is a tiresome dream. Gentle there chota hazri.‡ Time to take our leave.

Satisfied that no enchantment remained the pair floated out to the flying fox and stood for a moment gazing at the crescent moon. They felt unreal. Snap! Afraid we cannot complain said Granny Honeycomb ironing a little doubtfully with her corrugated iron in the stuffy kitchen. Our years (strange to say) disappear on the way.

* The W-a-x baby
† Russian carriage driver
‡ Indian for little breakfast

4

To me being maimed for life was not much of a change. Once or trice I lost a few years lying on the beach like a sack of flour feeling sorry for myself. You might say I discovered the reader’s revenge what of it? I am an old cat in a box full of straw. The pictures on the walls are no concern of mine. Wretched and alone bronchitis Harry breathed his last in the ostrich camps only too glad to get rid of this tear stained world. Ah the drawbacks of a wild life. A light breeze sent the flying fox backwards towards home.

All right dear I am making the words fit said the old bee keeper. This juncture of prosaic verse tells the story I pasted over. Aren’t you agog over the pages of hargle bargle in this book? Ha if you call peering about like a meerkat using your eyes. I thought I was too important for love. No my make believe friend our hero and heroine did not bicker. Tell the monsters round our pool to retreat. Sand hoppers are apt to mislead the absent minded kid leaving mainland Blenny to bottle out the mystery of desk 25 on his own. Mrs. H— smiled. Short adjournment?

Well if you enjoy helping others to their tiny spark stay indoors I’m full of thoughts of those who keep us starving. After an outburst of peevish silence I am kicking the future. Divide that by doubling half again and again you will go bankrupt. Nothing happened in the book selling business. Oh mother what is a defiantly self made man to do? It was October already and with ill concealed impatience Bullseye my old bulldog barked at the scarecrows drooping in the foreground. We could hear them at night laughing and talking nonsense at daybreak they stood still and apart. B— ’s mansion was situated on the wiseacres.

5

Certain wits thrive in a secluded place farthest from the applause. Boppy the great speedily unfurled the war sails choosing an opportune wind to take them racing home. The villa dying faun. Haunted at night by an audience of watchers with his tongue cut off the gentleman spy saw no reason to go on hiding. Spider crabs scuttle the colossal walls of rock. He steadied his nerves by flying around the moat for a few minutes. The head of a hippopotamus looks up sulphur crested cockatoos take wing. Lavinia wadset his daughter’s governess is waiting in the grotto.

So did you see the murderer? The flying fox lands at landlubbers jetty safe and sound. Ay. The stick shivered as she thought of the slain nurse and the man who had left her grey with terror. What happened last night was a human being murdered. Not content with one he thinks you are the next dead body in disguise. The smell of Fleur de Mal. On Sundays visitors cool enough to kill reptiles have an account to settle and I after all I was inciting the people to rebel. My broken heart went on beating but I could not get used to being back in the flesh. Woe. Give me your poetry I believe I can read between the lines. Hey the hopelessness of these splinters is just right.

Thanks to the cuttle fish who took refuge in the melting snow they returned in time to take a warm luncheon on the north verandah. Little wonder literature waned. They were ringing for mustard when tallow noticed a boa constrictor slinking rapidly across the lawn. It was yoked to a wicker work stage coach. The driver cracked a small whip and as they approached a strange crooning could be heard.

6

The coach soon rolled up to the flower beds. O great Boppy I bring tidings from the starfish suffocating in your aquarium. This was a lie and the gipsy knew it. Pretending to be playing a game of hide and seek with the authorities Trago was really only there to quell any unrest.

Miss Everso was slain the Kelpie answered hoarsely short changed without mercy. Yes the doll and I were too late. Ting ting-a-ling ting ting-a-ling. Owls listened from the broken windows. Tragopogon left the robot governess unmoved. She does not believe in the inevitable. Walk to the other side of the rainbow. Help me raze the landmarks of this subterranean world. Think about Charles Maturin in the winter of 1816 warming his reflection between two mirrors. Ochone! Who is this beggar to interrupt our story? Why we’re wasting time. Prisoner to the lust of the sea Miss Everso what brought you here can take you back. All you have to do is tell me where you hid the treasure I’ll let you go. Up Miss Everso and over. To live among the drowning you must pay the dead. Up to the rose petals. Without the audible word because I’m proverb I will never get published. What do you say Miss Everso murmured Exmo il medico scared?

There are no wolves now. She pressed her face to the ruins lost in the romances of the airship gettre de peer. The cat finished the milk—we were back in the kitchen—just as patiently. Having learnt the secret of time and space Tragopogon went crawling into another novel taking the cat guillotine and the haunted bagpipes with him. Miss Delamere pattered after Boppy to the catacombs.

7

Swiftly like shadows disappearing in the darkness the poet wrote his early poems within earshot of the deaf ventriloquist. He read hate literature aloud stamping up and down the secret staircase Ah I’m glad to hear it. Thinking won’t get you to the lowest oubliette of the oldest castle.

Do you have the presence of mind to live in reality as it is or only as you see it? Bah I have you to keep me sane answered Boppy I read the most modern books and I don’t have a penny for your fast forwards.

Alive with bravery and forebodings Miss Delamere unlocked the treasure cave. One hundred years of greed had been hidden under the old house during the reign of Regulus the sleepless tyrant. It was all very sad and unnatural. Unmindful of the protesting door they spent some time covered with spines. Remains of another river dragon barred the passage.

Soot. This is Uncle Sam. They left his brains painted on the ceiling. Put your chipped mug there let me take a photograph. Our enterprising opponent having found a breach in the walls soon perished the victim of aya ito tori* in the hands of a practical joker. Here goes the flash.

Encouraged by the death of uncle sam the Kelpie and the doll went round the piebald beast with difficulty clockwork rats had begun to eat his brittle wings. They lit slow torches.

* cat’s cradle in Japanese

8

Dressed in white Miss Everso slipped from an empty chair heaped with thick dust. A thousand cut glass chandeliers hung down over a spacious hall. Persian carpet flowed to marble walls. A very long billiard table used the length of the room to entertain fosto the tin man. He was playing against an invisible hand with unerring control. They talked.

Rum smuggling listen to me on the heavy sea I was famous for crossing more platefuls than you could even hint at Theodora. I barked at the petrified tree I was an abominable snowman. With the revenue kept carefully out of sight gentry who pretend to be descended from Jiminy Plantagenet go on suffocating make believe rabbits simple sober staid and dumb they sup with their fast friend the watchman having given the sun a beautiful sunshiny day it was now arranged in a manner that said Frida. Oh but it is good to talk again I am the meaning behind a very confused story trying to get back to the stars on horseback. That said Miss Everso explains the white crocodiles in the moat. Dream about me softly break my heart darling I will never forget you.

It all happened between floors. Raymond rousselfish. Your imagination is out of print. These made up words ought to be hidden from the bystanders. The sinking ladder seats two sitting cross legged on the even steps which we call either or. Beautiful in the night like moonlight on chemicals he retorted too beautiful to resist. If only she had returned my stare.

9

A dream the old valet continued a dream falling on a threadbare effalunts ear pressed against Miss Everso in the window seat. Preserved here in the hothouse living on moat rats and muscatel I have spent many pickled years going bad. When I was sixteen the sky was free of foreigners. After the stuttering ventriloquist disappeared completely hard boiled readers took her luggage. We draw lots. All four of them were talking at once. When she sits beside me on the ceiling I am happy. If the biographers can find time to read our letters they do no such thing. When the pods sang out fell sick and died in the street I—I—limped away to safety. If one of them so much as fingers the leaves our hero frowned the eldest porter with a sword will kill all the fowl. The story got dense and invariably the slack workman was in the process of making tea. Burnt rolling pins fell into the fog. May we—may I rebel? Orange paint and seventy four shaped like the letter S. Be hanged if I’ll be employed. I loathe the residue of my short life. Kicking your monster instead of you. Human nature is beneath us.

10

At length they reached the foot of owning nothing. Rifts in the barrier granted egress to a tribe of half witted rock rollers at home in the liquid state. When the weeping ghost pointed out her remains Boppy got his underwater tank and sank beneath the sea decorated with ships. Strange to say the murdered nurse had become entangled on the old cracked dome of a sunken city ten thousand fathoms this way the amphibious vessel went in search of her flesh and bones driven by the doll at full speed they raced along the sands startling a school of low priced electro fish many thousands were killed and many bodies wounded. My Uncle Sam used the long list of annoyances to retire me noisily wideawake as ever running the risk meant life entirely marked out with chalk.

At midnight the grey dormitory blankets turned into wolves. It was instant death to cough. What could I do? I was pilloried for writing low tide mutinies. Ah so you bought it. I have the right to be superhuman—bump—. Expect it of me my friend. I cannot pretend.

She agreed to cut through the great fields of ice to eat up time. One reason why your wife prefers the most heart rending barking of a dog to this dismal story is the people. Good for you panting fat boy jam is even better on docility toast! What on earth is scribbled on this old newspaper? It looks a lot like a map. Here we are. Penguins will tell you fifty different words for Polar bear. We found her lying there gathering darkness.

I wonder who left my dolly at the doctor’s house. Great Boppy isn’t it? Roselin Everso.

11

Despair not a giant walking stick has been attentively photographing the trio all the while. His name is Ocnus the nelumbium. Clambering over the edge of the moon Ocnus was soon fast asleep at the unexpected turn. A stampede of glances pitter pattered past.

So I carved books. There was an opportunity a hundred years ago to jump about the place with dishevelled hair like never before. I thought about you with a sigh racking your brains for money a prisoner of war trying to find something liberating to say. Not that it matters to me. Father you’re a brick I wish I knew. You mean thoughtless destruction can’t be helped. There’s only one vacancy. And besides wild blackberrying this deep in the ruined foundations gives me the creeps. To my horror I just scraped together a twentieth century melodrama that needs cheering up. Take it and go.

If you manage to unravel the crime thank you saddened dispirited her ghost looked imploringly French. Boppy man of few words caught a crab. Earth. Could anything be better?

Gently echoing off key these dotted lines produced a wonderful effect on Miss Delamere two small wings light and ethereal sprang from her back. In a twinkling Miss Everso shook off all pretence of being the victim. A moment later she gave a little cry and escaped from this story.

You keep kicking over my sand castles said Great Boppy so I spat on your point of view.

They were adrift on the open sea dreaming of dried clothes and supper. That reminds me goodbye.

12

Iphigenia Beagles was not wearing her gloves. Baron Taugenicht was still asleep. She picked up her shoes and stockings and limped towards the running water. Presently there was a path. It carried Iffy across the field to the dreaming river. A boat shaped like an elephant took her away from every day dry land and down to the sea. Great Boppy was drunk in a balloon fifty feet over head.

Hullo Iffy! He laughed good naturedly. Up here. Eh? What? Great Boppy help—cried the Empress at her wits end. Hurry!

He whistled for the anchor. Disappearing prairie elves sat irritably smoking Silent Man cigarettes. Colly the tree frog is eating skeeters in the half light of his second childhood. Shucks eight forty and his electric wife are propped up in the lifeboat.

Zari is that you? cried knickers. Zari was a feral girl knickers had found crashing in the dairy. Lovely and wild she would scamper round her dying robot Mother bare footed and howling with hollow laughter. What a beastly cartoon Colly. Where’s your sister? Boppy piped all hands on deck. As he lowered a rope ladder Shucks toppled over. A stingy sunrise tide gold plated every wave.

Iphigenia sighed. Nature often leaves her cold. Instinctively she thought of the Oriel diamond of Sir H. Rider Haggard never hidden by Trago the unblinking cluricaune at the foot of the square rainbow.

13

The balloon sank lower and lower. The elephant boat was being swept out to sea. I believe this is when Great Boppy jumped into the water. At the same time Iffy made several attempts to swim in mid air before gravity got the better of her. Just about then the ocean tried to upset the elephant soaking her black eyed Susan and waving away her hat. She looked up.

Iffy catch the ladder! Shucks eight forty leaned out of the basket and heedlessly dropped Colly overboard. True to his promise the plucky frog hit the bottom rung and hung on gasping.

I stopped the rescue short. Don’t cry Great B. Colly and Iffy are safe. Look I’m splashing melted butter on the circus popcorn again. See for yourself.

Black rain clouds clung to our modest and absent minded impurities as if they were alive. Zari flew by on an enormous ostrich called Dandelion. The desperation somehow only made it worse.

Dinner is cough in danger of growing cold. Covered with flour knickers announced the first course. Green tea and fortune cookies. Iphigenia dear this far from happy nineteenth century is drifting into the lost wilderness. Air up nine tenths. No wonder nobody knows I’m a ghost wrapped in a white cloth Iffy clapped her hands. Eskimos stuck scraps of fat into the fire.

It’s no use lying between truth and fiction. Three other silk balloons are gliding in on the breeze—pantomime bandits from the see through mountains—cried Shucks eight forty. Hang on!

14

I’m sure your life was quite a pleasant story to recreate grannie but have a care you and your Voyage of the Beagle are surrounded by sharks not at all taken aback by the darkness of the present day. I know you. While I keep on writing this puppet show you’ll go and read someone else’s baked potato. A bullet in the stomach of our enemies. Boppy rifled the lead balloon with fire arrows turning the man-o’-war into a large tree and dropping their foes to the fins below. Flinging his crossbow to eight forty he leapt on the second balloon causing the bandits to abandon ship. Taking advantage of the retreat of number three Zari managed to spray paint a dripping red skull on the white silk envelope. Bandits emptied silent firearms into the funniest papier-mâché Great Boppy knickers had ever made. What a jolly dolt. Too bad the wicked always prevail. You and I huddled together shivering half starved and half asleep in the bottom of an air boat passing through a flock of cat like doggies with horns turned out to skewer an overweight namby pamby. Whatever said Sid get to the point.

Why on earth? I thought—

Plenty of robots would have shot the film here on the moon but I wanted a really uncomfortable convalescent home. They say that dying in pain is hereditary there. You laugh on a perfect beach covered with brains one day and then checkmate death gets the rest.

Trouble? Machinery. Poor rusty friends I cannot bear to see them erased. Certainly not now.

15

Lightly taking the knock within reach I do my best to smash things up. Better let me see you home. Colly leave that last jar of flies and get this balloon back on course. We must sail quietly across the forests of misery and want. Land! Boppy frowned. Zari was hopping about shilly shallying like a popinjay. Adventures!

Excuse me is that your wax baby? I’m afraid you can’t get comfortable on this spot.

A melting ice floe let the frozen monster loose on shipwreck island he had plenty of time to hate before we returned. Take forty disappearing Prairie elves on flying squirrels to the hurricane deck at once. Luckily the man who was dead barked at the swans in furs two hundred years old. Great Boppy stopped the airship over the skulking fellow with baited breath.

How hopeless it is to believe in a well made face. Iphigenia poured herself a cup of coffee.

When he heard this the stranger dropped his Mary Shelley doll and plunged into the interior of the island. They followed floating low through the bubble gum trees. He moved towards the observatory so they landed near by. Huh no stupid wars in weeks the strawberries are all about. Dandelion abruptly sat down laying an egg in the straw without a word.

I won’t be long said Iffy looking very pretty and spoilt. Fortunately for us!

16

You may ask who had the bad taste to author this thoughtless book. What talkative fool took the time to laboriously carve lamentations so full of irony while lions perished in the midst.

Here’s me shirking my chivalry. Why grumble. You read me? Our world is smarting under the yoke of ignorance and what are you doing? Eating loud butterflies and moping. Very well.

Great Boppy stationed himself behind the times.

Colly unexpectedly jumpy thought of another illogical sentence and it appeared.

One of these drivers is not a figment of your imagination.

Happily that is another story.

I suppose. Al seemed to think it over. I oughtn’t criticise.

At dawn Iffy awoke to find that the dead man had cooled. Thinking that fire would only startle him she couldn’t help hearing tanks outside. They were back near the spine. Suddenly Zari understood what had happened the day her mother brought home snowballs for dinner. Remember to say a few words about our winged forerunners yearning for the beyond. Certainly I stammered.

17

It seems that eight 40 had snubbed a certain famous author by taking his wife’s ford after having her breakfast in bed. The idea of the game is to live on in comfort padding your nearly flat characters and retreating soberly into the agreeable life at half time. You’d better cut this repetition out. As usual my enemies join forces. Big School. Defeat at last.

We must do without legs said knickers run!

Stand by to topple you colossal pigmies homeless clean shaven and supperless humanity will not be denied.

I’ve got tons of stories that can’t be hedged in by mere telling. After every day only the moon remains.

I swear good for nothing’s hardly moved in the last hundred million miles said Iphigenia yawning at the void and no wonder. You’ll have to take your turn shouting.

We would have liked to have reached the clown’s shanty by floating over the carnivorous tulips laughing and chatting in an undertone. Evidently the jaded one was never meant to boomerang. Unfortunately it was five o’clock before the characters got to the tar and feather shack stuck permanently in the mud of small memories. Half way through Colly guessed as much.

18

I’ll not waste words on you. Willie Skerry the clown was born in 1904. When he was eight years old Big diamonds imprisonment was cut short. Winnie Finn his mistress was found hanging from a large monkey puzzle tree in the French quarter of Calcutta just before our story opens. Winnie had never been much of a mother to young Willie and he was badly brought up by thieving Effie his mother’s elder sister a vulgar overbearing bar maid with a pinch hard as nails. Now as time passed this boorish woman secretly battered the boy with her wine stained hands until one intoxicated night she knocked him unconscious. Willie deserved a better childhood his dog sombrero a quieter puppyhood! Did the big odd world care even a little? He left 5¾ Horace Walpole at 7 the next morning.

Great Boppy was working the steamship dock when Willie fainted from hunger in a herring barrel. In short the clown was brighter blue than you. Listening for the raspberries Boppy fished the urchin out of the herrings gave him dinner and walked the poor creature home. Meanwhile his aunt had just retired to a country house near inferior Shinnach kept by a man we will call Sir Eisteddfod. Willie was alone all day shut up in the room behind the buxom minx.

The maritime ale house rocked through the night right up to closing time when it grew peaceful and quiet he dressed in black and went out to the cricket field. Sometimes he and the puppy got into scrapes with the law breakers they met outside every dream. On returning to stuck Willie thought it over lollies and cans of hot tea with Zari. Making dear friends sigh.

19

Willie had always been afraid of rats dish washing at 17 he put aside his fears and got to know a few who led him to a skunk keeper’s shanty that had fallen into disuse out where the coast is clear. The window was blushing before the dawn the ceiling weakened by loss of blood was murmuring faintly at the four bare walls the floor brooded on. He caught the drift and made up his mind to unfit immediately. Who let you in?

Willie scratched a match down eight forty’s innocence while multitudes of sleepy readers waited listlessly for the next sentence.

Calm your boiling tapioca knickers bamboozled the oxygen out of the air. Rubbish was the rind of all wretchedness. Colly that impertinent imp cannot climb a tree in Oakland. Nine black and white manure statues pilfer the old sand bank over on slum St. and poor folk like us rust. This is so wonderfully Brer America. Uncle Al the unwieldy genius is air tight.

Rich big diamonds toots sulphate of limey off some penniless dead beat’s deathbed. My clowns of war proved too severe for the penguins handcuffed in the act of flight they fired guns and pecked at our legs as we lumbered by swearing. Zari put her chubby fingers into her mouth and granny Honeycomb went on knitting.

Picture a life like imitation of me shivering and hungry pursued by cannibals on board the nux vomica I found a coffin covered by a pirate flag. Willie changed into a giant white paletôt. Iffy ate caramels.

20

Dandelion is hatching Neem neem feeding her the eels stamping down the nest muttering with compassion as thousands of paper snow flakes fall on the straw. Here I am. Neem neem. May I rummage in your top drawer?

The war with the gingerbread men was no tea party said Boppy filling the kettle. Don’t scream describes it fairly well. What a dreary waste of a pine box. All terror to the people bravely eking out a thick not so simple doom. I happened to be thinking I’m afraid wishing won’t do. Big diamonds is thrown from the bridge. We will never be worth saving. I shouldn’t wonder it occurred to me.

When the circus landed Willie quietly stole under the tent made to look like a soap bubble you missed it.

My message?

Buried at sea eight forty became sad and silent.

Morte d’Art is beheaded on tv spotty the corrosive centipede runs downstairs in the Peasley home for fidgetty girls and boys as genievre myrmidon sets her wheeled chair on fire. They would miss her. She galloped west into a picturesque sunset. Here this is me as I should be.

21

Finished? said knickers steaming up the globe I haven’t got time to tell you everything. Turning to camera she smiled.

It’s nine o’clock and sixty to seventy hieroglyphics are leaving the temple of punctuality why? Because trotters like me here tried living outside life. Remember this chicken when you start up. Spotty unpaved the street round the obelisk to run over children creeping along on hundreds of acid feet mopping his brow with a blue handkerchief whistling Arabian Nights. What do you say spotty?

Ocnus I’ll show you the promise of veiled women substituting accidents for hope. Unravelling lives. Ocnus I fear they will not cry.

I’m not in the least particular like you. I am a sort of universal being. You must have known that sooner or later I’d walk home alone. So what.

Elizabethan bicycles were piled against the bank and no one else in the village belonged. Promptly at half past nine the next morning we grow tired of TV.

Funny something about this time of year reminds me of October said Grannie this is a good show.

22

A very hungry snub nosed tom cat followed Zari down Muski to El Dorado every Saturday. Zari always pretended not to notice him. Week after week the cat peeped in the window of her life with a sigh.

Then in the summer of 1999 our reality was overrun by gingerbread men. The invading cookies surrounded the tuck shop where Zari weighted tables. Boppy soon rallied all the magic heroes in this book to the secret passages below bargain town. He wanted to rescue Zari with a surprise attack emerging from beneath the Hawkins avenue bridge and rushing to the shop before the enemy could strike back. Now it had been fifty pounds since Boppy decided to leave the Peasley home and he drove his underground cab fast from left to right shouting instructions at the passengers—

Keep your barrel on! Fire torpedo two you idiot! Save your blubbering for the trenches! Give me a change of costume!

—daylight at last they exited and sped up Hawkins heading straight to the shop. Giant shamrocks paved the way for gingerbread houses buttered toast trees and cookie people the cab ground through hundreds of thousands of them. They stopped at nothing.

23

The writer goes on to tell how Fosto the tin man actually led the robots behind enemy lines to liberate Zari while the rest of the characters marched with great Boppy into battle. Shucks eight forty entered the tuck shop and took up his position near the lightswitch. Knickers and Lavinia Wadset allowed themselves to be stared at dancing the chloroform chacha so Iffy Ocnus and Boppy could eclipse the sun. Zari ran unnoticed to her father and mother. Taken by surprise the dough people promptly subsided never to rise again. Everyone met up at granny honeycomb’s cottage.

Colly is deep in conversation with miss delamere Willie is throwing darts in the garden dandelion and neem neem vie for beetles among the weeds tallow is smoking a crayon. Granny is asleep. Now and then honey bees stray into the cheery bungalow exhausted by the journey they evidently find the luncheon gong irresistible. Ping. Ping.

Suddenly Boppy took possession of the crayon and the wax baby with a thump. Hey not so fast cried tallow who had by now reached the age of 3½ brother put me down! Boppy shook his head. He waited for all manner of disappearing prairie elves to pass by before their preoccupation with repetition took years off of his life apparently nobody questions the casualties of servitude.

Stop glaring at me replied Boppy you know this stuff will lead to paraffin don’t you?

24

You’ve upset the town crier Boppy said bullied the childhoods after school for the last time.

Colly croaked quietly.

Runny nosed Tallow had fallen on his face in the peanut brittle he answered by lighting up another crayon and of course spilling his beer.

Boppy let seventy five parasols waft by. Philip K. Dick novels could not induce him to give up reality for he knew the dog too well. Tallow you dunned me for eighty five cents this morning and the pooks the pooks are louder than ever. Have you lost your mine?

Mad? I? Nay old bill. It isn’t my place to look surprised in the gloomiest. You have no semicope I thought through you in a jiffy. Close we always wound up holding up liquor stories for the poor are very kind. You heard me. How would you like wax for brains?

Unhappily complaining of having nothing to do zari began to lie in ambush for the tanned yard rats hiding in the tater patch and slowly picking them off with her crossbow until only the meanest one was left.

Five bits said Iffy she’ll get him climbing into the mistletoe nursing that cough of his. Done!

25

Goodness Miss delamere was offended by a certain vulgar expression in the frog’s Parisian argot why didn’t you stop?

Colly clambered up to the top of the scaffolding. The loss of so many elves had put the painting way behind and he had an encouraging word to cheer the workmen on.

Strike!

What poignancy. The doll fluttered up to the roof to tease him. Bright black tadpoles with arms and legs sat dozing in a Pickle jar of October sunshine watching for crow flies. She borrowed a few words from the racked jemmy of Shepperton.

The brank of censorship is likely to default.

Juggernaut said Colly pointing to the ironclad floating by in the cloudless sky. They flew to the octagon railing to reconnoitre the ironclad’s remains.

What’s in store now? demanded Boppy. Is it possible too many bees’re protecting the honey? Tell us beggar man how you invented the characters on this very spot. Let your threadbare heart strings go beyond gurgling softly like a terrified cretin sleeping in a hollow tree. What a duffer.

26

Boppy said I’ll take the lonely path of living any day. You hear me? All right bleeding London. She knows deep down the working class will obey. Fee Fie-Fo-Fum I smell the river Thames. Well done. How different is was then. His voice grew louder. Here was something he had neglected to learn. Amor vincit omnia!

What?

Love conquers all things.

Oh that. Happiness. Don’t be borrowing trouble now. Bang—bang—bang—thoroughly disgusted Boppy shot me down. Yer honour must be off building air castles again he said kindly.

All the company laughed at great B’s wit having decided I was too heavy to carry. The majority were soon above the trees in pursuit of the ironclad.

It was no surprise to me when bull’s eye my old guide dog held up your cat. It was as if a cheerful face spoke to me Pierrot it said you must dance elsewhere.

Parched winds swept the lighter than air vessel away from granny honeycomb’s flower garden. Dull characters better look sharp or they’ll quickly find themselves lost in the unknown regions.

27

This elegant ship vanished during the siege of Paris said Boppy it was thought the pitiless mob seized it with more bravado than usual. Little wonder the dome is staved in and we cannot steer those were the days of drunkenness laziness and unselfish anarchy. My darling he added turning to Zari welcome to La Belle Blidas.

We followed Boppy into the ghost ship—leastways some of us did I didn’t see you there tallow—listening attentively to the old kelpie’s blarney when suddenly something indescribable caught his eyes. He glared at the disembodied occupants of the empty room as a chill filed up our spines. It cannot be.

Peep said Neem neem Peep.

I’m afraid it’s those damped spirits from page 42 again folks a million years of thinking must have made everybody stupid. Vampire bats flittered and swooned against the portholes until eight forty let them out.

You ghosts stop muttering and spitting at each other and follow me. Knockers was evidently no stranger to the invisible giants that towered over us. Oh and blow your noses and don’t breathe on the glass.

A dozen disappearing prairie elves disappeared for cocoa and a bun. Fosto plucked Colly off a burning sea horse. Tallow lit a few finger wicks and wandered into the next room all by himself.

28

Huge monsters glowed in the candlelight mesmerizing the wax baby. He counted seven hundred squatting round a bright shaft of moonlight. As he gazed up at them he stumbled over a dark object moving rapidly across the deck. It was a small mad thing entirely in the control of Big diamonds.

Dunno like the desperate cling desperately to almost anything contrived conceited and expensive. Fudge! Wealthy rhinoceroses seldom have to demand the gangway. For the hundredth time a flash of lightning left letters seventeen feet high etched across the bow—

I must not put the cat in the birdcage—

Gradually the lumps of that sad day stopped fizzing. Iffy disguised as one of them is saluting the most monstrous drenched in five fingers of instant death. This is a bluff Boppy mentions in his ricochetted poem harangue pie. Scene 6 said the monster with a derisive laugh I know it well. Tesselated by shadows he gradually assumed the shape of a house on fire. It burnt through the quarter deck and fell to the fields of ice far below. Iffy’s glass skirt tinkled as large clear butterflies flew by. Moving slowly their wings lulled the rest of the seven hundred to sleep. Motioning to his wife eight forty sauntered amongst them pickpocketing as he went. Knickers stuffed the first thing she saw into her ransack and elbowed her husband knocking him into a carved figurehead.

The scribbler! shouted the weather beaten man as he opened his eyes. Where am I? His voice sank.

29

Extraordinary exclaimed the relic the monsters have discovered the misspelled insults! quick you idlers return me to the bow!

Let’s follow our careless travelers into the trap. He was somehow transferred to the gunwale restored overboard once more and like the beak of some great carrion bird the Blidas brought them to an ancient citadel of wickedness. The oppressors throng here! said he gasping for breath as a rope ladder was let down to the razed city.

Heligola—where the war destroyed the atmospheric shield the sun grew louder and louder—thought impregnable until perforated by suiciding narwhals last spring.

Ocnus the walking stick is about to reach the ground with our gang of rascals hidden in his steel skull cap. Boppy covered with chain mail is thoroughly in his element talking loudly and rattling his saber.

If I gallop straight at the savages and trample a few to death he informed the listeners it will avail us nothing now. There’s no denying they deserve a good trampling.

I don’t care said Miss delamere what you say I’m not going back to the moon without the answer. Heligola is salted for vampire ants this was settled. The perceptible ought to be cut down and burned.

30

After a couple of torpid hours two or three of the sleeping monsters revived. When four million prairie elves suddenly reappeared the monsters hastily drove off in huge pickup trucks speeding towards Heligola the sanguinary heart of this decimated world.

Colly whom we have not seen since page 27 dropped to the ground and hopped away.

The rusty ironclad sank lower and lower in the blood red sky.

Alarmed by the columns of fetid smoke coming from the domes and spires of the citadel Ocnus held his breath stood upright and broke into a sustained walk. His long legged strides took them rapidly over the uneven landscape—stepping around the hills of bricks pig nettles and bhang thistles—Boppy now fatigued in fatigues regretted his prodigious girth as he was tossed about. A school of soot gnats offered to spot Iffy and Zari. Happily they were flung lightly to the rails on either side of the tapering bookshelves. When Ocnus suddenly stopped they could hear the screaming heads impaled on golden stakes.

Heligola was not always a metropolis of never ending wickedness said Boppy unsteadily. It derives its name from the very small pewter roses found near by.

Just then a voice hailed the walking stick.

31

Who’s there? a voice shouted. Death is that you? Move on quit follerin’ me now.

There’s some one in a sedan chair running this way exclaimed Boppy it must be God.

Boppy paid no attention to reality he believed God. Hallo! he cried. God is that you?

It was.

God soon reached the town. Monkeys gaping in the hollow walls tossed rotten eggs at his head.

Undisturbed pretending to be the epitome God calmly walks the deserted streets warmed by winter rains a Baron Munchausen by proxy looking for you. The hounds chained up in the slave market said nothing. Behind hoarded up windows lazzaroni pore over their humble luxuries.

The united characters have incorrect maps of the citadel and the beards fool no one they are pointed out by scorpions covered in chains by 11,000 bellowing mummers seated on a droski by pinching blue hands and dumped into a maze of high green hedges. Boppy landed on his chin amid the dry leaves where white pigeons coo the girls were beginning to wish they had brought more smiles. Ocnus is lying very still on the ground. It seems his back was broken in the fall and he can’t breathe. They were obliged to go on it was boggy ocnus was no more.

32

Zari printed his name on a fountain with a spray can. A pair of scissors twenty feet tall wandered by. She’s the Silver Moon out on the bank run piloted by two human skeletons covered with ivy. When one of them dropped a small piece of paper Boppy unfolding the note read—

You don’t know bosh. Gallop as fast as you possibly can to the loud hangers on minus one.—

Boppy groaned.

Every one decided that he should wear his gentility disguise go in do a couple of blue jokes a rough bit of sneering at the pretence that is living nothing too bothersome or refined pinch sommat to eat and slip out.

Very frightened he reluctantly stepped up to knock at the pasteboard door to Heligola.

Hallo! Let me in he said feebly ringing the fake doorbell. Halloo!

Yes. answered an anonymous whisper pent up with all the bitter inhospitable weariness of a mechanical landlady. Yes. great boppy el despoblabo the liar king has been waiting for you.

The door was thrown open and in he went. It closed. Some unwholesome shrubbery grew over it.

33

At first Boppy refused to be fully alive. The air was unnaturally motionless and the bright electrified light anything but pleasant. He greatly relieved himself on a heap of burning books.

It was very inconsiderate of him and he chuckled impolitely. Vorwartz!¹ eh? Hayo Tayo!² The natives are idolaters of the jade giant.

Boppy began to attract attention so he put on a black velvet mask and mingled with the crowd of pilgrims down on all fours in the stagnant water. The idol was half buried in the mud.

Boppy was presented to the statue. Taking aim he shot a biscuit through the sharp white teeth. Bravo!

The jubilant crowd armed themselves with looking glasses in spite of the elegance on the laburnum.

Death to the oppressors! shouted Boppy.

Honk! said the idol it sprang upon the pilgrims while they faithfully betrayed and demolished–Honk Honk—a nasty occasion. Boppy made his way at once back to the maze where they are waiting. The citadel was razed. Butter run off quickly you see the idol is after me.

¹ German: Forwards
² forest and fever in Malagasy

34

So off they trooped bullying whoever was rash enough to slow them down. The giant idol is nearly through the maze. He is limping and groaning from stepping on a hundred obelisks and in a bad mood. Boppy’s escape would never have happened if his guards had locked the gate. They followed him now swaggering about as two striped yellow and black monsters in pickups abruptly arrived.

Having left the ruins of the citadel to the chartreuse ants the monsters finally resumed their antipathy to the truth. You’re ill said the brave she one softly blubbering like a baby delirious I didn’t know. I’m not you. He looked plastered hugging the jolly pig bucket as they steadily overtook the trio of guards. Am I? He ran over one of them and threw it in the back where it mumbled—

lovingly she visited me in the night—

before croaking.

Four miles and ten minutes to run down the other two.

Boppy was astonished at the sight that followed. Suddenly unguarded the idol was thunderstruck. Is it spell bound? The monsters were cautious. They tapped at the huge glowing eyes with a stick.

35

Once satisfied that the giant idol was petrified the monsters boldly unclenched the large yellow fangs and hacked at its tongues with their claws.

Three ghastly months passed as the idol was carved up and taken by truck to the blidas. A dynamo transformed it into waves of dream energy—Burrr-r—Burr-r-r-r-r-r—Burr-r-r-r-r-r Burr-r-r-r-r-r—Burr-r-r—and soon large portions of this painting did not exist.

If Boppy was startled by the mess left by the monsters he kept his chow down. His companions changed up wind from the blood stained débris while he climbed into the skeleton of the idol.

One of us had better tell whispered Iffy. I suppose Shucks eight forty was on his feet again in spite of the danger he is our friend. I don’t want to. Tallow sat down at the foot of the idol. I would rather go home. Rather grunted knickers go on with the narrative.

I will replied Miss Delamere ascending in the gloom. The indomitable old doll’s heart sank like Mimosa Sensitiva until Zari pounced on a dying flit that flitted about and joined her scribbling a note for Boppy that read Have you found the coat of arms—does it fit? Echoes of monstrous laughter and a sickly smell greeted them inside the remains of the idol.

36

Boppy was turbaned and putting on the coat of arms when we found him in the skull. Zari scrambled into an eye socket with an indignant look. What do you say to a dip? The skeleton began to Charleston into the sea as Boppy struggled for control. The water after much pushing and shouting whisked the bits of meat the transparent skin the orange blood away without a word. Strange beastly things crept out of the isolated rocks covered with eyes.

Boppy marched the skeleton now admittedly at a snail’s pace and we were soon lost. We marched on and on. Before long a saucer shaped crater drew near. We reached the lip took the plunge and toboganned down the steep steps.

What an ass said Boppy looking at the camera judging by that last bump we must have bottomed out on an outcropping. Let’s camp here. I see Zari has caught a cold. Here Miss Delamere it’s your turn to wear the coat.

Frowning and tugging at the coat of arms his first thought was that the sleeves had grown longer during the day having second thoughts he became alarmed. Open sesame! he cried but it was no use the bewitched coat would not let go without the secret. I sighed and began to speak when Zari teeth chattering whispered a few words in French and the spell was broken.

37

A nun buoy anchored on the steps had brought the skeleton to a full stop. The ivory tusks were jammed into the sandstone there was no going forward. Luckily shucks eight forty arrived in a lifeboat. He lowered a bucket on a rope and Zari dropped in without spilling a drop. A few hard boiled hours passed and Boppy started to get lopsided.

Go tell the stupid robot to hurry up he said angrily setting the doll free in the direction of page one.

She shot to the surface and struck her head hard on the bottom of the lifeboat. Dazed she would have drifted off if knickers hadn’t been shooting lampreys.

Oh it’s that ‘orrid doll. What a bore. Fish me out! shrieked Miss Delamere.

In a moment tinctured by recollection the girl heroically lifted her into the boat. Miss Delamere was very agitated. Cursing with absurdities as only a wooden doll can she gave them a thorough soaking.

Buona pesca¹ said Zari trying to think of something to believe in instead of always wishing for something just out of reach.

¹ good catch

38

The cottage was battling a storm presently it groaned and fell over spilling Grannie out of her cosy bed and into the rain. Colly found her fast asleep beside the sideboard. The sacks of diamonds were undisturbed beneath the floor.

Revolution? asked the old bat. Here in underland?

She called loudly for Allington her giraffe on wheels.

At three o’clock two checkered saucers dropped out of the sun and floated into her dream. When she woke up Colly was perched on the windowsill and Allington was there. Though home made by her unprincipled great grandfather he still had all his paint and his eyes were sparkling in the rain. Grannie boiled water for tea. Then in a commodious basket she stuck—her boxing gloves a big book of cross words her mermaid tail the bugle of pride one hundred rutabagas a lot of shoes—and fastened it to the saddle horn. She looked round the place one last time. Millions of bright yellow termites were devouring the woodwork.

coot coot coot whinnied the giraffe impatiently coot coot coot

Grannie shut her eyes and bid good bye to the tipped over cottage her wild flowers smile delighted with the morning sunlight see what you can do to mar the metal sphere of the world.

39

Zari collected shells on the beach without getting her feet wet while the robots kept trying to get the rope to Boppy. The storm had broken off both ears of the idol and he was drowning. Clad in white jacket white trousers and sabots much too large for him he furnishes a good example of what is called the Unseen life.

Don’t mind me said grannie. Blotch what a scug heart breaking it is. People stubbornly refuse to believe in what they can’t follow. She noticed her dunce cap and tied it on. Heigho Allington! Off we go!

Boppy stuffed a white scarecrow full of money and set it free. It slowly rose to the surface and the robots hoisted it into the boat thinking that it was a harmless death twit. The viper mingles with the blood naturalists. Picking this future ended our search for the marvelous.

Whoy yes said Miss Delamere the old boy is looking pale. You poor dumb robots it’s only a borrowed Boppy. A dupe. His life body lies somewhere between reading and writing. Well?

Cautiously her valiant companions lowered the rope and Boppy was rescued. The unfortunate river horse was greatly changed by his latest feat. Hitherto he had been acting like a fool now he was thoughtful in every way. As they joined Zari on the beach he assumed an air of mischief blundering over her sandcastles and mimicking the robots especially when Zari began to giggle.

40

And then a crowd turned up from everywhere in underland all the characters gathered together determined to leap like a pack of hounds on the uproarious Cœur de lying. Boppy felt a good deal older and wiser having reached the stars. He had learned his own worth outside the cage. Granny cried hive o’ bees when she found her long lost wax boy oozing towards the barricades she sprang to the ground and wiping the tears away with her apron added him to the contents of her basket. Soft hearted Iffy and Willie choose to be in love adopt Zari and return to what’s true. Colly never felt prouder. Many of the others seem to lack direction. The imperturbable robots want to go back to playing table tennis or horse shoes and the dead are still depressed. Revolution said the deposed writer reading this aloud. Don’t fritter away your nondescript life. The most elaborate truth imaginable can’t stop the lies that blanket our existence. What is more Miss Delamere never could abide blithe novels. For her this dream always ends in disgrace.

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Allan Kausch is an editor, surreal collagist and author from the San Francisco Bay Area. He has had a handful of shows of his original collages, and is the author of five books: Voyage of Exile, Blackberry Castle, The Wax Baby, Fetch the Stick Dog and Remorse Code and Other Tantrums. A devoted Dickhead, he organized the massive preproduction of the six volumes of the Selected Letters of Philip K. Dick. Until recently he worked as the Continuity Editor for Lucasfilm Ltd., serving as the Star Wars expert under George Lucas, and he received the Harvey and Eisner awards for his editing of Star Wars comic-books. He is now pursuing a freelance existence.

“Remorse Code” is from his latest book, Remorse Code and Other Tantrums, of which noted montagist Winston Smith has said: “These artist books are really cool… Max Ernst would be amazed at his legacy… great!”