Causal And Effects

Posted by Mark on Jan 14, 2012 | 0 Comments

“Jehovah’s Witnesses?”

The couple turned their heads and looked at one another, she glancing down and he staring up on account of their relevant heights. A quizzical look passed between them and they turned slowly back towards James.

“Not Jehovah’s Witnesses then,” said James who prided himself on his quick uptake but mostly wanted to break the uneasy silence.

“No,” said the woman, slowly and carefully, almost concentrating on how the word formed and spilled from her lips. She smiled at this apparent success and continued in a more normal fashion: “You are James Trent of number three, Cosgrove Gardens.”

James looked at the number on his open door and then across the road to the sign attached to the house on the corner opposite. He stopped himself from instantly admitting that there was no fault in what had just been said to him. “What do you want with him?” he asked cautiously so that he could still claim any surprise inheritance or pretend he’d moved long ago depending on how this played out.

“We are the police,” said the male half of the couple.

“We are Temporal Causality Police from your twenty-seventh century,” corrected the female.

James nodded and sighed. “Of course you are,” he said with a slight smile. There was a drugs rehab centre three streets over and he’d encountered a scruffy, young man only last year who’d clearly fallen off the rehabilitation wagon and wanted to let the world know he was happy about it, as were the invisible, green unicorns on the rooftops. “Make sure none of the green unicorns get in your Tardis,” he said, and made to close the door.

The woman took her hand from her pocket and placed it on James’ arm making him flinch and step away; she had icy cold fingers and it was a decidedly mild March day. “We are here to arrest you,” she said firmly.

James felt certain that he must have misheard. “Sorry, you’re what police?” he asked, rubbing at his arm.

“Temporal Causality,” said the man with a smile and a nod, and he then fished inside his jacket pocket for a card which was held up towards James. It looked like metal with a fine, translucent mesh across its surface and seemed to flex slightly in the grip of the stranger; there were some markings too that might have been letters, words, and pictures but they seemed to shimmer like holograms and disappear from view when looked at directly.

James shook his head to clear the confusion. “You’re what?” he asked again. He hoped this was a new approach by the Jehovah’s Witnesses because nothing else made much sense.

“James Trent, you are accused of violating temporal causality by instigating two time leaps on consecutive days to the exact same chronojunction to perform contradictory causal actions.” The woman wasn’t smiling as she recited this apparently rehearsed phrase.

“I… what? How?”

“The time device you created, Mr Trent,” explained the man after a short nod of approval from his colleague, “has opened humankind up to all manner of wonders but it is not to be trifled with. Even you, its creator, are not immune from prosecution.”

“What?” splurted James. “I haven’t invented anything! I’m a bricklayer.”

“Come now, your history as a bricklayer is well-known, Mr Trent, but the insight that helped you bridge the gap of knowledge between quantum time and the workings of a sandwich toaster in a freezer after that most fateful New Year’s Eve party put that particular career behind you many years ago.”

“What?” said James again. Even he was getting tired of saying it.

“Enough,” said the woman forcefully but quietly. “We are here to issue an arrest. James Trent, on this local date of the ninth of March, two-thousand and nineteen you are hereby notified that…”

“It’s twenty twelve,” said James.

“What?” said the man. It made a nice change. He looked at the palm of his own hand and made a face. “Ah.” His colleague looked down at the palm too.

“Oh,” she added. “This can’t be good. I wouldn’t be surprised if we didn’t receive a…”

“Eek!” eeked James, which made both visitors look first at him and then swivel quickly to look behind them at what it was that he was looking at in alarm.

“You are officers Qualm Three Four and Spinks One Nineteen of the Imperial Temporal Constabulary,” said the immaculately-dressed, well-spoken, muscular, orange mouse that blocked the pathway away from the house, “and I am here to effect judgement on a reality violation.”

“That figures,” said the woman. “It was an honest mistake though.”

“A mistake that has had terrible repercussions. We will need to render your life event to nothing; I’m sure you understand.”

“Now, wait a minute,” said the man, holding up a finger and wagging it in the large rodent’s direction. Nothing else was forthcoming as both the man and woman were suddenly no longer there. This left James alone with the newly-arrived thing.

“You’re a mouse,” said James quietly.

“Technically, I’m a giraffe,” said the mouse, “but it’s a little bit more complicated than that and a lot of it has to do with your invention of the Reality Rewriter in eight years time.”

“I thought I invented a time machine,” said James.

“Don’t be silly!” laughed the giraffe-mouse. “Time travel is impossible. Fortunately, it’s you who finally works this out many years from now and it’s why you then dedicate your life to constructing a device that will warp reality to your will, allow you to make anything possible, and yet still protect you from the changes wrought. The quantum time lessons you learn will set you on the right path but it’s only the start. Eventually, you will need a mountain of sandwich toasters to complete your work.”

“Should you be telling me all this?” asked James. “I mean… those two people… didn’t you erase them from history or something?”

“What two people?” asked the giraffe-mouse, genuinely interested.

“The man and the woman. They were just here. You accused them of a reality something and then they were gone.”

The giraffe-mouse clasped his hands together and closed his eyes for a moment. “That sounds plausible,” he said after a few seconds. “If you have already switched on the Reality Rewriter then it’s possible that you’re being protected right now against changes you’re making outside which would include me and these two phantom people.”

“Wouldn’t I know I’d done that?” asked James.

“You should,” agreed the giraffe-mouse, opening his eyes and looking into the man’s eyes. “Well,” he smiled, “in my reality you should.”

“What do I do?” asked James. He looked up and down the street. Everything else looked perfectly normal; it was just this small area of his world right in front of him that made no sense.

“Carry on as normal. Do the things you were always meant to do. It’s all you can do.” And with that he turned around, walked down the path, and wandered around the corner out of sight.

James stepped back into his house and closed the door quietly, then leaned his head against it and let out a deep breath. He would need to sell things, he realised, and he would need to start hitting the electrical retail stores. He should see if he could get in contact with the manufacturers too, he thought; he’d need a mountain, that’s what he’d been told. Things were going to change. Reality was going to change.

Had anyone been looking they might have witnessed a man and woman suddenly appear as if from nowhere just around the corner from Cosgrove Gardens. A second later a mouse in a suit walked up to them. It shimmered like a mirage and then became a tall, balding man who instantly rubbed his face vigorously.

“Itchy?” asked the woman sarcastically as she pulled out an ice bag from her pocket and threw it in a hedge.

“You be the bloody mouse next time Claire,” came the reply.

“Seemed to go well,” said the other man.

“Hmmm,” Claire answered, opening her handbag. “Vision cloaks and mutation projectors away now,” she commanded. The two men took out small, smooth stones from their trouser pockets and deposited them with their companion. “That will do for today,” she said, and the three started to walk towards a small, blue car parked nearby.

“You don’t think we’re going to an awful lot of trouble just to increase sales in our sandwich toaster outlet, do you?” asked the man who had only recently been a rodent.

Claire and the other man glanced at one another briefly. “No,” they said in unison.

Frogs Everywhere

Posted by Mark on Dec 22, 2011 | 0 Comments

There were frogs everywhere. Of the carpet there could be seen not one inch and the amphibians also adorned the three piece suite, curtains, photos, nested tables, television stand, and mantelpiece. Tens of thousands of eyelids opened and closed at regular intervals and a small number of the many creatures shifted or squirmed over neighbours but there was an otherwise strange stillness to the room.

“There are frogs everywhere,” said Jay quietly, but not quietly enough. A wave of startled movement broke out near the taller of the two men’s feet but swiftly ebbed into the uneasy calm once more.

“I know,” whispered Luke. “I have the gift.”

Jay looked down at the top of his friend’s head, unable to see his face but certain it would show exaltation from the tone of voice. “There are frogs everywhere,” he repeated, quieter than before.

Luke looked up, smiling. “I can make the noise and summon them,” he said, and took a deep breath.

“Stop!” said Jay a little too forcefully as he grabbed his friend’s arm. A short chorus of croaks and other assorted noises broke out in the room and there was a concerted effort by several hundred of the room’s cold-blooded denizens to get away from the loud and scary man. A kaleidoscope of greens and yellows and browns with occasional gems of bright blues, reds, and oranges undulated across the floor.

After about a minute near-silence and near-stillness returned.

“You’ve ruined Katie’s birthday,” whispered Jay. He saw Luke’s shoulders drop slightly but there was no response. “Six today,” Jay continued, “and all she’ll remember is a semi-aquatic home invasion, her cake ruined, her friends in tears, and her screaming in terror in her room.”

“I’m sorry,” said Luke, and it sounded like he meant it.

“Why today? Why would you choose to try this gift out today of all days?”

Luke looked around the room, seemingly seeing it and studying it for the first time. He couldn’t deny that there were frogs everywhere; some were on the walls and a couple had even made it across the ceiling and set up home amongst the light fittings in its centre. And the smell hit him suddenly too. Frogs had a distinctive odour and in this volume it was quite overpowering.

“I’m sorry,” repeated Luke. “I’ve felt I had this gift all my life and I don’t know… I just felt compelled to try it today.”

“All your life!?” Jay said incredulously, keeping his voice low. “Even six months ago?” There was a barely perceptible nod by way of reply. “Six months ago! Damn! Our planet is invaded by things so alien we’ve still not agreed on names for them. Millions die, so much damage, and then they fall foul of some allergy to frogs which addles their brains or brain-equivalents and they all commit mass suicide in the sea. And you couldn’t have tried out your gift back then and ended everything quicker? When Jenny was alive? Damn! Damn it man!”

Luke wanted to say he was sorry again but kept his mouth shut. Two frogs in the room started croaking in turn. Competing with one another or simply communicating, neither Luke nor Jay knew.

Jay took a deep breath, fought the gag reflex briefly, and then said calmly: “Do you feel you have a gift for getting rid of the frogs?”

“Maybe,” said Luke with a strange shake of his head.

“What is it?” asked Jay with some trepidation.

“I think it summons horses. Frogs don’t like horses.”

Jay looked at his glistening living room and at the smashed windows in the bay window; the amphibians had caused quite a bit of damage getting in and horses would probably cause quite a bit more.

“Katie’s always wanted a pony,” said Jay after a moment. “Do it.”

Justifiable Homicide

Posted by Mark on Aug 31, 2011 | 0 Comments

“Would you like a cup of tea?”

“No.”

“Okay, well then… why don’t you start? Take us back to that morning.”

“We went for a walk.”

“Your wife and you?”

“Yes.”

“Just the two of you?”

“Yes.”

“Carry on.”

“I picked up my camera bag and we left the house. We went for a walk. I photographed a few things.”

“What sort of things?”

“Anything. I photograph anything interesting. Buildings, people, views, rubbish, anything.”

“Carry on.”

“We got near the pub – the Rose – and she told me to put the camera away.”

“This camera?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me about it. I don’t know much about them.”

“Digital SLR. Canon. Telephoto lens. I’m not sure what you want to know.”

“That’s fine. So, you got to the pub and put your camera away?”

“No. I don’t put my camera away. I might see something interesting.”

“So you argued?”

“No. Not really. We went in a had a drink and I didn’t put the camera away. I didn’t spill anything on the camera. I don’t know what her problem was.”

“Indeed. Did anything else happen there?”

“No. We left after the drink and carried on with the walk. Then we noticed the clouds coming in and we decided we should probably make for another pub.”

“People after my own heart. Did anything happen here?”

“She told me to put the camera away when the first spots of rain came down.”

“Sensible.”

“No, the camera is water-resistant. A few spots won’t hurt it.”

“So you didn’t put the camera away?”

“No. Rain can be good to photograph.”

“And when you got to the second pub?”

“I kept the camera out there too. We were indoors then. And there were some interesting people in the pub.”

“Did you photograph them?”

“No, but I could have.”

“And how did your wife feel about this?”

“She was irritated, but she always is.”

“Irritated enough to fight?”

“No, we didn’t fight. We left the pub and saw an old woman fall over in the street so I photographed her. My wife was not pleased. She said we should have helped but it was on the other side of the road and there were other people nearer. Here, here’s the photo I took.”

“Ouch! Face in the turd!”

“I know. Classic. Anyway, it would have been difficult to get across the road as there was a funeral procession driving slowly through just about then.”

“And you… photographed it?”

“Yes. The reflections in the rain puddles of the cars and their flowers was too good to miss.”

“I’ll bet your wife didn’t think the same thing.”

“She thought it was disrespectful; said I should have kept the camera down at the very least. I pointed out that what takes place in public is fair game but she has this bee in her bonnet about people’s privacy and all that crap. She just hates my hobby.”

“Did you fight then?”

“No. I wouldn’t fight about that. Why would I?”

“Perhaps you should move the story forward to when you fought.”

“It was later. Quite a bit later. We had been to a few places. She had asked me to put the camera away on a number of occasions.”

“And you hadn’t?”

“No, but eventually I decided to humour her. You know, for a bit of peace since she looked so grumpy.”

“Go on.”

“I put the camera away.”

“And?”

“Then we saw a crocodile.”

“That’s unusual for an English city.”

“I know.”

“What did you do?”

“I tried to get my camera back out of the camera bag.”

“Tried?”

“I got distracted by the eagle. It flew right over our heads and grabbed the crocodile from the ground.”

“Right.”

“I got my camera out as it took off with the crocodile writhing in its talons.”

“Did you take a shot?”

“The lens cap was still on and we were knocked back just then by the electrical vortex that sparked into existence just in front of us.”

“A vortex?”

“I can’t describe it any other way. An astronaut stepped from it and pointed some brick-shaped device at the crocodile and eagle. They froze and faded and just disappeared.”

“What were you doing at this time?”

“Trying to set aperture priority on the camera.”

“Did you succeed?”

“Just after the vortex took the astronaut away from us; he waved, by the way.”

“That’s pretty strange.”

“Yes.”

“And the fight?”

“My wife asked me if I’d caught any of it on camera so I cleaved her skull in with it.”

Doctor Maniac’s Meeting

Posted by Mark on Aug 7, 2011 | 0 Comments

“Gentlemen, thank you for coming today. Such a prestigious group of the world’s greatest criminal masterminds the world has truly never seen, nor shall it ever with our skill at evading the law. Most of you are probably wondering why I’ve asked you all to this meeting and why I’ve insisted on such secrecy and I… the chair recognises Wan Tring of the Hong Kong triads.”

“Thank you Doctor Maniac. I am Wan Tring. Most here are not Wan Tring.”

“Right. Wondering. Won-der-ing. Not Wan Tring. Can I continue? Thank you. I have asked you to this… the chair recognises El Diablo.”

“Is this one of those meetings where you kill anyone who dissents with you?”

“No! No! Where do you get these ideas?”

“I steal movies. I watch movies. Do these chairs slide down into a pit of spikes and fire?”

“What pit? This is clearly a laminated floor and we’re on the third storey of this building. You came past the floor below on the way here. You had the tour. Do you remember the office staff? The pretty secretary with the big you-know-whats? People, please! Can I get to the point of this meeting? Oh, for fu… the chair recognises Minister Montezuma.”

“I have a dentist’s appointment at three. Will this meeting take long?”

“Let’s… start again. And please: no interruptions. Oh… Minister Montezuma, again?”

“It’s just that it’s about an hour’s drive and I need to get there early to fill in some paperwork. I would really like to leave by one thirty.”

“You can leave at one thirty. That’s not a problem. Gentlemen, I’ve…”

“I will leave at the same time as the Minister. Unless the Minister doesn’t want that!”

“El Diablo, why would the…”

“My friend El Diablo, you may do whatever you please.”

“What’s going on with you two?”

“There’s nothing going on but let’s just say that I think we should all leave together or not at all.”

“Is this something from one of your movies again?”

“We have seen this movie in Hong Kong too. Wan Tring Enterprises has imported many copies. Good film. Robert Vaughn.”

“I wish you would take this meeting seriously.”

“You’re thinking of The Man From U.N.C.L.E.”

“Can we please stop talking about films?”

“Many apologies. Perhaps it is a common theme.”

“Really, please, please can we get back on track here? I’ve only booked the Death Room until four.”

“Aha! You are trying to kill us Maniac!”

“I am not! It’s named after the architect, Francis Death. He’s responsible for the unique lintels you see over there and the rosewood panelling designs. You people are… what now?”

“You haven’t forgotten that I want to leave at one thirty.”

“How the hell could I have forgotten? You’ve only barely finished… that’s not even for another two and a quarter hours anyway!”

“It’s just we don’t even know what this meeting’s about or how long it will go on for.”

“What!? I have been trying to tell you since you all got here. At least Lord Chaoticon has been quiet; the rest of you…”

“I think Lord Chaoticon is asleep.”

“He’s what?”

“To be fair, he’s probably jetlagged. And he did just mastermind stealing a nuclear sub from the Iranians. I think he was up until the early hours of the morning on Thursday and then flew straight here. It’s a nine hour flight.”

“You people are unbelievable.”

“Oh! He stole the submarine? I thought it was Papa Odessa and the Fingernail Gang.”

“No, they’ve been retired for over a year now. Papa has opened a bike repair shop on the Windward Islands. It’s what he always wanted.”

“Retired! Retired? That sounds like a great idea right now. That’s it, you lot have driven me to distraction. I’m out of this business for good. Let yourselves out. You can leave now or at one thirty or whenever the hell you like and you can all go separately or together. I. Don’t. Care. Goodbye.”

“What’s all the shouting about?”

“Lord Chaoticon’s awake!”

“Come back Doctor Maniac! Lord Chaoticon’s awake.”

“I was just resting my eyes.”

“Your meeting has finished early Doctor Maniac.”

“Yes it has Julie. Can you call down to the canteen and get them to send up some coffee? And can you hunt down some headache tablets too?”

“Right away Doctor Maniac. Did you manage to arrange anything for your wife’s surprise birthday?”

“No, no I didn’t. Can you also switch on the electric seals to the Death Room and release the poison gas while you’re at it too?”

“Right away Doctor Maniac. Will there be anything else?”

“I think we should just give the Science Team the go-ahead for Operation Lunar Volcano – liaise with Sharon on that – and can you draw me up a shortlist of party organisers? I think that’ll be all. Thank you.”

“Right away Doctor Maniac.”

The Jewish Invention

Posted by Mark on Jun 28, 2011 | 0 Comments

So, you want to know about my incredible invention and how it affects every Jewish person on the planet, yes? Very well. But where to begin?

I’m drawn to Poland in the early 1960s. You might not think it would be a hip and happening place – certainly nowhere near, say, London – but there were places you could go and things you could do that put London in the shade. In a sense, almost quite literally so, since it was just outside Warsaw that saw Europe’s largest solar array built, a vast collecting dish lined with early photovoltaic cells. They weren’t much like the things you see these days, though. You have to remember that this was during Poland’s decade of experimenting with genetic manipulation, before the animal rights people came in and freed the cooking, twitching silverfish from their power parabola prison.

I dated an animal rights activist for a while but we all do crazy things when we’re out of our faces on glue. No horses were harmed in the formation of that glue. The same can’t be said for my short run as head of innovations for the world famous Ragtag Circus during the summer of 1971, touring South America. I was convinced that a 21-horse pyramid was possible but, well, maybe we’ll never know for sure what caused the collapse. My dear friend Monsieur Bolobo the clown claimed a painted zebra had infiltrated our number on the night of the spectacle, its weaker back giving way under the weight, but this was his stock excuse for every failing. Made for an amusing divorce hearing from his wife.

Someone else who divorced his wife was Ignatius Lemming. Now, it’s a strange name but I’d be surprised if you’d heard it before since he went out of his way to hide it from the public, adopting noms-de-plume in much the same fashion that celebrities adopt children and charities. Among his many aliases for a while he was Charles Ford, tobacco importer; then he was Jermaine Montezuma, backing singer for the soul group The Five Spaniards; I remember a wild fortnight when he had clicks in his name because he’d seen some television documentary about a native tribe somewhere. This was right around the dolphin uprising at Chicago Zoo. And now you know why.

The Five Spaniards wasn’t a real group, unlike The Six Senoritas, although funk and soul weren’t their specialities; they preferred rumbles and robberies. They were rough, they were tough, and they were buff, but you accused them of being anything other than straight, angry women at your peril. I first encountered them as they broke into the bank I was in the process of stealing. There was a time when you could reason with people like that – “I’ve raised it up on wheels! I was clearly here first and about to make off with it!” – but this took place a couple of days after the great criminal honour truce ran out and, ultimately, it was six against one. Besides, I was always a gentleman first and a thief second.

I needed a second when I was challenged to a duel by Lord March (a misunderstanding over the rights – or, rather, lack thereof – of commoners to swear at swans at Goodwood House). His Lordship and I had both been drinking at the time and it seemed like a good way to resolve our avian differences of opinion but when the time came I, at least, had sobered up enough to realise that cricket bats were, if not dangerous, at least unbecoming for such an occasion. I asked my second – a tramp I had befriended by the name of Wallace – to attempt to persuade my upper class adversary to call off the fight but Lord March would have none of it. Another thing he would have none of was caviar.

I don’t like caviar either. Never have. I don’t like the texture in my mouth and it’s far too salty for my taste, although if you know a woman who likes caviar then you can make a couple of other assumptions about things she’ll like too. Balls, is one. And the tiaras you wear to them, naturally. My partner and I manufactured top-end tiaras in the mid-seventies. It was a brief flirtation with the business as a result of some rather unwanted and swift attention from the local headwear mafia.

On a cold morning in May we found ourselves face-to-face with rather burly and rather angry henchmen with just one thing on their collective minds: pummelling. Fortunately, the collective minds of headwear mafia henchmen amounts to very little grey matter and I was able to spin them a long tale that went off at tangents in such a way as to confuse them as to the reason they were there in the first place. Rest assured: that story finished most unsatisfyingly too.

Sex Sirens Of Saturn

Posted by Mark on Jan 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Previously…

• Leopard Ladies Of Mercury
• Buxom Amazons Of Jupiter

"I put it to you Mr Hawkes that this is the gravest danger we have ever faced." I was most adamant on this fact and jabbed my finger in his general direction even as I jutted out my chin to check for stubble growth in the reflection afforded by the rear porthole with its view of the star-filled heavens. Mr Hawkes was his usual voiceless self.

I had now spent countless weeks in the admittedly well-furnished space-traversing vessel with just Mr Hawkes for company, and poor company at that. It is no exaggeration to say that my mind had entered a dark place just as my body was hurtling through dark space too.

"Damnation man!" I exclaimed loudly, wheeling around. "Won’t you just speak up for once! This solitude and silence are enough to fray the edges of my mind!"

Mr Hawkes kept himself just outside the edges of my peripheral vision. It was an extraordinary talent he possessed in this respect but it held scant recompense for his otherwise dreadful companionship. Our games of tag and hide-and-seek had been initially entertaining but ultimately grated on the senses. There was little entertainment in playing with someone as skilled as he was.

I prepared a meal for one from the ship’s kitchen. I didn’t like to exclude Mr Hawkes as it gnawed at my sensibilities, yet if the man would not so much as converse then he deserved to suffer. He hadn’t complained thus far and I suspected he was consuming ship supplies slyly while I slept. At the conclusion of the meal – a full Sunday roast for the seventh day running for I had determined there was an excess of potatoes that needed to be consumed before the eyes they had already sprouted started winking – there was a rather loud knock on the outside of the spaceship.

"Mr Hawkes! Will you get that?" I asked.

He would not, and there was a second knock, followed swiftly by a third. I put down the plate that I had been washing, dried my hands, and made my way to the foremost porthole. I glared at Mr Hawkes as I did so but he leapt away from my gaze preventing me from seeing whether he was in any way sorry for being so utterly unhelpful.

At the front of the vessel I expected to see what I always saw: the black beach of outer space sprinkled with star sand. I jumped back in shock. Needless to say but my eyes were greeted by something wholly unexpected.

"Carruthers!" I gasped. "It simply cannot be!"

Peering inwards was my old friend Carruthers. Through many decades I had assisted this genius with his many astounding inventions and experimentations. We had journeyed to the very centre of the Earth in his Marvellous Marble Mole Machine; there wasn’t much there. We had recreated living dinosaurs from fossils; they had succumbed to smog. We had created a method of travel that was nearly as fast as a beam of light from a gas lamp; women did not appreciate the weight-gain side-effect and the business collapsed. Most recently we had travelled to the inner solar system by brass tube and set foot on Mercury.

"They told me you were dead!" I exclaimed.

Carruthers pointed to his ear, shaking his head from side to side and mouthed something back to me. Through the sturdy English oak door and thick glass it was no wonder he could not hear me, nor I him. I shrugged by way of response and shouted loudly and slowly, hoping he would understand. "The door is locked from the outside."

Clearly my message got through and Carruthers pulled out a small pistol from inside his tweed jacket. I stepped away from the area and told Mr Hawkes to do the same. There were two sharp cracks.

Suddenly the door swung open.

"Doctor, you’re a sight for sore eyes," he said smiling.

"Carruthers, my eyes are surely more sore than yours and the merest glimpse of you is clearly far superior to any protracted stare at me," I countered. There was a movement behind my friend as I said this and I gasped once more. "Elizabeth! You’re alive too!"

"Of course I am Doctor. Why wouldn’t I be?"

"Never mind this chit-chat," shouted Carruthers hurriedly. "We must transfer to The Ringseeker at once!"

I had no time to gather my wits and was rushed out of the front of the space vessel and into another identical model that had been courageously and expertly tethered alongside. There I was urged to sit down while Carruthers and his niece flicked switches and twisted knobs. They knew what they were doing and I was happy to remain invisible for a few moments, still elated at my rescue. Mr Hawkes clearly felt the same way.

With a lurch we were on our way, but to where?

"To Saturn!" beamed Carruthers. Clearly I had spoken aloud without realising it. I started to shake my head but Carruthers held up a hand and stopped my questions before they could form. "There is much to explain Doctor but fortunately we have a half hour to kill. Elizabeth, would you be so kind as to make us all a nice cup of tea?"

Over the next thirty minutes I listened intently as my dear friend and his niece – both of whom I had believed to be dead – told me news of the past couple of months.

Carruthers, far from dying of complications to his severed hand, had instead made a swift recovery and over a weekend had fashioned a replacement limb from polished brass recycled from his Mercury tube. The fingers and thumb flexed just as a normal hand would, controlled by a series of levers near his elbow. I remarked that once we returned to my surgical practice in Woolwich I would endeavour to connect the levers to his brain allowing him to use the power of thought itself to move the mechanical digits. It was the least I could do, after all.

Elizabeth – dear, sweet Elizabeth – was fortuitously and obviously also not dead. There was no hansom cab incident and, indeed, she had not been in Whitechapel on the day of the alleged accident. She had, instead, infiltrated the lepidopterists at the behest of her uncle and it was through this subterfuge that she learned – sadly just too late – of their dreams of revenge against me.

At Her Majesty’s Imperial Spaceport near Dagenham Carruthers had used the superhuman power in his brass hand to break into and then steal a recently-repaired rocketship and with the aid of his niece the pair of them had then pursued my flying tomb, eventually catching up and releasing me just outside the jovian gas giant’s atmosphere.

"Carruthers and Elizabeth, I can never thank you enough for what you have done for me," I stated with a trembling lip as I sipped the last of a rather lovely Darjeeling. "May I just ask, though, why we are on our way to Saturn rather than returning home?"

"Doctor, have you ever heard of the Sex Sirens of Saturn?" asked Elizabeth.

I confessed that I hadn’t. Mr Hawkes said nothing and I surmised he too was in the dark.

"During his recuperation my uncle learnt of their existence through old records unearthed in the recent global catastrophe," continued the most handsome young woman with what might have been a small apologetic smile. I nodded understanding.

"To Saturn!" I exclaimed. "And the Sex Sirens!"

Under the expert guidance of Carruthers and Elizabeth, The Ringseeker switftly carried the four of us past the great mass of Jupiter where we witnessed my previous vessel of transportation spark briefly, burn rapidly, and extinguish sharply. I uttered a silent prayer of thanks that I had such a courageous and capable friend.

The descent to Saturn later that day was fraught with danger, as you would expect. The great planet’s rings were razor sharp and required supreme navigation skills to avoid a fatal piercing, but eventually there was a noticeable bump and we came to a rest. It was the first time in the best part of a couple of months that I and Mr Hawkes had been more-or-less stationary, and the experience was initially unsettling. I felt queasy – particularly around the midriff – though I tried to hide the discomfort through a breathing and gentle stretching technique Mr Hawkes and I had developed only recently.

"Doctor, is there something amiss?" asked Elizabeth, placing a warm hand on my arm.

"It appears your uncle is not the only inventor on board," I replied. "I and Mr Hawkes have come up with a method that calms the spirit and relaxes the muscles. It requires no outlay of capital and I shall probably introduce it initially to the subcontinent to test the waters so to speak when we eventually return. We have decided to call it toga."

Elizabeth looked slowly around the cabin and smiled once more. "Named after the Roman garment?" she asked quietly.

I was about to remark that the name was unimportant when a loud hiss of air interjected. Carruthers pushed open the door and the three of us took our first look and then first step out across the strange land that formed Saturn’s crust.

It was both a breathtakingly beautiful and bone-chillingly barren world. From horizon to horizon it was as flat as Norfolk but even more devoid of interest than that Godforsaken Slough of Despond. Its saving grace came in the colour of the soil; like the sand of Alum Bay on the Isle of Wight the ground was streaked with a myriad of colours: yellows and ochres and browns for the most part, but occasional rivulets of pinks and whites and even vivid blues punctuated the floor.

"Like a kaleidoscope," said Elizabeth. I turned to her to nod and was struck by just how truly, marvellously handsome she was. In this strange place with its endless expanse she shone, and I found myself more in awe of her face and the curves of her body than of the planet Saturn with its halo of rings rising into the sky and out of sight in the dirty grey-green sky.

A sound – deep, rumbling, and decidedly unnatural – rolled across the land and we all stiffened (some of us needed little assistance there). I looked frantically around. There was The Ringseeker and ourselves but not a thing else to be seen. As the noise abated Carruthers clapped his hands – that sound of flesh on brass only marginally less strange than the Saturnian one that had preceded it – and beamed.

"Wonderful!" he exclaimed. "We can go now!"

"Go? We have only just arrived!" I blustered. "And while I would like nothing more than to return home to my Woolwich practice and undertake a nice, relaxing holiday around India we are nevertheless standing on Saturn, a world – need I remind you? – that you wished to visit in order that you might seek out these so-called Sex Sirens, damn it man!" I felt my face turn beetroot at such language in front of the lovely Elizabeth but she was her usual nonplussed self.

Carruthers looked taken aback but this gave way swiftly to bemusement. "Did you not hear the planet’s wail?" he asked. I was confused.

"Doctor," said Elizabeth, interrupting me from my storm of tangled thoughts. She held my hand in one of hers and then reached out with her other to touch my sideburns and usher my gaze into her eyes. They were beautiful, of course, like lagoons in the milky sea of her face. A man could drown happily there and slide down her long neck into the recesses…

That sound returned, louder than before, and from every direction. We all jumped and Carruthers laughed. Elizabeth smiled too, and I came to a sudden realisation of my own.

"Oh," I said, sheepishly.

"Let’s get you home Doctor," said Carruthers. "It’s a long trip and I think some tea with an extra spoonful of bromide may be just what you ordered."

I laughed, feeling the stress and embarrassment leave me. I pictured it in my mind as a physical thing: a trickle of tension manifested as blue soil joining the multicoloured surface of Saturn for all eternity. We boarded our vessel and left in due course heading home.

"Confound it!" I said loudly, startling my friends, as we negotiated safe passage past those rings once more. I ran to the porthole and looked frantically over the slowly shrinking world we were departing. I fancied I saw him once or twice but could not be certain. "Goodbye Mr Hawkes," I said to myself.

An Interview With Author Mark A. Rayner

Posted by Mark on Dec 2, 2009 | 0 Comments

It was a dark and stormy night… somewhere… more likely than not. All I know is that – for me – it was dark because my room is dark and I rarely open the curtains. It may well have been night but I don’t wear a watch and my body clock was fried after a run-in with a cattle prod (another story, another time). It wasn’t stormy though; unless it was one of those quiet storms you never hear about.

To be frank it doesn’t really matter about the general luminance and exterior weather conditions. What actually matters is that I was conducting an interview with prominent (he protrudes into three of my very favourite dimensions) internet-present author and occasional Canadian Mark A. Rayner.

We discussed the decline of sea shanties at length. We formulated a new theory of life, the universe, and everything bar Miley Cyrus. We broached the subject of sex but decided that it wouldn’t be fair to our respective partners and the distance thing would be a killer. Mainly we talked about books, writing, publishing, authoring, and other related synonyms. If you want to know a little bit more about writing and getting your work published then this interview could be just the thing you need; if you’re interested in sea shanties then I’m afraid that section was cut for brevity’s sake.

ME: My readers – based on search referral traffic – are perverts and I like to cater to their needs so first thing’s first… this book we’re about to talk about features sex. Weird sex. Animalesque-human sex. Some might say “forbidden sex”. Some might say “the sort of sex the Catholic Church would cover up for decades if their sexual cover-up goons weren’t so busy with all the paedophilia and other related shenanigans (not that there’s necessarily any cross-species sex going on in the church (donkeys feature at Easter but I don’t really recall any other major animal featuring heavily in the New Testament which is probably why a lot of them don’t go to church in the first place (also: they’re not stupid))). Now that I’ve peppered this opening paragraph with terms that deviants are likely to type into Google perhaps you could talk about how easy or difficult it was to write the sex scenes, what sort of research you conducted, and how much of you went into the sex scenes? Hopefully in a manner that won’t get you fired from your job. Although: what a story!

MARK: The writing of sex scenes is notoriously fraught with pitfalls, and many great writers have made complete asses of themselves in attempting it. In fact, each year the Literary Review has an award for the worst sex scene – worst writing, not worst sex and I should note that John Updike has been nominated four times. So, why write sex scenes at all if it’s such difficult territitory? Oh what a giveaway! Because it’s an important part of the human experience, and because, let’s face it, sex is quite funny – I mean, if you’re not in the middle of it. So I acknowledge that writing a sex scene is rather difficult. (You’ll notice I avoided using the word hard.) I just sort of use my imagination, and the Internet is a wonderful resource, of course. Not that I would use it for anything BUT research purposes. How much of me is in the scenes? Well I’ve written it, so it’s come from somewhere in my brain, I suppose, but a lot of what happens is rooted (oops) in the characters – their motivations, thoughts and emotions. And sometimes it feels like the characters just get beamed into my head from somewhere else. (The naked channel, probably.)

ME: The book is called Marvellous Hairy and it would be fair to say that it might prove difficult for bookstore owners to determine where to stock it since picking a genre – one that already exists (we’ll have none of your Dewey Decimal-defying "Fabulist Satire" around these parts) – would ultimately boil down to drawing a topic from a hat. Did you have a target audience in mind? Who is going to like this book? Do you fear a backlash from librarians? They are a vengeful sort after all and many of them disguise their old, musky book scent with lavender which is a crime against nature and confusing to those who try to locate the elderly by smell.

MARK: My hope is that people who enjoy Douglas Adams, Philip K. Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Tom Robbins, Christopher Moore, Terry Pratchett, and Chuck Palahniuk will get a charge out of Marvellous Hairy – basically people with supple minds and well-developed senses of humour. Regarding librarians: there is nothing more frightening than a cross librarian, especially if they’re armed with some kind of plasma weapon or a cutting-edge taxonomy. That said, many librarians secretly wait for the day when a Chosen One will break the shackles of their Dewey Decimal system, when a freedom-loving publisher will shatter the tyranny of the Library of Congress. Excelsior!

ME: Like many people who studied the works of Shakespeare at school I came to loathe all his writing with a passion. Clearly, you’re a bit different (I didn’t say "strange in the head" but I was thinking it) since your book references A Midsummer Night’s Dream. What the hell is wrong with you? No, don’t answer that question. Answer this one: Shakespeare, eh? (That was a question; not a Canadian impression for your benefit.)

MARK: I’m mostly hoping that Marvellous Hairy can get on some university reading lists (sales, baby) and it seemed like making Shakespeare references might help. Also, I was desperate for an underlying structure and theme that I could parody. I’m pretty sure Shakespeare would have approved.

ME: They say everybody has a book in them and often they’re saying it in a figurative sense rather than a literal one. Even I may have a book in me. Even perhaps people reading this. Not that man who walks down my road in a skirt, though. He’s probably got an oboe in him rather than a book. And not a good oboe either. Weirdo. I’ve been put off writing a novel for the same reason as many people: I’m lazy and there’s not enough time and there’s always something to watch on TV and I’ve got a pile of DVDs to get through. How do you do it? Tell me about writing. What’s your process? Did that sound bookish enough?

MARK: Wailing. Pain. Anguish. Much beating of the forehead against my keyboard. (I go through about two a week – keyboards that is, not foreheads, though my friends have taken to calling me Qwerty, because of the letters stamped in my skin.) Once I’ve gotten through the self-flagellation part of the morning, I drink some coffee, and then procrastinate by writing something for my blog, The Skwib. That usually takes about forty minutes or so, and then I’m really ready to get to work. (Which is when I take the dog for a walk or play a video game, or prepare a lecture for class.) Then I have lunch. People are remarkably understanding about this process, especially if I’m buying.

ME: People reading this will probably want some advice on writing if I’ve peppered this article with just the right phrases to entice them in and quite clearly I’m not the man to give them any of the good stuff. But you may be! Or you might be able to fake it! Do you have any advice for would-be authors looking to write and publish their very own labour of love? What about an anecdote? Everyone loves an anecdote about writing. I challenge you to find someone who doesn’t!

MARK: My advice for budding authors is that if you can possibly do anything else, you should avoid writing at all costs. It’s an extremely nasty business; first of all, there’s the damp and dark. Then there’s the danger of explosions and cave ins, not to mention all the close-harmony singing. No wait, that’s coal mining in Wales. But metaphorically, that’s what writing is like. (Without the close-harmony singing, which I quite enjoy.) Publishing right now is a crazy business, so just be prepared for how difficult it will be – that said, it’s probably one of the best times in history to be a writer just starting out. There are so many ways you can get your words in front of an audience. Making a living off it, though, is extremely unlikely. (I still have a full-time job, for example, which helps fund my "fiction habit".) Marvellous Hairy started life as a short manuscript in Anvil Press’s Three-Day Novel contest – the idea is to write a 30000-word "novel" in three days. When I wasn’t typing like a madman, I spent a good part of my long weekend huddled under the desk, nursing a bottle of Balvenie. I’m not sure if that counts as a writing anecdote so much as a cry for help.

ME: There is nothing actually marvellous about being hairy; I have this on good authority from my wife. Clean-shaven is the order of the day where my face is concerned and if by some random roll of the evolutionary dice I had been cursed with a rug-like back then I would either be a) wifeless, or b) the proud owner of an annual subscription to the nearest waxing emporium. Yet you think hairy is somehow… good? Explain, Mr hirsute-loving writer man!

MARK: You should come with me on my yearly winter visit to see my brother in Ottawa. When it’s 30 below, and a wicked wind is tearing down the Rideau Canal (where, dementedly, you have decided to spend the afternoon skating), you will understand how marvellous it is to have a hairy face. But it’s true, 88 percent of wives and girlfriends are not in favour of copious hair growth. The secret is finding that other 12 percent.

ME: That’s a lot of women to find. We may have to call you the literary lothario. Anyway, budding authors will want to read what you’ve written so they don’t come up with the same idea when they decide to write their own book. In order to do that they’re going to need to buy your book and it’s my understanding – I may be wrong – that you can do this using something called an internet coupled with an exchange of monies. What an age we live in! What I’m saying is: how do people buy your book now?

MARK: Yay! I haven’t scared you away! There are so many choices: you can buy it on Amazon.com, or direct from the publisher for about 10 pounds (both get you the actual paper book, which is adorable – it’s 296 pages, but only 4 by 6 inches in size.) You can also download the eBook from Smashwords for 2 pounds. And if you want to listen to the book, you can check out the podcasts here, iTunes, or at Podiobooks.com for free!

Literalville

Posted by Mark on Jan 25, 2008 | 0 Comments

I’m not a vacation person. Never have been. Vacation people are happy people and that’s not me. Maybe there’s a market in vacations for people bitter at the world. Maybe that’s something I can look into when the detective business really dries up. Really dries up. I know it’s not exactly flowing over right now but that suits me fine. Drip, drip, drip.

I’m not a vacation person but I’ve got no qualms in accepting gratuities and I’ve never been this far south before. It’s warmer and the rain is noticeably absent. I miss the rain. Never thought I’d say that.

This hotel’s called the Hotel Luxurious. If I had to describe it in one word then luxurious is the right one to use. I’ve stayed in hotels in the city from time-to-time. This one doesn’t have the stains, the stickiness, or that smell, and there’s a constant, gentle hum of quiet, happy talking from the men and women dotted around the lounge. Soft, clean chairs. Lots of smiles. Bright, open windows. The clinking of real crystal tumblers. One of them is mine. There’s an inch of dark, smoky malt in the bottom of it. I’m savouring it. It’s the only thing I don’t instinctively hate about this whole place.

"That’s some outfit you have," says the lady in the off-white trouser suit across from me.

She’s not wrong. I didn’t pack for this climate and my fit-in-anywhere clothes from back home are now fit-in-anywhere-but-here.

"I won a vacation," I tell her and then fill in some more details when pressed. It seems the city has some well-off individuals and one of them was seemingly grateful to the tune of some time off at my resolution to the recent simile heist. There’s something you don’t do to gift horses and that’s why I’m here. Just a little unprepared is all.

"How strange and delightful!" she exclaims. Strange, I’ll agree with. "And how are you finding Literalville?" she asks.

I tell her I haven’t left the hotel yet. The plane touched down late last night. I slept and this is my first morning in the vacation spot. Her eyes widen and she smiles a knowing smile to herself. "It takes some getting used to," she continues. "If you want a private tour then give me a call."

She hands me a card. There’s a number but no name on it. I make a show of nodding appreciation and pocket it in my inside jacket pocket. The one with the hole in the bottom. Old, lonely dears are the same the world over.

I don’t like Literalville and I’m beginning to wonder whether my paid-for vacation wasn’t some punishment rather than reward. Maybe it’s because there’s no criminal element obvious to the eye. A guy like me would be lost down here. What could I do? Clean streets, clean air, families strolling around. I haven’t seen a policeman or heard either a scream or a pistol going off since I arrived. But that’s not the worst of it.

Literalville. Strange name, but apt. Very apt. Take that hot dog vendor on the promenade down by the beach for instance. Nobody wants to see a labrador sweltering inside several woollen cardigans on a day like this. On any day even. The vendor looked at me like I was mad when I asked what was going on. Some couple gave me a wide berth and bought a chihuahua sealed in a sleeping bag.

Then there were the posters on the walls down by the college. A spate of lost virginities, apparently. Happy kids and rewards for the unrecoverable. I’m not a parent but that just doesn’t seem right.

And now this: a crowd gathered to watch a boxing match put on for tourists. Two fit men in a ring packaging souvenirs against the clock and each other. This place is a happy nightmare and I’m wondering if I should have had a more substantial breakfast and skipped the malts.

"Truly awful, isn’t it?"

Is she talking about Literalville or the fact that she’s laying across my bed in my hotel room while I’m standing in the doorway?

"Literalville," she says slowly. "I hate it and you seem like the sort of person who’d hate it too. Am I wrong?"

The dame from the lounge this morning isn’t wrong. I just wish she could be not wrong somewhere else. I tell her she’s right and I step into the room fully, leaving the door open behind me. It’s a long shot that she’ll take the hint. There’s a moment of silence while I make my way to the dresser and pour a drink from the decanter on it. I’m thinking.

"You’re the first author I’ve met," I tell her when I turn back. She hasn’t moved but there’s a smile on her face.

"Rick Rake, private detective. I do believe you’re even better than I imagined."

"You had to have been affected by the similes heist. Only so many professions were and you fit the bill of only one that makes sense and enough money to send some poor schmuck down the coast on a private case. So now I’ve had a day of tormented reward at your expense and I guess you think I owe you."

"That I do Mr Rake. We’re business people and you’re certainly not a vacation person so why don’t we skip the verbal fencing and get down to details?"

Maybe it’s the cumulative effects of decent malt whiskey but I’m warming to her. I close the hotel room door and tell her to begin.

Connie’s right about a lot of things. She’s right about me not liking vacations and she’s right about me preferring to earn money doing what I’m good at. She’s right about there being a criminal underworld in Literalville too. I should have known it was literally an underworld.

It’s dark in the sewers and catacombs, as you know. Somehow it feels more appealing than topside. It feels more like the city. There are a lot of bad people down here. That’s the thing about crime; it doesn’t attract a good element.

There’s a man looking for a fight if the placard he’s holding up is to be believed. I don’t want to help him. I’m getting shifty looks from the residents as it is. That’s the thing: I’m an outsider. I’m the only one she knows who might be able to get the job done. Connie explained that she couldn’t approach Double-Crossing Charlie Dodds or Mickey "The Failure" Farmer to get her manuscript back. I can’t imagine why.

"I need a lead to track down a stolen manuscript," I tell the scrawny lowlife in front of me. I hear he’s nicknamed "The Rat" and he doesn’t disappoint me. Much. It’s an old lead. Cracked leather. A collar on the end and a discoloured tag with "Fido" engraved on it. I should have known better. Then again …

"You again!"

The hot dog vendor remembers me. I shake the lead at him and see he remembers it too. I almost tell him to start playing ball but catch myself. I haven’t got the time to wait for some sporting activity to play itself out. I’m thinking about leashing the guy and taking him for a gentle run to see if I can jog his memory enough to let me know what I’m after. I’m getting the hang of this dreadful place.

"I don’t know what you’re talking about!" he cries, gathering up an alsation in a rug distressed by our altercation. I don’t believe him but it doesn’t matter.

"That’s okay Benny," says a quiet voice behind me. "This dick will be leaving soon."

There’s a weedy guy wearing a turtleneck sweater flanked by two gorillas in monkey suits. That’s more nature than I ever wanted to see up close.

"I’m after a manuscript on behalf of its owner," I tell the speaker. He knew who I was so I’ve got a feeling he knows this too already.

"I’m well aware why you think you’re here Mr Rake but I’ve got some bad news in that respect." I don’t like the sound of this. If I lived here all the time then right about now I’d put my fingers in my ears so there could be no mistaking how I felt. It’s a good thing I’m from the city so I can hear the explanation instead.

"I’m Connie’s brother. You, unfortunately, are the victim here. There is no manuscript; there never was. You’re not the first to be dragged down here and you won’t be the last. I’m very sorry but I’m going to have to insist you leave now."

He carries on and tells me about Connie’s life and their family history. It looks like I’m not getting paid. And I’m never going to learn to be a vacation person if they all turn out like this.

Connie. Short for Congenital Liar. Born to the wealthy Mr and Mrs Cruel-Bastards. Brother of Andy Plotpoint. Residents of Literalville, all of them. I hate Literalville.