The King of Vitcenstein

 

 

1. A Stranger Arrives  

Long ago there was a land of beautiful countryside, of green hills, sprawling forests and tall mountains, through which blue rivers flowed.

To the South of this land, beyond a shimmering barrier, was a barren country of snow and ice.  This land, or zone, was named the Frozen Wastes.  To the North was a huge pyramid shaped creature whose single eye stared balefully out, seeming to follow the movements of anyone who came into range of its gaze.  Although it had never been named, all who saw it knew that this living edifice was called Isis. 

To the West was a chaotic nightmare of surreal and anarchic visions that was even more terrifying than the pyramid.  And finally, to the East, there was nothing.  

How long the land remained like this, an island of beauty beset from all sides by darkness and the unknown no one could say.  And it seemed that the population of this land did not even begin to consider such questions until they sensed a change beginning.  

It was said that a stranger had been seen by many in this land, a wanderer who had tracked his way northward, babbling to himself.  To any that could hear him, he had spoken of a fear and disquiet in his mind.  When he reached the centre of the zone, he had found a small, rose covered cottage, where he had rested and contemplated the things that troubled him.   

It is told that as the stranger woolgathered, there in the rose covered cottage, the land around him began to decay, as if the negativity in the mind of this intruder was manifesting itself physically in his surroundings.  And like an alien bacteria that had established a disease, the deterioration began to spread outwards from its epicentre, where the stranger sat thinking.   

Trees, grass and even animals began to wither and die.  Birds fell from in-flight,choking and screaming in anguish.  And the ground itself became saturated, turning into clinging mud underfoot.  

Eventually the stranger moved on, resuming his journey northward – and the sickness in the land followed after him. 

2. A People Gather, and a Book is Found  

As has been said, the people who lived in that land noticed as this change began, and some of them joined together to search for the source of this decay that was spreading.  It is not recorded how large this collection of people was – but it seems that the group grew as they searched, swelled by the little communities and homesteads sprinkled around the countryside.   

It has been theorised that as time passed, this group grew as big as a nation, and that this nation had leaders as it wandered through the land.  If true then this would be the story of an Exodus.  But there are no records to confirm or deny such reports. 

Yet still a people gathered; a group of people who came together in fear of a growing darkness.  And the people searched for the root of what disturbed them.  

And it was not difficult to find the now miserable, derelict hut which the stranger had formerly occupied.  

The group searched through the domicile, and discovered a journal, filled with the stranger’s thoughts and the misgivings that he had perceived.  The book had started as a philosophical tract, an essay on the gap between idealism and reality.  But as it progressed, it became a search for what could be found to blame for life’s ills and the misfortunes that beset us.   

At the end of the second part of the tract, the writer concluded that the only way that things could be made right, the only hope of deliverance, was by establishing exacting rules of conduct that would be so repressive that people would no longer be able to think for themselves.  Thus their troubles would no longer haunt them.  

Following this conclusion the third, and by far the largest segment of the tract was a detailed list of rules that should be followed by a nation of people, if they were ruled by the writer.  By the end of the book these commands were no longer called rules: they were named as laws that should be adopted by any state that had the courage or wisdom to pursue the purity of ignorance.  And these laws were now accompanied by punishments that were as regressive and barbaric as the laws themselves.  

The group were confused.  Why had the stranger written this book?  And why had he left it behind?   

3. The People Begin to Change

Something should be mentioned here: as the search party approached the now ramshackle hut where they had found the stranger’s book, they themselves were becoming infected by the deterioration that they witnessed in their land.  The mood of the group darkened with the skies, and they began to criticise each other’s behaviour, and the things their colleagues within the party did, even wishing grievous misfortune to befall each other for the most trivial of reasons.  

At the same time, their feelings towards the increasing decrepitude began to change, although they did not discuss this aloud.  The feelings of alarm and horror which were the initial reactions of the people to the degradation that they saw gradually became acceptance; and eventually acceptance evolved into a form of affection, which itself became a kind of worship.  This change was not acknowledged until one of the party fell in the mud, and proceeded to glorify in his filth, rolling in the mud and covering every inch of himself in its soiled wetness.  

It was from this moment that the individuals in the party did take note of the changes that had come over them, and began to fear it.  They tried to resist the squalor that was invading their thoughts, but found this became ever more difficult as they approached the place where the stranger had resided.  They talked of abandoning their quest, though this suggestion was never really taken seriously.  

And now, when they looked at this book, and wondered at its existence, it felt as though the affectations they felt within them were aggrandised, and they no longer resisted becoming part of the new zone that was taking shape around them and within them.  Indeed, they took the book to their hearts, and began to read to each other from it, and memorise its passages, as if it were some holy tract that they had discovered.  And when one person took an action which was perceived to clash with the strict guidelines given in the book this person was castigated, and tied to a chair and struck several times.  

Then he was locked in one of the new rooms that had appeared inside the hut (a hut that had begun, inexplicably, to swell in size).  

One of the party was left to guard the new zone’s first ‘law breaker’ as the others set off to pursue the stranger that they now revered as a prophet king. 

4. A Child is Found  

They found the child far to the north of the land that was becoming The Zone of Twisted Justice, standing atop a slagheap and drinking in the gaze of the giant pyramid that dominated the horizon.  

The child claimed to be the offspring of this new land’s founder, who, he said, had journeyed to the North, to territories that were as yet uncharted.  This pronouncement caused many varied reactions within the group: Awe that it appeared their Great Legislator had dared to face Isis itself; Fear that the Pyramid seemed unchanged by this challenge; pain because it seemed that the Great Legislator had abandoned them; and confusion caused by the mystery of the child that stood before them now.  

Why was the child standing atop a slag heap which seemed to mirror the shape of the pyramid that loomed above them?  

Who, and where was his mother?  

How did he get to this advanced age so quickly?  

The boy dismissed these questions with an impatient wave.  This world was his mother, he told the party – the world that was the totality of fact in their lives.  And he appeared as he was before them so that he could assume his rightful mantle immediately.  And he then proclaimed himself as the first rightful Kind of Vitcenstein, having been anointed by his father, the Great Legislator, and the very world that had created him.  

Beyond this he did not speak, and the party that discovered him found him to be a disturbing presence, his gaze as fixed and unyielding as the pyramid that had looked previously upon him.  

And it was the presence of this Pyramid, the cold scrutiny of Isis, that caused the group to demur now.  They decided there was nothing more for them here, now that their beloved legislator was gone, and they set out southwards, to return to the cabin where the Book had been found. 

5 The ‘King’ Gathers His Subjects  

It is recorded that the journey back south was a troubled one, and that despite the child’s reticence and uncommunicative demeanour, it was not long before the he had gathered a clan of fanatical followers.  These followers he named ‘the loyalists’, for they had accepted the boy’s claim to be their rightful king.  

At first it was a mystery as to how this child had gained so many servants.  But it was later revealed that the people who would become ‘Loyalists’ had been fed a certain type of fungus that only the child had knowledge of.  How he came by this knowledge has never been discovered.  However this had the effect of rendering the person who had consumed the fungus into an almost mindless, zombie-like state.   

Under the influence of the drug the Loyalists wished for two things: to serve their monarch without question, and to make more people like them.  And the child was only too pleased to accept their service and to provide them with the tools to achieve the latter desire.  

Before their journey had ended, leaders of the erstwhile search party had been forced to isolate the child and his followers from the rest of the group.

6 What Became of the Stranger’s Shack  

The search party arrived back at the stranger’s derelict hut that had once been a rose covered cottage, and found that the building had undergone another transformation, this one even more dramatic.   

The basic shape of the shack had not changed, but it had burgeoned to many times its original size. With its tapered red brick roof that had faded to a dirty ochre colour, and its towering drab grey walls, it looked like some massive beached ark of misery that had ran aground in the centre of this new zone.  A reflection of what this land had become.  

And lo!  When they approached the building they found a sign above its now cavernous entrance, a sign that read “The Big Prison”.  They knocked upon the door, and a squat, bald man answered, kneeling before the Officials and paying homage to “The Messengers of the Great Legislator”.  

The man who had greeted the search party took a select few of them inside the great building, where they were taken down a bewildering array of passageways that were lined with dank jail cells; passageways that were patrolled by large men with huge moustaches. 

Along the way they passed the first man who had been convicted of breaking the laws of Vitcenstein.  The unfortunate wretch had aged in the time they had been away, and now cackled to himself, half naked and chained to a wall.  

Upon entry into what they were told was the Governor’s Office, it was revealed that the building they now stood in was now named as the Big Prison – the chief incarceration unit of Vitcenstein. 

7 Journey to Tractatus  

Many things were revealed to them in the office of the Big Prisoner’s first governor.  Mainly they concerned the workings of the prison itself and the mechanics of the relationship between this prison and Vitcenstein’s inchoate justice system.  But another thing was imparted to them that profoundly changed their view of this new world: to the South and West of the new prison, Vitcenstein had a capital city.   

The zone was taking shape around them, and even though the party had found the shack that became the monstrous edifice in which they now abided, and even though they worshipped the words of the Great Legislator, whose twisted ruminations had been the basis of all they witnessed, it was to them a struggle to keep abreast of the fateful events that were unfolding.  Nevertheless they resolved to travel to this new capital.  And the prison governor assured them that their arrival was anticipated.  

Many of the party wanted to incarcerate the child within the new prison; however, despite many arguments the self proclaimed King retained his liberty.  For the boy commanded a fear – partly because of the knowledge he had demonstrated, and partly because of the following he had gathered, which continued to grow.  

And so it was that the boy and his growing entourage remained with the group as it set out to towards the new capital city.  By now the transformation of the land around them was complete, and where once there had been gentle hills and green valleys threaded with blue rivers, and woods filled with tall trees, there was now an endless expanse of thick, cloying mud, fuelled by endless drizzle that fell from a uniformly grey sky.  Below this drab firmament lay a similarly uniform landscape dotted by anorexic trees that looked as though they were being kept alive against their will. 

And yet the people of Vitcenstein, as they were now, rejoiced at these sights, and wallowed in the filth in which they now existed, and they compared with each other the various rashes and skin diseases that afflicted them as they adjusted to life in this new world and became part of the landscape.  

Finally, they came within sight of the magisterial junk yard that was Tractatus, capital city of Vitcenstein.  When they saw the metropolis that had materialised in order to be their new home, the leaders of the group, the first governors of Vitcenstein, fell in love.  Truly, they felt that they had arrived at the place where they belonged.

8. The Fate of the King  

And so the body of people, who had originally set out perhaps years earlier in their search for the root cause of the changes that were transforming their world, finally arrived in the capital city of the new state that had formed around them.  When they had set out they had no common bond, and were simply a group of strangers that had come together in fear of an alien influence that appeared to have infected the land they inhabited.  Now they were citizens and leaders of this Zone of Twisted Justice.  

Thence the leaders of the group went forth unto the Halls of Justice. 

And a cheering multitude welcomed them and lined their way as they marched to the place where they would assume the mantle of government.  Behind the leaders marched those in the group who had been appointed as officials who would enforce the laws of Vitcenstein.  And many of those that welcomed their new rulers were arrested that day.  

The Halls of Justice were another surprise for new rulers, for the Halls stood out as a complex and elaborate piece of architecture, and something that their mysterious builders had actually taken care over in their construction.  

It was inside these halls that the government of Vitcenstein took its seat, and pondered upon the future of their self proclaimed ‘King’.  

The decision was taken that the King would neither be acknowledged or punished for his claims.  This was because though the ruling council did not want to share power with the boy, they also feared him because of the manner of his appearance and because of the knowledge that he held.  The council’s problem, however, would be how they could abrogate the power that the child exerted over his followers, and how to stop him adding to their number until he had the ability to overwhelm them.  

The solution, when they came to it, was simple but enduring.

What's That Coming Over the Hill

Lance Bastante had always felt a certain amount of sympathy for his friend from the Kingdom of the Round Tree. Perhaps it was because of the name that his friend had been burdened with: Beosmell Realbad. It's difficult to run out of jokes about a name like that. And yet despite this ever present potential for mockery - or perhaps because of it - they had become like brothers as they went through the Academy together, back in the days when the Kingdom of the Round Tree and the fortress city of Haribo had been allies.

But things change; alliances break down and enmity rises.

And then enmity becomes war.

Things had certainly changed for Beosmell after he had volunteered for the Round Tree Super Weapon project, and was chosen to become a living super weapon. How strong must Beosmell's faith in his kingdom's cause must have been, Bastante asked himself, to surrender his humanity to the victory of that cause? What experiments had been performed upon him by nameless figures, monitoring his transformation in the shadows? What had he seen? What had he suffered? And had it been worth it? Had the mockery been silenced at last?

All Lance knew was that he would soon see his old friend once more - if from afar. Beosmell would now be at the vanguard of the Round Tree Kingdom's army of conquest, and he would be changed beyond all recognition. Today the kingdom of the Round Tree were ready to unleash the weapon that Lance's friend had become; a weapon they proclaimed would end the war once and for all.

But little did the scientists and theosophers of Round Tree know that Haribo had already developed an answer: the Unnatural Born Creature Slayer.

Today then, both sides would discover which super weapon was the more effective. Today the tide of the war would be turned, or all would be lost.

Bastante looked down at the gun he held in his hands. It was five feet long, and appeared to have been carved from black ivory. The barrel of the gun was covered in intricate designs: faces of mythical creatures and woodland Gods with empty eyes that glared at the soldier who held the weapon, as if testing the resolve of its bearer.

And how was the resolve of Lance Bastante? Was he ready for this test?

When the moment of truth came, Lance mused, and he peered at the monster through a scope that was shaped like some preternatural sea serpent, the mouth of which opened out on the forward sight, would he see fear in the eyes of his old friend? Did Beosmell even have eyes any more? Lance couldn't say; he didn't know that level of detail. But if Beosmell had changed beyond all recognition, that should make things easier, he reasoned.

At the moment of truth.

A buzz at Bastante's chest interrupted his reverie and he picked up the mobile communicator that was fastened where. "Lieutenant commander Bastante here."

"Bastante this is Major Osgood," came the voice through the communicator, "Is all still clear?"

Bastante put aside the weapon and clambered to his feet. He looked over the battlement walls that protected his fortress city, and beheld the no man's land that had become of the surrounding area. He saw smoke that rose from all around, creating a permanent mist that pressed against the perimeter of Haribo and made sighting new attacks difficult at the best of times. He saw an undulating landscape of churned ground that stretched into the hills beyond. He saw abandoned and broken machines; relics of the sieges that had already taken place during the war. Sieges that had ended in victory for the defenders; but only after much blood had been sacrificed on both sides. Elsewhere, in other theatres of battle retreats had turned into routs for Haribo.

Soon, Bastante knew, there would be another siege of his home city: this would be the last one.
"It's all clear," Bastante informed his superior officer, "for now."

But even as he was about to replace his communicator, Bastante looked out and saw a dark shape appear on the horizon. Then he saw other shapes: the unmistakable outlines of battering rams, and cannons that reared up into the air on caterpillar tracks and caused minor tremors that could be felt in the battlements even at this distance. The air crackled around the Lieutenant commander, and he heard the distant rumble of thunder. Bastante saw other shapes now, thousands of small, dark shapes were marching towards the city: a siege army. He reopened communications. "Disregard that last report," he told Major Osgood, "and mobilise the city defences. It's begun."

"Understood," replied the Major. His acknowledgment was free of intonation, though Bastante imagined Osgood's shoulders droop, and his teeth grit as he accepted the inevitability of his Lieutenant commander's update.  Then Osgood's voice changed, and he repeated words that had been drilled into them all since childhood. Words that they still believed; despite everything. "Haribo, Haribo, take me back to Haribo," Osgood chanted.

"Haribo, Haribo, it's the sweetest place I know," responded the lieutenant commander, "Bastante out."

**

"Wait!" shouted Osgood through the communicator, his voice sounding as if something had just occurred to him.

Bastante paused. "What is it sir?" he asked. Around him the city defense forces had already begun their deployment as further trembles shook the city and the deep, penetrating rolls of thunder became a constant, pervasive sound in the battlements.

"It's the weapon," said Osgood with urgency, “You need to know how to activate it.”

Bastante's quelled an incredulous chuckle. “I think I know how to activate a gun, sir,” he said with forced patience, “you just press the trigger and..."

"No, No," Osgood cut in, “it’s not that simple with the Creature Slayer! This is a super weapon remember; and the reason it’s so powerful is because it draws on the city's main power generators; and it accumulates that power via a wireless signal. But the gun’s wifi must only be activated only when it is needed, otherwise the power drain on the city's reserves would be too great. Especially considering we also have a shield to maintain."

"Why did nobody tell me this before?" demanded Bastante, his voice rising.

"They're telling you now!" shot back the Major, "this is highly classified information that is given out on a strictly need to know basis!"

Bastante closed his eyes and inhaled slowly. The activity around him was becoming increasingly frenetic as the minutes passed, and through the spy holes of the city walls the approaching army began to blur intermittently - a sign that the city's defensive shield that Osgood had mentioned was now in operation.

Shields. Energy. Power generators.

"How do I activate the gun?" he asked quietly.

The Major cleared his throat noisily. “Ah yes,” he acknowledged. “The weapon needs to be activated.”

Bassinet was mildly annoyed by the Major’s sudden turn to prevarication. “Yes, that’s what you just told me,” he pointed out, “so how do I do it?”

“How do I do it you say?” asked the Major.

“That was what I asked,” said Bastante, frowning.

“I should tell you then,” said the major.

“It might help,” Bastante agreed, nonplussed.

“Okay, then I will” answered the Major. “To activate the super weapon,” he declared, “you would obviously need to call…”

He paused for a moment, and then blurted out “the super weapon activation helpline.”

Bastante looked at his communicator opening and closing his mouth like a goldfish. Eventually he managed “You’re shitting me.”

"Don't be impertinent lieutenant commander,” the major blustered.

"But a helpline? A helpline?!” Bastante ejaculated, "You can't be serious! This is a super weapon not a house insurance claim!”

"Calm down lieutenant commander," ordered Osgood.

"I'm sorry," spluttered Bastante as he struggled to master himself, "but I just find it difficult to believe."

“Do try and be a bit more positive Bastante,” the Major admonished him, “As it happens I have it on very good authority that they give an excellent service; and their turnaround time is second to none.”

"Turnaround time?" Bastante asked doubtfully. He thought for a moment. ”So how many queries has this helpline had to turn around..." he swallowed "...concerning super weapons?"

"Well... " replied the Major, he cleared his throat again, "obviously this would be the first one..."

Bastante had heard enough. "We're fucked, " he concluded.

"Look, just call them Bastante," said the Major forcefully, "or perhaps you'd prefer to wait around until your old friend comes calling!"

"Alright! Alright!" The Lieutenant commander flipped open a cover on his communicator that revealed an alpha numeric pad. "What's the number?" he asked.

The sound of a heavy sigh came through Bastante's communicator; followed by the ruffling of papers. Then Osgood's voice began to bark out digits. "08754 90862 -"

"Slow down a bit!" cried the lieutenant.

"... 222 22222," continued the major at a slower pace, "report back when you have the weapon up and running. Osgood out."

**

Moving slowly and in concert, the great siege engines from the Kingdom of the Round Tree moved into position, forming a great, semi-circular perimeter before the fortified city walls. Attending these engines were thousands of soldiers and operators, and the fulminations produced by the combined movements of man and machine echoed through the city.

Bastante listened to these fulminations, that formed the background to a series of regularly spaced beeps that issued from his communicator. At the same time he peered out of a spy-hole in the city walls, and through intermittent distortions witnessed the movements of the powerful cannons and numerous enemy. He turned slightly and glanced at Haribo's inactive super weapon; the weapon that needed the super weapon helpline before it could be used.

Just then a bright musical jingle started to play across communicator’s speaker; and a cheerful female voice spoke over this music.

"You've reached the Haribo munitions corp weapons helpline," the voice informed him, "a helpline bought to you by our sponsors, Conflict Outcome Claims Direct Insurance."

The music stopped and another voice - male, solemn and intense - spoke out: "Dedicated to protecting you and your family. Always."

Now a rock based track began playing, and the cheerful female voice returned. "All of our operatives are busy at the moment," the voice told Bastante, "but your call is important to us. Please continue to hold."

The canons outside Haribo's walls began targeting. Coordinates and elevations were called out by operators who looked upon the city walls with a calculated detachment, and decided which points would be punished by fire immediately.

Meanwhile, the voice speaking to Bastante went up a notch and gained a more artificial edge.

"You are caller number...
"ONE
"... in the queue."

And with that the guitar driven pop song again superimposed itself on the sounds of impending bombardment. Bastante stroked his temples, trying to ward off the stress and the nascent headache building within him.

A singer began to warble over the communicator:

"Brain fried tonight through misuse
Through misuse! Through misuse!
You can't avoid the static abuse
You can't avoid the static abuse!..."

The Hariban listened unwillingly as question after question flashed through his mind: was one of those canons pointing directly at him right now? How long would the shields hold against these weapons? Why was he still waiting if he was number one in the queue?

"lieutenant commander?"

Bastante looked up to see a Haribo soldier standing before him, dressed in the bright red colours of the Haribo military, and carrying a bayonet rifle. "Sir, we've had an update from the advanced spotters operating beyond the city walls," the soldier updated him with urgent tones, "they say there is some kind of creature approaching from a westerly direction.

"Sir, they say it's something big."

Over the shoulder of the man who was speaking to him Bastante saw searchlights spring into life against the dark gray sky. His fellow Hariban stepped forward with eyes wide and tinged with fear. "I mean they say it's something really big..."

There was a pause as the soldier observed the man he was updating, and for the first time noticed Bastante's glassy expression, and the way Bastante was looking through him rather than at him.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"There's a problem with this super weapon," Bastante answered mechanically as he gestured towards the Creature Slayer, "It needs activating; and they've made me call a helpline to do it."

The soldier mouthed the word 'helpline' in an attempt to assimilate Bastante's statement. He glanced around, his eyes narrowing as he listened. "Where is the music coming from?" he asked.

"I'm on hold," Bastante replied.

The soldier regarded him in silence for a few moments. Then he was gone, and Bastante was left cursing helplessly.

But even as Bastante swore oaths, the music faded somewhat. A loud, youthful male voice forced its way to the foreground. "You're through to Haribo munitions corp weapons helpline," said the new voice,"my name is Brian, how can I help you today?"

"Hello?" Bastante half shouted, relieved solely by the fact that his call had finally got somewhere.
"Hi there caller sorry to keep you waiting, can I take your name please," said Brian brightly.

My name, he thought, right yes, my name is: "Lieutenant commander Lance Bastante of the 3rd division west Haribo defensive emplacements."

A new rumble of thunder broke out, which partially obscured the help desk operatives next words.
"-astic," was what Bastante caught, "is it okay if I call you Lance?"

"What?" Bastante shouted in confusion. The penny dropped. "Oh; Yes, fine -"

"So what's the issue Lance?" Brian asked.

Bastante made an effort to control his inhalations. He could hear voices filtering through from the siege army just outside: barked orders; answering acknowledgements. And he heard the unmistakable whine of automated canon moved into position, and the thud of shells loading up.

The reason. Yes, the reason. "I have a super weapon," he stated, forming his words carefully to ensure clarity, "and I need to activate it for use."

"A super weapon! Excellent!" Brian exulted above the din. "you've come through to just the right place!"

Bastante allowed himself the briefest sensation of hope, tempered by the uncertainty of what activating the super weapon actually entailed.

"I just need to bring up my super weapon activation screen," the help line operative told him, "if you can just bear with me..."

Bastante's teeth gritted but he said nothing and waited, trying to ignore the invisible walls of panic that were closing in. Something was coming; something very big-

"So how are you doing today?" Brian asked chattily.

"I've got to be honest and say I've done better Brian," a distracted Bastante.

"Well, that's a shame, but I'm sure this will be the start of a big improvement," Brian assured him.

"You think?" asked Bastante with a grimace.

"I'm certain," boomed the help desk operative. "so anyway what are you up to?" Brian asked, "Anything good?"

At the moment another voice rose above every sound, shot through with fear and urgency. As soon as he heard it, Bastante knew they'd run out of time.

"Incoming!"

A shell burst in mid air with a deafening roar, battering the city's shields and rocking the battlement walls. "War!" screamed Bastante.

More shells burst and he felt the ground move beneath him; cries of pain filled the air, from victims of shockwaves that knocked people over and walls that collapsed on the city's defenders. "War!"

screamed Bastante again, "This is a war!"

"Oooh, I don't like the sound of that," observed the helpline analyst with a chuckle, "those things can be pretty dangerous!"

"Are you for real?" asked Bastante incredulously as he took cover to avoid another rain of debris.

Instead of reacting to Bastante's question, Brian moved the exchange on. "Okey dokey, super weapon screen is up," he announced, "now, what I need from you is your WIFID number."

"My... WIFID number?" lieutenant commander repeated uncertainly.

"WIFID Yes, it stands for 'WiFi Designation'," Brian explained, "have you got the weapon in front of you?"

"Well, obviously -" Bastante started to say. He was interrupted by a shell that exploded against the shield above him, causing a concussion impact that made his teeth chatter and triggered the sound of exploding windows from locations around the city.

"Goodness me it's a bit noisy where you are isn't it?" observed Brian brightly.

"Just a bit," Bastante agreed.

"Okay," continued the help line analyst, speaking through the sound of defensive batteries being unleashed on the siege army, "The WIFID number should be on the heel of the gun handle. It's a seven digit number prefixed with 'HWD-'."

Bastante found the digits inscribed into the heel of the gun handle as described, though they weren't easy to read. Squinting, and shouting obove the din of an artillery exchange, he read out the WIFID. "HWD.. 429... is that a 6 or an 8? I think it's a 6... 331..."

"Fantastic!" said Brian encouragingly. "Now we need to check your wifi is working alright. If you look at the centre at the top of the main barrel, you should see a carved likeness of the Dark God Zogothloth, who is also called Joy's Bane."

Bastante sighed and looked through the various likenesses incorporated into the elaborate design of the super gun. "I do see a face with eyes that are glowing reddish orange?" he reported.

"Glowing reddish, yes!" Brian confirmed, "Glowing in a manner similar to the moment Zogothloth arose in triumph from the Netherworld before vanquishing His eternal foe, the Demon Slatternax, He that is named The Soul Compressor."

"Er... yes," was all Bastante could think of to say.

"Great, so I'm just downloading the update that will get you up and running," said Brian perkily, "and while we're doing that I'll read out some terms and conditions. Just the legal jargon, nothing to worry about...

The recital - obscured at times by the bombardment - began. "This super weapon is at the strictly experimental stage, therefore Haribo munitions corp weapons divest themselves from all reponsib..... .. ... ....equences of use. All discussion of this weapon outside the auspices of the Haribo Military, ....bo Munitions Corp, Haribo Weapons Research Division and Haribo Infantry Organisation Hub is strictly forbidden. The designation Unnatural Born Creature Slayer ver 0.8e .. ....right protected by Haribo Munitions Corp and all use thereof is strictly controlled by the Information Processor. For further information on the Information Processor please submit you requests in writing along with a postal delivery CTP slip for 6.75 Haribo sovereigns. This weapon is ineffective outside a range of approximately 20 feet and should only be transported by horse. If after a period not less than 30 days the user is dissati..... with the performance of the Unnatural Born -"

"Wait a minute," Bastante interrupted him, "what was that part about 20 feet and transportation?"

"Well, the thing is Lance," the man from the helpline responded earnestly, "this super weapon is a prototype. That means some of those annoying little glitches haven't quite been ironed out yet. As such the range isn't quite what we hoped it would be, and the weapon is given to short circuiting when transported by artificial means." His tone brightened: "But rest assured the tech guys are working like busy bees so in the near future we should have those problems sorted. In the meantime, if you want to give the Creature Slayer a try, all you have to do is pop yourself on horseback, ride to where you want try it out and away you go!"

Bastante let the communicator fall out of his hand. And as further concussion impacts rocked the fortified city, and the cries of the wounded were only partially drowned out by the constant artillery fire, he let his body droop against the battlements.

"Are you still there Lance?" the communicator asked insistently from its abandoned position on the floor.

"Lance?"

**

Ninety minutes later, and further down the battlements, two red clad soldiers employed as lookouts were scanning the landcape around Haribo, and relaying their observations concerning enemy movements and tactical placements. One of them was using a pair of field glasses, while the other used naked line of sight in order to spot potential threats both near and far.

Suddenly the lookout with the field glasses dropped his instrument and gasped, his face a mask of shock and fear. "what's that?" he called out, pointing.

The other lookout turned in the direction his colleague was pointing, and he soon adopted a similar terror stricken countenance. "Coming over the hill"! he yelled.

They heard a voice speak out from behind them, quiet but unyielding. "Is it a monster?"

They lookouts turned, and in unison replied "Yes!"

In front of them stood Lance Bastante, clad from head to toe in shining, silver armour. Bastante brandished his fully operational super weapon, that hummed with innate power, and set down his intention. "Saddle up my horse!"

**

It would have been unclear to an observer if the monster had been born, had been created in a laboratory where unnatural experiments had taken place, or forged in the factory of some mad industrialist or necromancer. What would have been beyond doubt was its enormous size - the width of a small city - and its terrifying configuration; looking like a immense arthropod of two toned shade that belched twin palls of thick black smoke from its snout, the nostrils of which sat high upon a ridge which rose to grow into a towering range of mountains that marched down the creature's back. There would also have been no doubt about the way the earth shook when the blade like limbs of the beast crashed down, causing great gouges as big as valleys to be opened in the already churned up land. These crashing steps were accompanied by a mini-earthquake powerful enough to knock a grown man from his feet.

Explosions blossomed around it; proof that the beast had been observed and targeted. But the weapons of its enemies had no more effect upon the steel like carapace that constituted its hide than gentle summer rainfall.

From time to time The monster paused in its slow but relentless progress across the battlefield. Then it reared up on its jointed legs. Its jaws gaped, glowing a fierce orange, and it emitted a deafening sound, like a chorus of angels of death that serenaded both Heaven and Hell. Then there was the sound of an explosion, and a boiling jet of magma blasted forth from its mouth to hammer Haribo's weakening shield, and send further shockwaves through the city.

Every now and then the creature would encounter the tiny, blue figures of dead bodies, body parts or heaps of bodies, lying bereft of life in the tortured landscape: fellow attackers from the Round Tree kingdom that had taken a direct hit from a defensive barrage, or had stepped on a mine, or even succumbed to 'friendly fire'. When this occurred the monster emitted a howl of rage and reared up even higher upon its segmented limbs. And then another jet of deadly magma spewed from its maw to rain further havoc and bloodshed upon Haribo.

Then the creature encountered something on the battlefield that gave it pause. It discerned the body of a man who was not dressed in the blue uniform of the Kingdom of the Round Tree; and nor was he clad in the red uniform of the city state of Haribo. Instead the man was was dressed with silver armour; though it had ultimately availed him little. Not far from the man lay the body of a horse. It was clear from the saddle that still half lay on the animal's back that the armoured man had been riding it before they fell. Curious.

And not far away from this discovery, another fallen horse could be seen, dead or dying. And this horse's companion was still very much alive. The rider, also clad in silver armour and silver helmet, knelt beside the stricken animal and stroked its mane, seemingly oblivious to the battle that raged around him. At a certain point armour clad man who still lived must have felt the monster's gaze upon him, for he straightened and slowly, he turned to face the beast.

The monster looked upon this insignificant human that stoof in its way, and it spoke.

I KNOW YOU, it said.

Bastante was amazed to hear that there was still a trace of his old friend inside that voice. And though the monster's voice sounded like a hundred voices speaking together, in tones that were as deep as epochs of cosmic time, and though it seemed like these voices that were deeper than the Universe had been filtered through a strange distortion that made them sound like they were echoing from an adjoining corridor, and that corridor was somewhere in an impenetrable maze; and that maze was lost in some remote alternate dimension of space and time. Still, buried beneath all of that was still the voice of old Beosmell.

"We were friends, once," Bastante replied, "before the war."

With that he cast his eyes around the area, careful to disguise his desperation as much as he could. It can't have gone far, he thought. If I can't find it I might as well just kill myself now.

Finally he saw it, lying in the mud where it had fell when Bastante and his companion had been hit. Barely taking his eyes off the monster, Bastante retrieved his weapon from the churned up ground.
To the monster's vision the object the little human now bore seemed to glisten and coruscate black, and it seemed the human that bore it now cast a shadow, even in this fog ridden environment.

THAT'S A BIG GUN, it observed.

"It is," Bastante agreed. He held it up for inspection, feeling its power flow through him as he did so. "The Round Tree Kingdom has its super weapon," he told the creature, "and this is ours."

He checked the WiFi connection again. He was good to go.

"Meet the Unnatural Born Creature Slayer", Bastante declared. With a flourish he pointed the gun at the beast. "It kills monsters," he said meaningfully.

The towering arthropod did not respond for a long moment. It stood, silent and unmoving before its challenger; great gouts of black smoke billowed from its nostrils and rose to paint the featureless sky a darker grey. When it did speak, its weird, cavernous, echoing multi-stranded voice was instilled with a tone of finality.

IT WON'T WORK.

Bastante was undeterred. "I think it will," he countered, his defiance enlivened him with a furious will to believe his own words, "in fact", and at this point his faith became a rapture, "I'm willing to bet my life on it."

The monster lifted one of its great jointed limbs to take a small step towards its diminutive opponent. when the limb descended and shook the Earth, it took all of Bastante's tenacity to somehow drop to his knees but retain his balance, and keep his super weapon pointed at its target. The monster spoke again, and this time its fathomless, other worldy, pan dimensional utterance was instilled with a casual shrug.

SUITE YOURSELF.

Bastante peered at the monster through the scope shaped like a sea serpent - though it was superfluous at this range - and reflected that it turned out his old friend turned out not to have eyes after all; at least not in the conventional sense. And that did make things easier now they had arrived at the ultimate moment. At the moment of truth. The creature lifted its leg to take another step forward. Bastante's finger tightened on the trigger. "You shouldn't have come back, Beosmell," he called out.

The monster froze, and withdrew its leg. Bastante hesitated.

NOT BEOSMELL, the beast declared, NOT ANY MORE.

Bastante grimaced. "Well... " he conceded awkwardly, "maybe you aren't. But once - before whatever they did to you happened to you - once you were a man, and you went by a man's name -"

I DIDN'T MEAN IT LIKE THAT, the monster corrected him, I STILL HAVE A MAN'S NAME, IT'S JUST THAT NAME ISN'T BEOSMELL. I HAD IT CHANGED BY DEED POLL.

Bastante tightened his finger on the trigger and prepared to fire. The moment was here at last. The moment of tru-

He loosened his grip. It was no good, he had to ask. "So..." he found himself saying, "what are you called now then?"

BEOWULF, said Beowulf, BEOWULF'S MY NAME NOWADAYS.

"Beowulf," Bastante repeated, blinking.

THAT'S RIGHT, BEOWULF, agreed the monster. BEOSMELL REALBAD WAS AN EMBARRASSING NAME, it vociferated disparagingly, BUT BEOWULF REALBAD SOUNDS GANGSTA.

"... Oh," was all Bastante could say in reply. His thoughts, however, were not so circumspect.

'Beowulf Realbad really is a pretty bad ass name', a voice in his head reasoned, 'nothing wrong in admitting that. When you've got a point you've got a point-'

He shook his head vigorously. What am I thinking??!!

ACTUALLY, the monster began. Then it fell quiet.

Bastante concentrated on the sounds of battle all around them. He wanted to nourish the fury that demanded a final reckoning, here and now. After all, were they not in the final battle? Was this not the last siege? He looked down at his gun, upon which all their hopes of survival rested, lying heavy in his grasp. Actually what? He thought wildly.

THAT'S INTERESTING, the monster continued.

"What is?" Bastante asked, responding before the advice of all his instincts got a say in the matter.

CALL ME BEOSMELL, monster advised him.

"I... what?" spluttered Bastante. He looked round with an expression like a hunted animal. When were they going to get back to the moment of truth?

GO ON, the monster urged, SAY 'HELLO BEOSMELL'.

The soldier of Haribo held his forehead in his hand, trying and failing to still the torment in his thoughts. Perhaps the moment of truth would come after this bit? "'Hello Beosmell'," Bastante recited flatly.

AH! exclaimed the giant arthropod. It paused again, perhaps for effect, and then said I COULD SUE YOU FOR THAT.

"You could... sue me?" Bastante asked.

What am I doing? he reproached himself. He thought ferociously of the city, under bombardment. The fear of the people. Their suffering.

He thought of his family. He thought of Mary...

Was she alive? Was she safe?

They had to end this. They had to end this now.

YES, the monster was saying, I CAN SUE YOU IF YOU INSULT ME OR NAME ME INCORRECTLY. IT'S ONE OF THE CONDITIONS OF THE DEED POLL. FUNNY THAT.

Bastante brandished the Unnatural Born Creature Slayer and roared in frustration. "Shut up and fight you big ugly bastard!" he yelled hysterically. "One of us is going to die!"

Instantly the beast reared up on it's joined legs and pointed the entirety of its mammoth hulk towards the minuscule figure of the soldier from Haribo. DO YOUR WORST! it challenged him.

Bastante pressed the trigger.

**

So this was what it felt like. Not to experience the storm; not to witness its destruction - but to be the storm itself, and to personify its destruction.

Bastante's foe was enveloped in a tsunami of white hot, destructive energy as the all the power of Haribo was channeled through Bastante. And for a moment it was as if all the electricity of the Earth was channeled through the deadly super weapon that was brought to murderous life with a touch of a trigger. And suddenly it was the monster that was insignificant target, suddenly it was the monster that was the victim of a storm that came down upon it like a sledgehammer crashing down upon a nat. Bastante felt power surge through him, power from the heart, from the soul of his city, his home. And for one dizzying instant he was ascendant; he was transmogrified; he was the alpha and the omega; he was the alternating and the direct current; he was the be all and end all.

Through the triumph, through the intoxication, Bastante dimly wondered if this was how the Dark God Zogothloth must have felt when, in time immemorial, He arose in triumph from the Netherworld.

Then the Creature Slayer spluttered and died, and the light faded away, and the thunder was reduced to a murmur. The monotonous sounds of the bombardment and its answering defensive fire reasserted themselves.

And standing before Bastante - towering above him, wreathed in smoke and clouds, but unharmed - the monster looked down imperiously.

THAT TICKLED, it said.

And Bastante knew all was lost.

A crushing feeling of utter defeat quickly gave way to overwhelming anger, as the hapless lieutenant commander vented his morbid frustration on his not so super weapon that had flattered to deceive.

"This is so bloody typical!" he opined as he sank to his knees, "I said we were fucked!"

He saw the devastation around him. And what previously had spurred him on to frantic action now showed him how inevitable his defeat was, and always had been. "I rode out here; I got people and animals killed, and for what?" He raised the spent weapon over his head awkwardly. "For you you useless piece of ill made crap!" with that he attempted to hurl the Creature Slayer away, but it was too unwieldy and instead he lost his balance, fell forwards and ended up on lying in his face on the mud.

Pathetically, pointlessly, Bastante staggered to his feet, turned and ran for his life. As he ran, he could feel its invisible eyes on him.

Would it bother giving chase, he wondered, or would it dissolve him with a jet of magma - literally burning him in hell.

It did not take long for him to get his answer, as the monster stamped its one of its huge forelimbs, causing the ground to disappear from under him, and Bastante again fell on his face. But this time he lay still.

Then creature was directly above him, and it raised its jointed limb to hover over the prostrate soldier from Haribo; a limb coated in chitin as hard as steel that culminated in a blunt, rounded point, like a gigantic pile-driver.

ANYTHING ELSE TO SAY? asked the monster.

Bastante did not reply.

WELL I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT I TAKE NO PLEASURE IN THIS, Beowulf pointed out.

"Just do it," Bastante said quietly.

He shut his eyes, and then he screwed them up tightly, and an image of Mary skipped through his consciousness. "Haribo, Haribo", Bastante whispered, "the sweetest place..."

Time stood still.

Through the self induced darkness, Bastante's life played itself out. Not much overall, but it was all there was.

In the distance he heard sounds.

More gunfire?

No, it was something else...

He concentrated hard, to try and identify what he could hear, and tried not to think of anything else.
Slowly, the sounds clarified.

It was the sound of people...

Of people cheering?

It crossed his mind that it had happened; that he was already dead. Then he heard a man's voice, calling. Was he calling to them?

"The war's over!" cried the voice, "A peace deal has been brokered! You can stop fighting!"

WELL, said Beowulf. The monster's limb crashed down to the Earth, leaving Bastante unharmed. THAT'S HANDY.

Bastante opened his eyes, and just lay there for moment, listening to the sounds of joy. He realised Beowulf was probably doing the same thing. It had been a long time since those sounds had been heard in anyone's life.

Slowly, Bastante climbed to his feet. He looked around the erstwhile battlefield, where soldiers danced, threw their arms up in the air, played football or prayed for their fallen comrades. The city gates had already been opened, and former enemies greeted each other and embraced.

"What were we fighting for, remind me?" Bastante requested.

I CAN'T REMEMBER SPECIFICALLY, Beowulf answered, THOUGH I DO REMEMBER BECOMING VERY ANGRY ABOUT SOMETHING I WAS TOLD, WHICH WAS ALL THE FAULT OF HARIBO; SO THEY SAID.

"Hmm," Bastante murmured. He tried to remember what it was that had made him offer up his life minutes earlier. He was sure it would come back to him.

SO, WHAT WILL YOU DO NOW? asked Beowulf.

"Me? I'll go home," said Bastante, "to Mary. How about you, Beosme - Beowulf? What are your plans? Are you still with Rose?"

I WAS, Beowulf answered sadly, BUT SHE'S GONE OFF ME A BIT LATELY.

"Ah," Bastante acknowledged the monster awkwardly, "sorry about that." He thought for a moment, then asked, "Say, you're not stuck as a monster are you? I mean, can you change back to human if you want to?"

I'M TOLD THERE IS A WAY, Beowulf replied with a hesitant tone, BUT IT'S NOT ONE I'M KEEN TO TRY.

"Oh." Bastante decided not to inquire further into whatever 'way' the transformed subject of Round Tree was referring to, and instead offered his farewells. "Well, good luck Beowulf. I hope things work out."

ALL THE BEST LANCE, Beowulf replied, I'M GLAD I DIDN'T HAVE TO KILL YOU.
"That makes two of us."

The soldiers parted company, one to return to home and family, the other to a less certain fate.

**

It was night, and the monster stood alone in the wastelands, straddling a river that wended its way aimlessly across the empty hills and valleys. At its feet was a tiny particle, an object of almost microscopic size compared to the gigantic arthropod. But this object spoke to the creature. It spoke with cheerful tones.

"Tired of being an indestructible monster now are we sir? Is that why you've come through to the new amalgamated Haribo and Round Tree Super Weapon Helpline?" the voice through the telephone asked brightly.

WELL, answered Beowulf wearily, THERE DOESN'T SEEM TO BE MUCH POINT IN BEING ONE, NOW THE WAR'S OVER BRIAN.

"No?" mused the helpline assistant. "Well, I suppose you could go rampaging through a city," he suggested, "and catch your reflection in the windows of a skyscraper which would send you into an even more incandescent rage," he chuckled, "Just my little joke Beowulf. You don't mind if I call you Beowulf do you?

"Now, before we get you back to being an everyday chap I'm going to need your TEELIN."

 MY... TEELIN? said Beowulf uncertainly.

"Yes TEELIN, that stands for 'Transmuted Life form Identity Number'", explained Brian, "now, the way to locate that is by looking at the underside of your hind limb which is reverse articulated."

REVERSE ARTICULATED! exclaimed the Round Tree super weapon in mild panic.

"Yeah," confirmed Brian with a chuckle, "that means you can bend your leg backwards mate, how cool is that!"

ER...

"So," Brian summarised, "all you need to do now, is find a way of twisting your torso round 180 degrees, then you bend your leg backwards and duck down, have a look, and there's your TEELIN reference. Simples!"

A great pall of black smoke from Beowulf's nostrils as he considered his predicament.

SHIT.

Le Voyageur

The first glimmer of awareness caused him to flex and wriggle his fingers. Slowly, he opened his eyes, and for a moment he thought his world had turned blue. He realised he was lying on his back, looking up at the sky. Following on from this realization, the next challenge he faced would be to sit up - and that would not be straightforward - he was wearing a spacesuit. When the size of this challenge sank in he was not inclined to do anything for a while, and he lay on his back looking upwards, with a feeling that he was floating through the depths of an endless cerulean Universe. A feeling of peacefulness descended. Eventually, however, this feeling faded away, and was replaced by the urge to survive, and to move on, and to discover. He had always been this way.

And so he began to rock backwards and forwards. As he did this he began to pick up momentum until he rocked himself to his feet. Following this he stumbled and swayed a couple of times as he almost over compensated and threatened to send himself back to square one. But eventually he felt his feet lodge themselves on the surface of whatever country he now stood upon, and he was able to take in his surroundings for the first time.

He stood upon a sandy landscape that stretched for miles around, and rippled like the ocean on a calm day, and was pockmarked with stones and boulders. A light breeze pushed against the fabric of his spacesuit, and on the horizon he could make out the shapes of hills and mountains that could not be discerned with real clarity, but instead appeared but as shadows; thus giving the impression that they were almost not really there, and that however much one tried to approach them these ephemeral peaks would never get any nearer.

But there was a feature of this landscape that appeared as very real. Without thinking he took a step towards it; and everything changed.

The deep blue sky disappeared as day turned to dusk; and he saw that above him the unsleeping stars and a crescent Moon shone forth. The stars and the moon highlighted two huge structures that he now looked towards, and the sudden change in the state of the world made them stand out even more starkly now against their impalpable background. It was difficult to make out whether he was looking at a pair of huge sculptures or two towers that had been worn away and shaped by the wind and erosion of centuries upon centuries, until they looked like the figures of people.

He walked towards them, and he found that the motion of his gait was smooth, swift and effortless; and it felt strangely like he was skating across the rippling sand towards the buildings or statues that grew in stature and size, and in doing so became more ominous as the moments passed. He quickly discovered that he did not have to think about the strange nature of his motion, but instead could give his attention to the structures that he approached, and the sounds that began to reach his ears.

If one were to take it that they were sculptures of people, then the people that these statues had been modeled upon had been bowed by troubles or toils, or the deep thoughts that they pondered, or perhaps a combination of all three. The figure on the left was perhaps the shorter of the two, and its figure was pockmarked with oblong openings that may have served as huge portals or windows in a castle. The figure on the right was slimmer, and its back was smoothly curved, and next to it was situated a ruined archway. Both figures cast long shadows, and both of them looked downwards - perhaps at the same spot - and vegetation grew about them and from them, and about their heads birds were flying.

At the same time he took in these details he could hear the wind blowing, though it sounded stronger than it felt to his encapsulated body. And voices could also be heard, that echoed in his consciousness. He could not quite make out the words that were spoken, but he had an impression that they had to be very profound.

He saw two people - real people - up ahead.

There was a man standing next to small boy who he took to be the man's son. With one hand the man held the boy's hand, with the other he waved and gestured towards the structures that drew ever closer. The man's lips were moving and, as he passed them, he wondered whether what the man was saying formed part of the echoing dialogue that took place in his ears and in his mind. It was difficult to tell. The traveler moved on.

Now he was beneath the structures themselves. Despite the limitations placed upon his movement by the spacesuit, he managed to briefly look upwards. From this position the faces of the figures looking down upon him were like oval voids of opaque darkness in the twilight, and were framed by the constellations that twinkled in the firmament.

He heard a ringing sound.

The sound was coming from the tower to his right, as he approached the two sculptures. He noticed both towers had doorways, and he moved towards the doorway from which the sound emanated. The ringing he heard was truncated and regular, and it struck him as both anachronistic - because it was so out of place in this strange world - and old fashioned, because it was the sound of a technology that was long outdated.

He entered the structure and saw that it was a bare, vaguely rounded enclosure featuring a spiral staircase that climbed the walls and disappeared into the darkness above. The only other feature inside the structure was a desk; and upon this desk there sat a ringing, antique telephone. Except it was not quite a telephone: because instead of a receiver, it had a lobster.

He looked at it, ringing, and resisted the urge to pick up the lobster and position the crustacean over his ear.

Who would do this? He wondered to himself; who would replace the receiver of a telephone with a lobster?

But there was someone. Yes, he realised - there was a man who would do such a thing ...

And then he had passed through the building, or sculpture, and out the other side; past ancient stone pillars steeped in greenery, and on to the wide expanse beyond.

The ringing faded, and a new sound reached him - it was the sound of singing. The voice he heard was pure, almost angelic, and he shivered inside his spacesuit when he considered what this might imply.

In the distance, he saw what looked like a young woman dancing in the twilight, and he realised it was she whose voice he could hear.

One part of him wanted to approach the woman and speak to her. But he did not, because the way she moved disturbed him, as did the sound of her voice, and her ephemeral substance which was like the hills and mountains behind her. It was with relief that he spotted another object out into the plains, and he made for that instead.

As he drew nearer to it, he saw this new object was a stripey red, purple and white deckchair for the seaside that faced away from the two huge structures shaped like people. He also saw it was occupied. When he reached the chair he found himself looking down at a middle-aged man who wore a loose fitting suit, and brandished a cane that he held upright on the sandy ground. He had black hair that was slicked back, but by far his most distinctive feature was his moustache, that stretched out on either side of his nose and ended in long, tapered points.

"Senor Dali," he whispered in disbelief.
Dali looked up and smiled. "Exactement!" he exclaimed. "And you are?"
"A traveler," Said the traveler.
"Ah, good!" Dali boomed with an approving nod. He did not seem to require any further explanation.
"This appears to be your world," the traveler observed.
"Yes!" agreed Dali, "Amazing is not it?"
"It certainly is," Said the traveler, "absolutely incredible, though I have no idea how I got here."
"Where were you before you got here?" Dali asked.
This question made the traveler stagger and raise his hand to his helmet, as the question from the surrealist triggered a flood of memories that threatened to saturate his mind. "I was traveling in space ..." he managed to say.
"You're a spaceman!" Dali exclaimed in wonder.
"I passed beyond the limits of the solar system;" the astronaut recalled, "the first human being to do so. But not long after I left the Heliopause behind my instruments picked up signals from a black hole. It had never been discovered, and by the time I knew it was there it was already too late. I remember being stretched and crushed and agony beyond anything I could imagine. I thought the end had come. And then I found myself here. "
He looked around the world of the man that sat in the deck chair before him. "It's feels so strange to recall where I was before now I'm here ..."
"The Persistence of Memory," Dali remarked.
"Ha! Yes," the traveler agreed with rueful nod.
They fell into a comfortable silence, and listened to the voices that whispered upon the wind.
"So," Dali said eventually, "this is your purgatory, do you think?"
"I guess it could be," mused the traveler, "Either that or they found a way to get me out of there, and this is some kind of coma dream."
"Or perhaps you fell into the black hole," offered Dali, "And while we speak your body is hovering at the event horizon of a singularity as the laws of physics and nature break down around you. And there you will stay; trapped in the moment of transition between life and death, until the end of time."
"I do not think I like the sound of that," said the astronaut unhappily.
"Gah!" Dali exclaimed with a careless wave, "You are an explorer - embrace it!"
"That's easier said than do -" the traveler began.
Without warning the ground shook; and Salvador Dali and clapped his hands with joy. "¡Los elefantes bonitos!" he called out, "My beautiful pachyderms!"

From out of nowhere a herd of huge creatures had appeared right before the two observers: a parade of gigantic elephants with impossibly long and spindly legs above which pale, floating obelisks stretched into the starlit sky. The multi-jointed limbs of the impossible animals lifted and dropped, propelling their great loads forward and causing mini-earthquakes when they crashed back to earth.

The traveler would have marveled and expressed joy at the appearance of another of Dali's creations that suddenly filled the expansive plain they looked out into, were it not for the fact that one of the elephants loomed above them, and he realised they were directly in its path.

"Shouldn't... er, shouldn't..." the astronaut stammered, trying to suppress the sudden panic that assailed him, "Shouldn't we think about getting out of the way?"
"Gah!" Dali exclaimed again dismissively above the din of the herd, "We are perfectly safe. They will not harm us!"
"They- they won't?" asked the traveler uncertainly.
"Actually I don't know," Dali chortled, "I sincerely hope not!" With that he burst out laughing, and then the monstrous pachyderm was upon them.
As they saw its massive foot descend towards them like an Imperial Walker, the astronaut shut his eyes tightly and mumbled to himself, "I wish I'd been an IT consultant ..."
And then his voice was drowned out by a series of fresh earthquakes, and the earsplitting trumpeting of the creatures as they communicated with one another.

For a few seconds his world was filled with darkness and noise and fear as his eyes remained shut tight, and he again waited for his end to come, and he whispered his invocations for a more mundane career.

It took a further few seconds to register that the sounds had faded somewhat.

The astronaut opened an eye. Then he opened the other. He turned to see the elephant that had walked over them already receding, its great spindly legs carrying the creature and its towering, levitating obelisk away from them in an ungainly but swift gait.

"See, what did I tell you?" laughed the surrealist. "That's a relief!"
"Well ..." Said the traveler, collecting himself, "I think I might go and see what's inside your other tower over there."
Dali approved of this idea. "The Archaeological Reminiscence? Yes, you should look! Go! Go and explore!"
The traveler nodded. "I will take my leave of you then," he said, "It was great to meet you, Senor Dali."
"Igualmente," replied the master fondly, "Fare thee well, spaceman."
"Thank you," said the traveler.

He turned back and made his way towards the human like structures that he now knew to be huge recreations of one of Dali's most famous artworks, his motion as he traveled still smooth and curiously dreamlike. He headed towards the slightly shorter and more "chunky" of the two figures. Inside the other structure he had found the lobster telephone. What would be in this one?

His answer came initially in the form of the sound of music. This was not part of the curious background noise he had encountered in this world, and it was not like the hypnotic singing of the dancing woman that had so haunted him. He realised as he drew close that this was another unexpected anachronism. It was psychedelic rock and roll!

The traveler entered the second structure, and again found himself in a roughly circular chamber that enclosed the the cavernous interior. Upon his entry the volume of the music increased: harmonizing electric guitars with sitars over which a Lennon-like voice was warbling imprecations of love and peace. He saw a translucent man whose entire being was a kaleidoscope of colours like a rainbow. The translucent man was dressed like a 1960s dropout, sitting cross legged and rotating slowly in midair. When the man saw the traveler his face lit up. "Hey dude," he called out, "are you an astronaut?"
"I am," replied the astronaut.
"That's totally fab!" exclaimed the hippy with glee, "How did you get here?"
"Fell into a black hole," Said the astronaut.
The hippy hooted and slapped his thigh. "That's the freakiest thing I've ever heard!"
"How about you? How did you get here?" the traveler asked.
"By a not so dangerous route," laughed the hippy "We were meditating with our guru in Nepal, ya know, and I took something to help me open my mind out a bit? One minute I'm sitting on a mountainside surrounded by yaks, and the next thing I know I'm here! It just blows my mind, man!
"But still," the hippy concluded wistfully, "I wish I'd been an astronaut ..."
"We both ended up in the same place," the astronaut pointed out.
"Hey yeah, that's true!" the hippy acknowledged joyfully, "Just think, the drugs do work after all!"
"They certainly do."
The traveler leaned back so he could view the winding staircase that climbed up to the structure. "Well," he announced vaguely, "I guess I'll walk up there and take a look at the sky ..."
"Great idea!" the hippy enthused, "Say hello to Lucy for me!"
"I will."

He began to ascend the stairs, and as he did so, the psychedelic sounds that accompanied his encounter with the sixties dropout faded, and the unworldy sounds of Dali's dreams reasserted themselves. As he climbed higher he found he could look upwards, seemingly unhampered by his spacesuit, and as the summit of the structure grew smoothly and inexorably closer, he felt like a phoenix, rising from the ashes; or like Lazarous.

Finally he stood on a platform that was formed from the shoulder of the giant. Above him the sky brightened and dimmed, and the moon and stars rose and set in the space of a few minutes. Across the wide open spaces of the plane below him he could see the long shadows cast by Millet's Angelus that mingled with the shadows of Dali's elephants, which marched to their mysterious destination and trumpeted to each other. And the voice of Dali himself whispered in the ear of the astronaut with words that veered in and out of definition. "Live, in one dream ..."

He found himself thinking of his family, and feelings of warmth and love overwhelmed him.

And then he heard another, faint voice, so distant it could have traveled across the Universe. It was filled with static and interference, and it broke through into his perception as if leaking through a hole in reality.

Ground control to Major Tom

Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom?

Can you hear me, Major Tom ...

And he closed his eyes. "Yes, I can hear you, Ground Control," he whispered in reply, "And I hope you will hear me, in times to come". He smiled faintly, "if memory persists ...

"This is Major Tom, signing out."

Dedicated to Dali and Bowie, all the dream weavers that inspired them, and all those they will inspire.

And for Don

"Dreams of Dali 360^o": https://youtu.be/F1eLeIocAcU

I Always Feel Like

I raised my eyes to the sky, which was grey and forbidding. And yet, as I lowered them again, I could still see for many miles. For my vantage point was the courtyard of a temple that sat atop a mountain. In the distance I could hear the ominous clanging of a bell; a sound that vibrated through the mountain and thus vibrated through me. The sound, to my senses, felt as far away as the furthest ocean, but deeper than the roots of the lofty peaks that surrounded me.

                In front of me there stood a tall priest who wore elaborate, ceremonial robes. His bald head reflected the morbid skies, and in his hand he held a mighty staff. “Ask your question,” he commanded me. “Ask of me the thing that you have travelled so far to discover.”

                I inhaled slowly, and asked the question. “Who Watches the Watchers?”

                In reply, the priest swung his staff around and pointed towards another temple that also sat atop a mountain far away. “They do!” he declared, “It is they who indeed Watch the Watchers!”

                “And who Watches them?” I demanded to know.

                “They do!” the priest answered me. As he spoke there was another clap of thunder, and he moved his staff to point at another Temple that was adjacent to the first. “They are

Watchers who watch the Watchers Watching the Watchers!

                “But perhaps you wish to see more?” he asked me, “Then look at them!” he commanded, and a chime boomed out, making my teeth chatter. He pointed at another temple far away which rested upon another mountain top.  “At that place live the Watchers who observe the Watchers who watch the Watchers Watching the Watchers!

                “But there is still more!” the priest proclaimed, and pointed to yet another temple on yet another distant mountain top, as the wind howled like a banshee with a megaphone. “For living in this place we will find the Watchers who scrutinize the Watchers observing the Watchers who watch the Watchers Watching the Watchers!

                “And there is us,” the Priest concluded, “we who live here, for we are the Watchers who have our eyes upon the Watchers scrutinizing the Watchers who observe the Watchers Watching the Watchers that watch the Watchers!”

                And now, finally, I had come to the moment when I would ask my main question. And so I drew myself up as best I could and offered a challenge to the tall Holy Man who barred my path. “And who watches you?” I said, my voice bordering on accusation.

                There was a silence then. The weather and the gong grew still. It was a silence that I felt in my very soul; it was a silence that muted angels and demons, held the planets in their place and halted the movements of the Galaxies.

And then the priest pointed his staff at a new location.

                “They do!” he revealed. And at his proclamation the Universe came to life again, the gong gonged and the lightening thundered. He pointed out another temple now, much nearer, the existence and sight of which I had hitherto somehow not been aware. “For it is they,” he continued, “who Witness the Watchers that have their eyes upon the Watchers scrutinizing the Watchers who observe the Watchers Watching the Watchers that watch the Watchers!”

                The angels sang now, and the demons laughed. Worlds span upon their axis, and the forces of nature compelled the atoms of reality to obey. And the priest took a step towards me, his expression crafty. “Now I expect you wish to know…” he gestured towards the temple that was last revealed to me, “who watches them?”

                The gong gonged, the thunder rolled, and a fork of lightening split the heavens as though God wished to illuminate this moment and witness it for Himself.

                I scratched my chin and considered for a minute. “Nah, I think I’ll leave it there,” I decided.

Here's Where the Story Ends

The apartment was just as I remembered it. An expansive living room that looked out upon a lush green landscape. A desirable living space, and yet empty and neglected, as if its owner was a bachelor who was wrapped up in other things, aside from domestic bliss. But the cat was there, and she looked at me impatiently; affectionate and yet exasperated - maybe because of something I had or hadn't done? Perhaps she had a point. I still missed her.

There was a knock at the door. "Wait there," I told the cat and went to answer.

At the door there stood a tall man in a dark suit. He wore sunglasses and an expression of severity on his craggy features. "May I come in?" he asked me.

"I don't know," I replied nervously, "are you one of the Men in Black?"

"No. But you would, I'm sorry to say, consider me to be something worse," he said, "I am in fact from the Ministry of Creativity."

"The Ministry of what?!"

"Creativity," The Man repeated patiently, "May I come in?" he asked me again. Though still in a state of confusion I stepped back and opened the door wider; The Man in the black suit swept in carrying a brief case.

We took a seat at a large round, glass table in the middle of my living room. It was the kind of table I would have liked to have in my living room but never did. As I sat down, I saw that an object was lying on the table in front of me: it was a wristband that was made from brown, smooth, strung together beads. I remembered it had been given to me as a parting gift at a rock festival, but I had lost it long ago. I picked it up and turned it over in my hand, and something occurred to me: "I'm dreaming."

"Yes you are", confirmed The Man from the ministry as he took the opposite seat to my own, "this is where we make our client calls. In dreams."

"And what is the purpose of this call?" I asked him.

In response The Man put the brief case that he had been carrying on the table in front of me.  The two catches that served as the release mechanism sprang open, and from the case he passed me a document. "Here you are," he told me, "this is the next story that you are going to write."

"Oh right," I said as he handed me the article, "and why is it being delivered to me like this? I can't remember having any calls from the Ministry of Creativity before."

The agent regarded me expressionlessly through his dark glasses. "That's because this story will be the last story that you will ever write. There will be no more. Your creative licence has expired."

I gazed back at him blankly. "My creative licence? Has expired?!" I said in confusion.

The Man took this opportunity to explain. "Every living being is born with a certain consignment of creativity. You may use this creativity in different ways: writing stories, formulating theories, painting pictures, designing machines and so forth. But when its gone its gone I'm afraid. Also, in these times of austerity, we've had to make cuts to existing consignments. Therefore the remaining creativity in your consignment has been reallocated to a more high achieving recipient."

I looked at the file in front of me, feeling an ache within as I listened to these words, as if something was being torn from my soul. "No more stories?" I asked.

"I'm afraid not."

"What about poems?"

"No, none of those either. Or lyrics. Or music. Or jokes."

I scratched my head, trying to take in the enormity of what he was saying. "no more drawings?"

He had to think about this one for a moment. "Doodles should be OK," he decided, "but you'll have to stick to the tried and tested ones. Like the cubes and the aeroplanes you like to draw."

"What about random little tunes popping up inside my head?" I asked

"Sorry."

"And what about problem solving?"

"You'll have to get advice," answered The Man from the ministry, "That shouldn't trouble you too much - you have to get advice on plenty of stuff from day to day as it is. Now you'll just have to do it a bit more."

I sat there for a bit longer, still stunned and still struggling to comprehend. An empty life was stretching out in front of me. "Are you alright?" The Man from the ministry asked in a perfunctory tone.

"I... " it seemed difficult to articulate myself in this harsh unreality, in this dream that was not a dream. "But what about all the stories I will never write?" I managed to ask, "What if someone saw them and was inspired? Even one person? How... how do you know?..."

"The answer is we don't," the government representative admitted, "I mean, what if we make cuts to healthcare and someone dies because of it? We might have cut healthcare to fund the building of weapons, and then many people would die. That is the responsibility of government. And life is cruel."

I nodded mechanically, feeling crushed and resigned, and considered the document that had been presented to me. "Is it a good story?" I asked.

At this the The Man's expression softened somewhat. "I believe you will be pleased with the idea when writing it," he told me, "but in the future such things will be not be easy to judge, as you will find the story difficult to revisit; after all, it is your last one."

I nodded and looked down at the document again. "Here's where the story ends..." I mused.

"Hmm," said The Man, "that's a reference to a song isn't it? Very appropriate. That's what you should call it. You like doing that kind of thing."

I shrugged, but as I looked the words "Here's Where the Story Ends" formed on the cover of the document.

"Well, that's settled then," said The Man from the Ministry, "And now I must leave." He stood up.

I looked up at him, one last question lingering in my mind. "Is there a Ministry of Silly Walks?"

The only reply I got was an echoing beat, as of approaching thunder. The drumbeat became louder and louder, until it filled my mind, and I found myself becoming conscious. I opened my eyes and saw that I was surrounded by darkness. Beyond the windows of my room a car was driving down the street, its sound system booming out a rhythm so loud that any music that may have accompanied it was obscured. The beat became yet louder before eventually beginning to retreat, its thunderous emanations further distorted by the Doppler effect. I rose from my bed, crossing the room to the window.

I had been dreaming, but whatever I had experienced in my unconscious mind was now fading like the last rays of an Autumn sunset. But the picture of my cat by the window reminded me that she'd been there. I was glad of this, however I got the impression my nocturnal experience had not been a happy one.

Happiness, I reflected: in an existence of pain, grief and monotony, what was it but a string of moments scattered haphazardly across a lifetime?

Just imagine, I speculated further, if there was a drug that could collect together those moments and give you one intense high...

Now that's a good idea for a story...

Right Here, Right Now

All was green and silver as the mists of dawn lay upon the young planet; soaking the unspoilt, preternatural forests with its cleansing dew.  All was silence. For now the vast woods that covered the Earth were almost the only life forms that occupied the landmasses of that world - a world separated from our own by a gulf of time that stretches beyond the reach of imagination.  No birdsong greeted the rising of the sun; no predator growled; no herbivore lowed; and aside from the odd, very brief buzzing sound that could only have been caught by the most alert, the serenity of the forests was complete.

But a profound change was at hand.

It came from the shore of a mist shrouded lake, where two silver bodied, scaly, aquatic animals were even now dragging themselves forward into an environment that was hitherto entirely alien to them.  As they pulled themselves forward into an increasingly landlocked world to which their frames looked so ill suited, they gasped quietly, their mouths and the slits on the side of their bodies opening and closing with a frantic cadence, until one of them sagged with exhaustion.

"It's no good Dave," gasped the creature, sinking to the ground as it spoke, "I'm on my last fins.  Go on without me... I'll just slow you down..."

"No, no Fred, I'm not leaving you behind," replied the other animal in an anxious but determined tone.  "You can do it," Dave gasped with as much encouragement as he could muster, "Baby steps mate, baby steps."

But Fred sank to the floor and listed to the side, his inhalations growing more shallow. "Can't... breathe... "

"Fred!" called out Dave in alarm as he laboured to drag his body towards his suffering friend, his silver mass moving awkwardly over the moss and soil that comprised the floor of the viridescent woodland.

"I'm going to the big ocean in the sky..." groaned Fred, "they say it's got plankton as big as trilobites there...".  Fred's voice was fading as his eyes glazed over.

"Fred!" said Dave, who finally reached his stricken comrade and began nudging Fred's scales with his marine snout, "you've got to adapt mate! You've got to evolve!"

There was no response. "Fred!" Pleaded Dave.  Again nothing.  But Dave was still not ready to give up.

 "Fred!" he called out. "Don't surrender now! Play the game of life! This is the moment of our true testing! The future is now!  So evolve!  Evolve! Breathe with me!"

The was a moment's silence.  Fate hung in the balance.  Dave, who was himself getting used to the rarefied atmosphere of this mist filled tree lined terrestrial wonderland, held his newly adapted breath.

A minute passed.

Dave battled against despair. He was weak. He was tired. He was lost in an alien world. And soon, it seemed, he would be completely -

Fred gasped and came to life like an automaton that had just been plugged into the power. 

"Fred!  You did it! You evolved!" declared an ecstatic Dave.

Perhaps it was a trick of the misty light that hung over that prehistoric woodland, but it almost it seemed as if Fred's eyes were widened in amazement as he felt his gills begin to convert the new air that slipped through his bloodstream.  At the same time he felt his stabilizing fins gain strength as they planted themselves more solidly in the soil of Terra Firma.  "I wouldn't have credited it Dave," he mused in wonder, "but I did adapt."

"You did," agreed Dave, who felt the irresistible urge to make a speech to mark this fateful moment. "We have crossed the rubicon Fred," proclaimed the no longer strictly aquatic animal to his fellow mutated comrade, "and we have engendered a new phase in existence for life on this blue/green orb. New lands await our progeny, and who knows, maybe one day our descendants will even take to the skies. And it all started right here; right now; with us at the vanguard of natural selection. Truly, I feel the hand of history upon what may someday become my shoulder."

Fred turned himself in Dave's direction, an impressed look almost alighting itself on his expressionless features.  "Cor," he intoned, "you aren't half clever Dave.  I don't understand half of what you say I've got to admit, but I know it must be very wise.  A fish among fish, that's what I call you."

"Hmmm", Dave responded, deep in thought. He looked up at the trees that rose up from the miasma that surrounded him and his friend that morning; these trees that reached their boughs towards the deep blue infinity above. He had caught glimpses of this sky from beneath the ocean's surface, but now he saw the full extent of its majesty, and he realised how much more there was of this Universe to explore. And he realised at that moment that however far he travelled, he would only ever be at the beginning.  "You know, I don't feel like a fish any more," he decided, "I feel like we've blurred the boundaries between species ya know.  I don't even know what you might call us now.  I feel, I don't know... ambiguous..."

"Ambiguous;" Fred repeated admiringly, "a new breed: on land or in water.  Amazing."

"Ha! Or something that sounds like that," agreed Dave. "You know," he continued, encouraged by Fred's appreciation, "it would be great if we had some kind of implement or colourful sign that we could plant, to let all the creatures know that we were here first, and that this land was ours, claimed for the Coelacanth Nation!"

"Aye!" Fred exclaimed, "The Coelacanth Nation!"

"The Coelacanth Nation!" they exclaimed together.

"You see at this point it would be good to have some kind of, I don't know, implements that we could clash together, to seal the deal," speculated Dave enthusiastically. "Some kind of vessel that holds food maybe..."

But this was a step too far for Fred.  "Alright Dave, you're sounding a bit weird now," he complained.

"Yeah, alright, sorry about that," conceded Dave.

"There's a thin line between genius and madness, that's what they say," Fred pontificated.  

The intrepid pair pressed on with their adventure.

***

Across the clearing, two beetles watched the activities of the Coelacanths.  They were both large by the standards of their species, and both sported a smooth, round body with a hard, orange and black shining carapace that housed a pair of insect wings. "Well," said one of them in a disgruntled tone, as its antenna probed the air before it, "this is a how do you do indeed, eh Dave?"

"Indeed Fred," agreed Dave.  "What on Earth do you think those things are?"

"Dunno," replied Fred, "but they certainly look a bit fishy."

"Do they?" asked Dave ruefully, "I can hardly think of anything I'm so hungry.  Do reckon we could eat them?"

"Weell", sniffed Fred, "possibly. But I don't think they'd like it. And they're a lot bigger than we are."

"Typical," Dave said mournfully, his antenna drooping in submission, "no food and now we're getting invaded by sea monsters!  Save me from these interesting times!  Where will it end, eh Fred?  When will it end?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe things won't be so bad..." said Fred wistfully.  With that he turned away from his fellow beetle and stared into the distance.  "Because I have had a dream!" he declared.

"Here we go," moaned Dave.

Fred was unabashed by his friend's cynicism.  "Yes I had a dream!"  he said again.  "I dreamed of creatures: huge creatures, as big as the tallest trees!

"And such wondrous defecations did they produce!" Fred declaimed.  "Brown fragrant mountains speckled the great plains of Earth!  And did we eat the waste!  And did we lay our eggs in the waste!  And did we rear our young with the waste!  And did we build our homes from the waste!  All these things we did and more!  Man, it was the shit!"

"You've been eating those weird berries again haven't you?" said Dave sharply.

"I found a big bush full of them," said Fred, in a self-satisfied tone.

"Lead the way then."

"Right you are."

And so it was that while Dave and Fred moved forward into a brave new phase of existence, pushing forward the boundaries of evolution, Fred and Dave were going to get stoned.