perfect.’
‘Now’s not the hour for snide abstraction, boy – don’t imagine I thrive upon perching like something preserved in a museum. Everyone’s reading more into this than you are. As sure as you’re sitting there, a garden beetle’s backflaps will lift to reveal a hotrod engine.’
‘I’m not convinced I’m sitting here.’
‘Please yourself. You’re a Machiavellian bird I’ll say that for you.’
‘Wasn’t he that bastard who said authority was the spice?’
‘And more. That by making an example or two a ruler will prove more compassionate than those who allow riot and disorder.’
‘If such examples are proof of compassion then surely disorders will prove the more compassionate as they harm the whole community, while executions only affect individuals.’
‘Can’t change a circle to a square without reducing its surface area, laughing boy.’
‘What about a cube.’
‘You mar my argument by no more clever means than an increase in dimensions.’
‘To no greater number than that in which normal people move and have their being, Sideshow – it’s not my fault your crap argument hasn’t the stamina to exist in the real world. This is terrible. Get me out of here.’
I was instantly back in the hallway, gasping for air. My body was aching like inept architecture. In the picture Snap beamed and the little creature beside him was looking, its head now turned aside.
Late the next day I started feeling stupid for bailing out - it was clear Hieronymus had information to impart. I went to the hallway but the picture was gone - Snapper had burnt it. ‘The gremlin,’ Snapper said, fronting off defensively. ‘Suddenly didn’t like it. All day wherever I went - felt the little shit was watching me.’
METAL BOX
Like human hair, the reputation of a saint grows after death. Uncle Blute had driven a Morris Traveller into the lake. Now the turquoise square of its roof rippled just below the surface, dappled with emerald moss and jacinth rust. ‘Your mother’s brother,’ stated Snap. ‘Strange chap. Eyebrows met in the middle of someone else’s face. Insisted the same birds were being born every few years. Finite number. Made calculations. Invented devices he couldn’t operate. Disappeared for days at a time. Staggered back unable to tell the tale, covered in insect bites. A gentleman in the days when the word had a meaning.’
Adrienne said she dimly recalled him doing a stunt with his nose. ‘Turned it inside out,’ she said, frowning. ‘So it looked like a sea anemone. Arced over laughing - never grew tired of it.’
‘Well he won’t be doing anything with his muzzle these days,’ I said. ‘First thing to go Father says and I’m tempted to agree with him. Becomes a luxury.’
But I was forgetting the lake. Like certain Nevada lakes its water was clinically pure, preserving anything which sank there. After ten years Blute was at the wheel in immaculate condition.
Yet the strangest thing was that due to the water’s conductive alkalinity the headlights and radio were still on. If you sat at a particular spot on the shore you could faintly hear the weather report. At night a corner of the lake glowed an agreeably ghoulish green. Adrienne would sit with me on an overhanging rock, her face underlit as she crunched an apple. ‘He was ready.’
On the anniversary of his death it was decided we should endure a memorial service for this amusing fellow. We trooped down to the lake in a squelch of rubber insulation, carrying wreaths of iron flowers which the nuns had hammered to order. ‘Why the hell are we doing this now?’ I asked, tugging on Father’s sleeve.
He raised his mask. ‘Man is made up of body and spirit, but not until death is he forced to take sides.’
That shut me up - I bit upon the snorkel and looked toward the water. The others were already getting in, big ripples spreading - they were like zealots in a ritual cleansing. As I began wading after
‘Now’s not the hour for snide abstraction, boy – don’t imagine I thrive upon perching like something preserved in a museum. Everyone’s reading more into this than you are. As sure as you’re sitting there, a garden beetle’s backflaps will lift to reveal a hotrod engine.’
‘I’m not convinced I’m sitting here.’
‘Please yourself. You’re a Machiavellian bird I’ll say that for you.’
‘Wasn’t he that bastard who said authority was the spice?’
‘And more. That by making an example or two a ruler will prove more compassionate than those who allow riot and disorder.’
‘If such examples are proof of compassion then surely disorders will prove the more compassionate as they harm the whole community, while executions only affect individuals.’
‘Can’t change a circle to a square without reducing its surface area, laughing boy.’
‘What about a cube.’
‘You mar my argument by no more clever means than an increase in dimensions.’
‘To no greater number than that in which normal people move and have their being, Sideshow – it’s not my fault your crap argument hasn’t the stamina to exist in the real world. This is terrible. Get me out of here.’
I was instantly back in the hallway, gasping for air. My body was aching like inept architecture. In the picture Snap beamed and the little creature beside him was looking, its head now turned aside.
Late the next day I started feeling stupid for bailing out - it was clear Hieronymus had information to impart. I went to the hallway but the picture was gone - Snapper had burnt it. ‘The gremlin,’ Snapper said, fronting off defensively. ‘Suddenly didn’t like it. All day wherever I went - felt the little shit was watching me.’
METAL BOX
Like human hair, the reputation of a saint grows after death. Uncle Blute had driven a Morris Traveller into the lake. Now the turquoise square of its roof rippled just below the surface, dappled with emerald moss and jacinth rust. ‘Your mother’s brother,’ stated Snap. ‘Strange chap. Eyebrows met in the middle of someone else’s face. Insisted the same birds were being born every few years. Finite number. Made calculations. Invented devices he couldn’t operate. Disappeared for days at a time. Staggered back unable to tell the tale, covered in insect bites. A gentleman in the days when the word had a meaning.’
Adrienne said she dimly recalled him doing a stunt with his nose. ‘Turned it inside out,’ she said, frowning. ‘So it looked like a sea anemone. Arced over laughing - never grew tired of it.’
‘Well he won’t be doing anything with his muzzle these days,’ I said. ‘First thing to go Father says and I’m tempted to agree with him. Becomes a luxury.’
But I was forgetting the lake. Like certain Nevada lakes its water was clinically pure, preserving anything which sank there. After ten years Blute was at the wheel in immaculate condition.
Yet the strangest thing was that due to the water’s conductive alkalinity the headlights and radio were still on. If you sat at a particular spot on the shore you could faintly hear the weather report. At night a corner of the lake glowed an agreeably ghoulish green. Adrienne would sit with me on an overhanging rock, her face underlit as she crunched an apple. ‘He was ready.’
On the anniversary of his death it was decided we should endure a memorial service for this amusing fellow. We trooped down to the lake in a squelch of rubber insulation, carrying wreaths of iron flowers which the nuns had hammered to order. ‘Why the hell are we doing this now?’ I asked, tugging on Father’s sleeve.
He raised his mask. ‘Man is made up of body and spirit, but not until death is he forced to take sides.’
That shut me up - I bit upon the snorkel and looked toward the water. The others were already getting in, big ripples spreading - they were like zealots in a ritual cleansing. As I began wading after
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