on the wall. It was of a haunted man with a red beard and a hat; all, save for the beard and the terrible eyes, painted in grays and blues. “One of my favorites. Can you imagine what he must have felt to have painted a thing like that?”
Young. Thin as a noodle. Dressed in macaw-bright satins and silks. Lace fluttering at throat and cuffs; gold and diamond knuckles gave direction to the directionless light in the corridor. Stringy mustache penciled above the upper lip. Bright boyish eyes. To Courtney Hall, this stranger looked like a zook a disastrous couple of years behind the fashions.
He bowed. “The King of Nebraska welcomes Courtney Hall to Victorialand.”
Courtney Hall was not certain what constituted proper etiquette for a King of Nebraska. The. King obviated her unease by taking her hand and kissing it.
“My my my. Nona dolorosa? Even down here?”
She blushed, snatched her hand away, and shook it into normality.
“Never mind.” The King waved a lacy hand at hers. “Graciousness is the prerogative of kings. Vade mecum. ” And he stepped clean through Vincent van Gogh.
Courtney Hall was at the fine point where if one more bizarrity occurred she knew she would not be able to stop screaming. A kingly head came back through the wall for her.
“It’s all holographic. Covers up a large expanse of Universal Power and Light’s barbarous devices. Victorialand’s rooms do tend to be rather far apart. Like kilometers; I have to put them where I can, not where I want. Still, isn’t it much nicer looking at holographic van Gogh or Matisse or Hockney or Spencer than several cubic kilometers of heat exchanger, don’t you think? Come along, my good lady.” He grasped Courtney Hall by the wrist and pulled her through the wall.
The King of Nebraska’s receiving room was a celebration of anarchy, a hymn to junk-shop aesthetics. A baroque white enameled stove was fitted with curved chromium pipes. On a revolving dais a couple of pale-faced mannequins in archaic monkey-suit and ball-gown were embraced in a frozen waltz. Menaced by a holographic tornado, they were guy-roped to the ground for safety. There was a stuffed cockatrice with one genuine evil eye. There was a wall completely decorated in tessellated electric guitars. There was an untidy pyramid of empty paint tins. There was a death mask, there was a porcelain water closet with a demon’s face leering out of the bowl, there was an inflatable couch in the shape of a pair of carmine lips, there were one hundred and ninety sets of plastic dentures, there was a laughing sailor in a glass case, a shelf of pickled snakes, a brass ship’s wheel, a small meteorite labeled kryptonite, and a suit of diminutive samurai armor with a skull grinning from within. Noseflutes, slitgongs, bagpipes, and dulcimers, an aquarium with pieces of sculpted carrot in place of fish, a horn gramophone with a plastic Jack Russell terrier inclining a quizzical head toward it, a stuffed rhinoceros with a drink’s waiter in his broad back, a magician’s vanishing cabinet, a table that looked like a naked woman kneeling, a Persian rug, a weather satellite suspended from the ceiling, a laser harp, a set of tail fins off a Ford Thunderbird, and a baby’s arm holding an apple.
The King of Nebraska watched with evident pleasure as Courtney Hall examined each object in turn.
“It’s, ah, interesting.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like ‘incredible,’ or ‘fantastic.’ Ah, well. Sit yourself down and tell me what you love and what you loathe. You’re the first outsider ever to view my little macédoine of mirth, and your opinion will be valued. Come, talk to His Majesty.”
Courtney Hall steered herself away from the gaping vinyl lips and sat down on a Louis XIV conversation piece. Unlike every other Louis XIV conversation piece she had ever sat upon, she had the sensation that this one was no reproduction.
“Oh, come come come,” wheedled the King of Nebraska.
Young. Thin as a noodle. Dressed in macaw-bright satins and silks. Lace fluttering at throat and cuffs; gold and diamond knuckles gave direction to the directionless light in the corridor. Stringy mustache penciled above the upper lip. Bright boyish eyes. To Courtney Hall, this stranger looked like a zook a disastrous couple of years behind the fashions.
He bowed. “The King of Nebraska welcomes Courtney Hall to Victorialand.”
Courtney Hall was not certain what constituted proper etiquette for a King of Nebraska. The. King obviated her unease by taking her hand and kissing it.
“My my my. Nona dolorosa? Even down here?”
She blushed, snatched her hand away, and shook it into normality.
“Never mind.” The King waved a lacy hand at hers. “Graciousness is the prerogative of kings. Vade mecum. ” And he stepped clean through Vincent van Gogh.
Courtney Hall was at the fine point where if one more bizarrity occurred she knew she would not be able to stop screaming. A kingly head came back through the wall for her.
“It’s all holographic. Covers up a large expanse of Universal Power and Light’s barbarous devices. Victorialand’s rooms do tend to be rather far apart. Like kilometers; I have to put them where I can, not where I want. Still, isn’t it much nicer looking at holographic van Gogh or Matisse or Hockney or Spencer than several cubic kilometers of heat exchanger, don’t you think? Come along, my good lady.” He grasped Courtney Hall by the wrist and pulled her through the wall.
The King of Nebraska’s receiving room was a celebration of anarchy, a hymn to junk-shop aesthetics. A baroque white enameled stove was fitted with curved chromium pipes. On a revolving dais a couple of pale-faced mannequins in archaic monkey-suit and ball-gown were embraced in a frozen waltz. Menaced by a holographic tornado, they were guy-roped to the ground for safety. There was a stuffed cockatrice with one genuine evil eye. There was a wall completely decorated in tessellated electric guitars. There was an untidy pyramid of empty paint tins. There was a death mask, there was a porcelain water closet with a demon’s face leering out of the bowl, there was an inflatable couch in the shape of a pair of carmine lips, there were one hundred and ninety sets of plastic dentures, there was a laughing sailor in a glass case, a shelf of pickled snakes, a brass ship’s wheel, a small meteorite labeled kryptonite, and a suit of diminutive samurai armor with a skull grinning from within. Noseflutes, slitgongs, bagpipes, and dulcimers, an aquarium with pieces of sculpted carrot in place of fish, a horn gramophone with a plastic Jack Russell terrier inclining a quizzical head toward it, a stuffed rhinoceros with a drink’s waiter in his broad back, a magician’s vanishing cabinet, a table that looked like a naked woman kneeling, a Persian rug, a weather satellite suspended from the ceiling, a laser harp, a set of tail fins off a Ford Thunderbird, and a baby’s arm holding an apple.
The King of Nebraska watched with evident pleasure as Courtney Hall examined each object in turn.
“It’s, ah, interesting.”
“I was hoping you’d say something like ‘incredible,’ or ‘fantastic.’ Ah, well. Sit yourself down and tell me what you love and what you loathe. You’re the first outsider ever to view my little macédoine of mirth, and your opinion will be valued. Come, talk to His Majesty.”
Courtney Hall steered herself away from the gaping vinyl lips and sat down on a Louis XIV conversation piece. Unlike every other Louis XIV conversation piece she had ever sat upon, she had the sensation that this one was no reproduction.
“Oh, come come come,” wheedled the King of Nebraska.
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