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[Title:Mac Schrodingers Cat]
[Author:Reed de Buch]
[Scanned:*]
[Checked:*]
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[Revision:*]
[Source:*]
[Copyright:Copyright Reed de Buch]
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MAC SCHRODINGERS CAT
by
Reed de Buch


Prologue

It is quite possible, that in the not too distant future, we will be 
building skyscrapers, shopping malls and multi-story car parks, in the 
centres of our oldest and most venerated of cities such as Paris, Venice, 
Madrid or I Glasgow. If this were to happen it would be a tragedy 
beyond repair and we would have only ourselves to blame; except in the 
case of Glasgow where it would be the best thing next to a tactical nuclear 
strike. 

Hence, this is not only the story of what might one day happen to 
ancient Venice, it is also the saga of a cat, the history of modern physics { 
as I think it should be} and how the universe is a lot stranger a place 
than we would like to believe.

If you are a publisher interested in publishing this novel you can 
contact me through the Church of V\R (knot a religion) on the Internet at 
mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu, or via snail-mail at PO Box 1620, Toowong Q 
4066, Australia.

Otherwise all copyrights are presevered, and any unauthorised 
hardcopy of any part of the text 'Mac Schrodinger Cat' - by Reed 
de Buch is not allowed, except with the permisson of the author.




Chapter One 

I would like to be there, were it but to see how the cat jumps.

                                                      Sir Walter Scott.


The rain pelted down upon the city, wrapping the people up in 
cotton buds for minds, as they tramped along the marbled avenues, 
beside the mazed canals into the  cloistered coffee shops that ringed the 
ancient metropolis as popular battlements against the elements. Here 
they sat, huddled next to open charcoal braziers, over bitter cups of 
coffee, exchanging witty gossip and different strains of pneumonia, while 
watching the rain continue to fall down upon their city with its pernicious 
intent. The endless shower of water, tumbling from the hidden sky, 
covered the canals with waves of adversity, leaking everywhere, into 
every crevice and catchpool about the clothing of those people foolish to 
stay out in this open sewer of the heavens. Indeed those still in the rain, 
found this irritation of the skies sweat almost intolerable, as it dribbled 
and trickled incessantly about their skins; turning sweat into mire and 
chills into raging fevers. So that they became sticky, cloying bundles of 
humans trundling their way along the many thoroughfares beneath 
equally wet, equally dripping villas, or the unfortunates sat aboard long, 
black, chic gondolas that cruised the canals and there to spending many a 
miserable hour I dripping.

High up above the pneumocolic city in one of many silver, 
windowed skyscrapers that poked holes in the sky, was Erwin safely 
sleeping in his bed, far away from these terrors of the primitive world, 
warmly snuggled up to a book on animal vivisection. At least he dreamt 
he was, till his alarm went off.


Erwin woke up with a slight ringing in his head and a cat on his 
stomach. He thought at first, the cat was related in some way to the 
ringing in his head, however he realized quickly, that cats don't ring and 
especially not in one's head. 

Erwin had just fallen awake, with one of those terrific jolts that 
make you feel like you've just fallen out of a tree or the universe has 
collapsed. To find this cat, sitting on his stomach staring up at him, 
unblinking, with the sheerest trace of an insolent grin on its bewhiskered 
face. He smiled back weakly, obviously the universe was in one of its 
funny moods. 

Erwin hit the alarm, then lay his head back on the pillow, and tried 
to wake up for a second time; having found in the past, that by doing this, 
not only would his nightmares go away but any stray cats would as well. 

For a while, he seemed to be succeeding after a fashion, till the cat 
decided to miaow in a bemused fashion, indicating it was either about to 
soil the bedclothes or give birth to multiple kittens. So, Erwin being one of 
those unfortunate beings who had managed to make it past birth, was left 
with no alternative. He leapt out of bed, bounced across the room and hid 
in the wardrobe. Hoping the cat would do some cat like things like run 
away, go climb a tree or most hopefully - get eaten by a dog.

After Erwin had been in the wardrobe for over an hour, having 
started up a terribly animated conversation with one of his shoes, he 
came to the conclusion that while his runners had a lot more in common 
with himself than he had previously believed, he couldn't spend the rest 
of his life stuck in his wardrobe talking to them. He decided to risk 
poking his head out to see if the cat had gone away. 

It hadn't.

To Erwin's dismay, the cat was still there and what was worse, was 
watching him in a decidedly interested fashion, with its head cocked to 
side and two feline eyes staring up at him in a manner that was 
distressingly un-feline. He slammed the door closed and tried tunneling 
into the room next door. 

You see, Erwin had this thing about cats: he hated them.

Now, Erwin had never intended to wake up this morning and be 
besieged by a cat in his wardrobe. In fact, Erwin had never wanted to 
wake up any mornings at all; in this life or any other for that matter. It 
was just that his parents had never let him have any say in the matter, 
while they were conceiving him, being far too busy at the time, deciding 
on the most appropriate position for coitus in the back seat of a 
Volkswagen. 

Indeed, it was not so much Erwin minded waking up or actually 
being conscious, rather he considered being asleep a far more interesting 
way of getting through life than being awake. In fact, Erwin was amazed 
that people were ever actually 'up' before eleven o'clock in the morning; 
indeed he had always considered the possibility as somebodies idea of a 
sick joke.

Nevertheless, having gotten thus far into the world, he concluded 
that he wanted nothing more than to be a ruthless architect making 
millions of dollars, own villas in the south of France and be world leader. 
Not much really, to ask in recompense for being dragged out of the total 
oblivion, which he previously existed in, as a pure non-existent meta-
physical impossibility.

Unfortunately, the universe didn't see it this way and it had a habit 
of  barging into his world, or in this case his bedroom, and doing horrible 
things to him such as having pigeons land on him or kittens run up his 
leg. Indeed, any animal, that was in any way at all, cute and cuddly Erwin 
found terrifying to an extreme. Although strangely enough, huge horrible 
monsters like hippos and gorillas he found quite tolerable.

It had all begun many years ago as a child, when his parents as 
part of their university studies, had made him take part in an experiment 
on Operant Conditioning: or the psychology of rats and rabbits. In one 
particular experiment Erwin was introduced to a cute, cuddly little 
creature like a rabbit or a kitten -usually called Rumpty or Ronald- and 
allowed to coo blissfully over the little bundle of white fur for several 
minutes as his new found animal friend. Then, to see, in the true spirit of 
scientific endeavour, how Erwin would react, he was suddenly shocked 
with forty volts of electricity, doused with ice water and smacked over 
the head with a rolled up newspaper.

 Naturally enough, this was to scream his little heart out and try 
and hide underneath the carpet. 

In no time at all, Erwin learned to scream and run away when ever 
he saw anything even remotely cute or cuddly. This was considered such 
a great achievement by the University, that the psychologist performing 
the experiment was immediately awarded  a Ph.D. by his faculty and a 
law suit by Erwin's parents.

As a result of all this, Erwin had grown up absolutely petrified of 
any cute or cuddly animal (as well as telephone books with yellow 
coverings and torn pages, but that's another experiment), and had spent 
most of his life hiding in multistory buildings with lots of glass and 
concrete and no animals, designing bigger and better multistory 
complexes , in order that he could live in them as well. Eventually he 
hoped to cover the length and breadth of the planet with huge shopping 
complexes and parking lots, effectively wiping out the animal kingdom, in 
toto. 

The fact, that his friends kept saying 'He's a total cement head' and 
'He wouldn't know if it was Tuesday or Taiwan', never phased Erwin in 
the least. As he had made abundantly clear, when at his acceptance 
speech for the worlds worst architect, proclaiming,"I have a dream!" in a 
deep senatorial voice, and proceeding to outline a plan of animal 
annihilation unknown in the universe, since a small and rather obnoxious 
species of primate had jumped down out of the trees and clubbed to 
death, the first passing baby harp seal on the savanna. The primate 
finding this gave it a great deal of satisfaction, kept on doing this for the 
rest of its one million years of existence, before it finally wiped out the 
entire planet over a disagreement about fishing rights off the west coast 
of Jutland. Erwin's plan included, strangely enough, to build the world's 
first two hundred story car park in the middle of Venice.

Also -for reasons he could never quite fathom- Erwin possessed an 
unreasoning, undying  hatred of just about everything and everybody 
that came his way; although, his analyst suspected it was something to do 
with his witnessing, at the tender age of 12, the death of his parents, as 
they were eaten alive in their bedroom by a giant Mexico Walking Fish. 
An event he had surveyed with anguish, horror and just a twinge of 
revenge: for all those psychology experiments he had been put through as 
a baby. The magistrate presiding at the inquest, came to the rather 
startling conclusion, that Erwin's parents would probably have survived 
if,

a) Erwin hadn't hidden the Mexico walking fish in his bedroom for 
six months before the tragedy: feeding it a diet solely of steroids and 
dead cattle; 

b) Erwin's parents had not been locked in their room, tied to their 
bed and chloroformed; 

and 

c) Erwin had not misdirected the 'Police Armed Tactical Response' 
unit; by telling them, his parents were an obscure religious cult practising 
'primeval screaming' to celebrate the summer solstice.

In all other respects Erwin had grown up to be a perfectly normal 
sane person. Who would have gone on through life, crawling from the 
bottom of the ladder to the very top, walking over everybody in between 
and a few not, until this morning. When he had finally been cornered in 
his walk-in wardrobe: by a rather small and unremarkable I cat.

Erwin, upon finding he was surrounded on three sides by concrete 
and on the fourth by a vicious cat, wondered if calling for help might 
work. This seemed unlikely as he lived in the penthouse of one of his own 
multistory buildings and being a weekend there was nothing but empty 
air, steel and concrete for quarter of a mile between himself and the next 
human on the canal below. However, upon reflecting that there was 
nothing else to do-except start up another conversation with his shoes-he 
let forth a thin, plaintive,wavering cry.

"Heeellppp."

"Miiiaoowww," the cat, immediately miaowed back.

This immediately brought back those dark, sinister memories of 
childhood tortures and badly run psychology experiments to Erwin, and 
sent a shiver of fear down his back: he huddled himself down in the 
corner of the wardrobe and pretended to be a shoebox. 

After a while, he decided that being a shoebox wasn't such a bad 
thing after all, and wondered if he could make a profession out of it.

 Outside the door, the Cat paused in amazement at the fact, that the 
human wasn't going to feed it after all or even ramble on in some 
mindless inane voice, saying brilliantly intelligent things such as," Whose 
a wittle puuddy wuudy tat," as it belted the poor Cat on the head with 
those great clubs humans have for paws. 

So the Cat decided to stroll around the carpet with that complete 
air of certainty cats have-as to its place in the higher scheme of things-till 
it came across a tiny ball of rolled up newspaper and dived on it with a 
hint of glee on its face. It scuttled about the floor, knocking the ball 
around with its paws, till it ran head first into the wardrobe.

"Arghh!" Erwin shrieked inside the wardrobe," It's a Friendly Cat!" 
and proceeded to pretend he was a vacuum cleaner, as he felt these were 
more dangerous than shoeboxes.

The Cat sat on the mat, lashing its tail from side to side, as if 
concerned with those more pressing problems of life; such as getting the 
kids off to school, not being late for work and the cost of cat food these 
days.

Suddenly it froze its tail, as it saw with some satisfaction, a small 
though plump, white mouse scuttling across the floor, on the other side of 
the room.

 The Cat crouched itself down, its haunches tensed and its ears 
pricked forward in a moment of inner tension, the whole body became 
wired together with tendons and sinews waiting in hushed stillness for an 
explosion of motion, with the exception of the tip of its tail which wiggled 
with uncontrolable nervousness. 

The mouse paused in its scuttling across the floor-sensing the 
presence of its primordial enemy of the kitchen-and began twisting its 
head from side to side in quick frantic movements, trying to discover 
where the killer lay. The Cat, seeing this, let the faintest glimmer of a 
smile pass across its face, before leaping through the air in wild 
animalistic abandon, its two white tipped paws stretched out before it, 
ready to snatch up the tasty little victim. 

The mouse squealed and shrank, and then kept on shrinking or 
rather disappearing, so before the Cat was even halfway in its pounce 
across the room: the mouse had completely vanished. 

The Cat skidded into the wall and looked about itself in 
consternation for the missing mouse. Looked up, then down. Span round 
and round on the spot and tried to catch its tail, vainly trying to locate 
the now invisible mouse: a look of total befuddlement on its face. 

-Well, I be-thought the Cat, and then it wasn't; as it too vanished 
into thin air.

The instant the Cat did this, a small and rather unusual egg fell to 
the carpet, popping into existence out of nowhere. Unusual in that it was 
square, and unusual as it had writing on it, but most unusual of all, was 
that it had appeared out of nowhere.

At just that moment, Erwin had decided once more to venture his 
door and see if his mortal foe was still there. Erwin looked outside and 
found to his relief that the Cat had indeed disappeared: it was nowhere to 
be seen. There was now, however, a small white cube sitting menacingly 
on his bedroom floor.

Erwin slammed the door again, and began to sweat profusely.

-It's an egg- he thought quickly, and began to search through his 
memories to see if eggs could possibly be construed as being dangerous. 
After another moment he realized they were, though he couldn't quite 
fathom why they might be, it was just one of those things eggs did: they 
were dangerous. 

-What do I do, what do I do!- thought Erwin frantically, trapped as 
he was between a wardrobe and an egg. 

It was a conundrum. It was  a problem. It was ridiculous! Erwin 
suddenly realized, remembering eggs weren't dangerous at all, you eat 
eggs! You don't hide in cupboards from them. 

-Yes!- thought Erwin, - I'm not afraid of eggs!-, but then he 
frowned as he wondered if just maybe he should be. It was indeed a 
problem and Erwin wasn't too good with problems.

Suddenly in a blinding quagmire of inspiration, Erwin found the 
solution.

-I'll be a Chicken Rancher!- he thought with wild abandon, 
throwing all intelligence to the cognitive wind, -Chickens should be 
terrified of chicken farmers, it stands to reason.- Erwin paused in his 
thoughts, as he wasn't too sure what 'Reason' was supposed to be, but 
quickly continued on, reflecting he could always figure it out at some 
later date.

Thereupon, Erwin reached up into the corner of the cupboard and 
took down a battered old black raincoat, which was missing both its 
sleeves and had the words 'Moscow Conservatory of Music' stenciled in 
large yellow lettering across its back. He slipped this on. Erwin had never 
been able to properly explain the raincoat's existence, beyond the fact, 
that forty years ago his now deceased great uncle Oswald, had spent an 
amazing three weeks trapped inside a Turkish bath house in Istanbul 
learning how to belly dance while deciphering the Russian Consular 
General's socks: admittedly this never adequately explained the raincoat 
but, nevertheless, Erwin found it to be a hell of a good conversation piece. 
Erwin then dragged out an even more tattered pair of great black 
gumboots with the words Trans-Siberian Railway written on their sides. 
These understandably were the source of an even more bizarre story 
from his great uncle Oswald, which, however, Erwin choose at this 
moment to forget, as he struggled with some effort to pull the boots on 
awkwardly over his red sleeping socks and onto his feet, then to finish off 
his trousseau a rather battered and singed floppy green felt hat which 
sagged morosely about his head, giving him the overall appearance of a 
large pile of garbage which has been left out in the weather for too long.

"Eee-by-Gum, It's finger-lickin good!" he cried in a serious 
Yorkshire accent to the rear of the door, under the peculiar surmise this 
would scatter even the most chicken-hearted of chickens and the even 
occasional egg from his bedroom.

He then drew the door open and looked down at the egg, with a 
contempt that turned to alarm, as  he realized that it was no longer an 
egg. Yes, it was white and it had come from a cat, but on the other hand it 
was square. 

He stared intently at the egg. Until that moment he had always 
assumed that eggs were a sort of round shape, with stamps on one end 
and came in grey cardboard cartons that had an alarming tendency to 
disintegrate spontaneously whenever somebody left them on the bottom 
shelf of the fridge for more than two days. Obviously this wasn't one of 
those sort of eggs,but it was still an egg which meant that all previous 
convictions that he had held towards these normally mundane objects 
were put in a sort of pastoral limbo until he decided out what it really 
was meant to be.

"I know,"he said in an rash show of intelligence," I shall call it a 
cubecategg."

Erwin smiled at this idea,then smiled again when he realized he 
had an idea all of his own, then smiled again upon reflecting he had had 
an idea about an idea about an idea.

This process of thinking and smiling went on for some time and 
might have gone on for ever, had he not realized that he was thinking 
about thinking. At this point, he gave the whole thing up as a joke and 
was about as useful as an broken light bulb in a blackout.

He glanced down at the cubecategg again, for suddenly the cube 
began rocking from side to side and spinning wildly, gyrating faster and 
faster, quickly standing up on a point, going bzzzzit then coming to an 
abrupt stop. 

Erwin watching with fascination this strange occurrence, pushed 
back the battered hat off his brow and stuck his fingers in the belt of his 
pyjamases.
"Well I be," he muttered in an Kentucky accent, then frowned, as 
he realized that not only wasn't he from Kentucky but also he wasn't 
even an American.

Suddenly, the surface of the cube shivered with a slight tremor. 

"Er," Erwin stuttered, before getting down on his knees to watch 
and pray there wasn't a cat inside. Without warning the top of tiny cube 
flipped open and the head of a little creature popped up, took one look at 
Erwin then shot back down into the box slamming the lid back down on 
top of it.

Erwin was amazed, as he could have sworn he had seen a tiny little 
man wearing sunglasses and a look of complete terror on his face.

-Well, at least it isn't a cat or an Australian- Erwin thought 
reassuringly. He felt sure it wasn't an Australian, as Australians have a 
tendency to shoot people and say things like "Have a Fosters, Mate!". 
Which obviously the little man wasn't about to do, though the sunglasses 
threw Erwin a bit, he was sure he could find a reasonable explanation. 

Cautiously he leaned down, lifted up the lid of the box with the tip 
of his finger and peered into the cube's shell. He saw inside what 
appeared to be a very white, very terrified, little man huddling in a 
corner beneath a tiny surf board, contriving to be almost naked except 
for a pair of surfing boardshorts and a towel; the man's head poked above 
the surf board, as he held in one hand what seemed to be a tiny laser 
cannon pistol, pointing at Erwin's head. At first, Erwin wasn't sure about 
the laser pistol, as he felt reasonably certain nobody had invented one 
yet: until there was a tiny flash of light and a little puff of smoke erupted 
on the tip of Erwin's nose and he felt reasonably certain it was.

"Yiokeeee," screamed Erwin," It's an Australian!" dashing back into 
the wardrobe, slamming the door behind him and holding his nose in 
excruciating pain. There was the vague idea in the back of Erwin's head 
that something even more terrifying than a cat was now hunting him in 
his bedroom.

At that moment, the cube with its occupant still inside, shimmered 
for an instant, disappeared into nowhere, only to pop back into existence 
as a huge 20 foot cuboid which cracked the ceiling of the penthouse, with 
such a shuddering thump, that the now giant Cubeman cried out in alarm.

"AieeIDamn, got the dimensions wrong!" 

An instant later, the cube disappeared yet again, only to return as 
a three foot, pink bar-fridge. This bizarre oscillation continued for several 
more attempts till the Cube finally settled for a size something on a par 
with a large fridge or a washing machine on steroids. Achieving this, the 
man climbed up out of the Cube, dragging the surfboard behind him as he 
did so. Looking around the room in obvious confusion, the man stood for a 
moment trying to find his bearings but gave up and decided to ask for 
directions. He turned around and knocked on the door of the wardrobe 
which concealed Erwin: who by this time was trying to figure out how he 
could squeeze himself into the shoebox.

Erwin-under the impression that somebody was about to rescue 
him- bounced up and quickly opened the door, only to be confronted with 
the same almost naked surfer wearing sunglasses, a sickly coat of white 
skin and pointing the laser gun straight into Erwin's face.

"Hey guy! Surf's Up!" said the stranger, with what Erwin felt sure to 
be a definite Russian accent.

Erwin said nothing; with a sincerity that amazed even Erwin, and 
went on staring at the stranger; as if he were something from out of this 
world: a thought which hung like suet pudding in the back of Erwin's  
brain.

The surfer looked nonplused at this lack of reaction, so he genially 
repeated his greeting.

"Hey guy! Surf's Up!"

This time the accent seemed positively Icelandic, though Erwin 
wasn't sure, as he had never heard anybody speak with an Icelandic 
accent before, but it was one of those situations where either you 
believed the first thing that came into your head or you went stark 
raving mad: Erwin decided on the latter.

"Have you come to rescue me?" he ventured uncertainly, as if, 
there wasn't a very large laser cannon pointed at his face; today was 
tomorrow and the weather was green.

This caught the stranger off guard for a moment, who frowned and 
appeared to consider blowing off Erwin's head, but something in the back 
of the strangers mind told him he was probably dealing with a complete 
idiot, and it would be best if he tried one more time to engage Erwin in 
conversation: before blowing his head off.

"Hey man, lets catch some waves?" with what was now most 
definitely a Swedish intonation.

"Is it safe?" Erwin persisted in a whining tone, which made the 
surfer stare at the floor with a look of perplexed exasperation. Obviously, 
whatever Erwin had been expected to do, he hadn't. Cautiously, the surfer 
lifted with his free hand his sunglasses up onto his head, and examined 
Erwin with piercingly blue eyes.

"Is this Miami?" he asked, with a modulation that somehow drifted 
between Polish and Czechoslovakian.

"I I don't think so," said Erwin, then  inquired," Is the cat gone?"

The eyes of the stranger flew open and his sunglasses fell off the 
back of his head.

"Cat! Cat! Where, did you see The Cat?!" the surfer yelled, pushing 
the laser cannon up into Erwin's face.

"YeIyes, it was here a moment ago but I think it's vanished," said a 
now, very terrified Erwin.

The deranged diver, looked abstractly at the carpet and muttered 
softly to himself.

"Must have jumped through the spacetime continuum again." Then 
looked  wildly at Erwin and shouted.

"I didn't say that!"

"What didn't you just say?" 

"What I just didn't say!"

"What didn't you not just say?"

"What ever you didn't not just didn't hear."

Erwin felt his brain do back-flips in his skull trying to figure that 
one out, so he simply replied in a sort of quiet restrained voice.

"I see."

"What! What do you see!" yelled the lifeguard, spinning around so 
quickly, the laser gun was knocked out of his hand by the edge of his 
surfboard, bounced onto the carpet, thereupon firing off a shot which 
promptly vaporized Erwin's television and most of his kitchen. 
Simultaneously the stranger leapt back in a fighting stance but his 
shoulder connected with on a corner of the cube, he jolted off this and let 
out a shriek, only to catch his heel on the carpet and fall bodily to the 
floor. At this point, the stranger completely gave up all attempts at trying 
to defend himself and scuttled away under the bed. Where he tried to 
hide himself with old copies of 'Harpers Bazaar'.

As Erwin watched all of this with an air of complete amazement, an 
expression slowly dawned on his face, the sort you normally see on the 
faces of social workers who haven't had a coffee break for the last thirty 
years; having-in that time-dealt exclusively with 16 year old punk 
rockers, who think it the greatest lark to belt themselves in the head with 
telephone receivers.

Erwin now tried to take stock of the situation. In front of him, was 
a large white object, which could be described as either an egg or an 
aggressive washing machine. Beneath his bed was a total stranger who 
could have been born in Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Hawaii or quite 
possibly all of the above. And on the carpet lay a pair of sunglasses, 
beach towel, surfboard and a laser pistol quite capable of taking out the 
entire N.A.T.O. defence force. 

Obviously, Erwin realized, it wasn't happening, more to the point it 
was a nightmare. 

Hence, Erwin did what he always did in this type of life threatening 
situation, he walked over to his bed, pulled back the sheets and went 
back to sleep.

Unfortunately, this proved quite difficult, if not impossible, as 
every time Erwin shifted his weight, the stranger would let out a shriek 
that could have woken the dead in Tierra del Fuego. 

After quarter of an hour, Erwin got back out of his bed, walked 
over to the window and stared out across the city. There was now a 
glazed, drawn expression on his face; the sort normally reserved for 
somebody who survives a thermo-nuclear war, or the morning after a 
fantastic rock concert.

Outside it was Venice, and the winter stomped around the city 
wearing galoshes. 

As it always does in August, when the tourists are in town for the 
Carnival, so they can take photographs and learn life saving techniques 
from drunken gondoliers. One of those grey mists, hung like an 
imperceptible shroud over the city, vainly trying to hide some ectopic 
skyscrapers which rose as great mirrored porticos to hold up the mass of 
listless and quite wet clouds. Occasionally the mist would break and the 
tourists would lean back in their gondolas and fall in the canals, trying to 
snap photos of the towers rising up amongst the many ancient buildings 
of the sinking city. These being the old villas, which had resisted the 
extraordinary building phase that had gripped the city, when the foreign 
architects had supplanted the former Venicians in an act of governmental 
insanity. The old  Venicians, as a result, now wandered the world like 
medieval Jews in search of a new Israel/Venice with lots of canals.

The towers, all one hundred and twenty of them, had been allowed 
to be built in one of those impossible turns of events that happens 
everyday in Italian politics. When a member of parliament in trying to 
bring a bill through the Chamber of Deputies concerning the cities 
restoration, had inadvertently quipped as to how New York was the 
Venice of the New World and that Italy would do well to follow the 
American example in the preservation of the old city. 

Whereupon a member, of one of the many opposition parties, 
immediately jumped up and claimed this to be a perfect example of how 
frivolous the government took the Venician issue. Then demanded that 
the government should immediately hold an election, to settle this 
complex and intractable problem. 

This so incensed the Italian Prime Minister, that in a torrent of 
Roman insults, he told the honourable member from Naples where he 
could get off, that the government could do just what it jolly felt like 
about the Venician problem and that Naples was full of castrated cats 
anyway. 

As a result of this, mass demonstrations where held throughout 
Europe, demanding the immediate resignation of the entire Italian 
government and an inquiry as to why there were so many castrated cats 
in Naples.

Naturally enough, the government fell overnight and an election 
was fought over the Venician issue two weeks later, which prompted one 
foreign journalist to remark that,

"In Italy, politics  is something of a football game. Unless there's a 
grand final every year, the players get bored and start having  affairs 
with each others secretaries."

In the resulting shrapnel from the governments party, which split 
into fifteen different other political groups that quickly recombined to 
form another party. Which on the surface was politically completely 
different, but in reality was exactly the same: except that the secretaries 
now had longer luncheon breaks.

When the votes were eventually tallied, it was found to the 
surprise of everybody, and most especially the secretaries, that none of 
the former political parties or their affiliations had gained office. 

In fact, a rather shady real estate developer from Sicily had 
slipped in as the new Prime Minister and his secretary was just getting 
over her first bout of morning sickness and could you please call back 
next week as we're going to Venice to close a deal with our friends in the 
Mafia.

Hence, within three weeks the entire Venician populace was kicked 
out of Venice and told to go tell it to the Israelites, with the exception of a 
handful of guerilla gondoliers who skulked around the back canals getting 
drunk on Saturday nights and planning ways to blow up the Italian 
parliament. 

In place of all the Venicians, most of whom left to start up 
spaghetti chains in Lebanon, came first, a group of somewhat enterprising 
young architects from around the world, who seemed to think 
Michelangelo was some kind of pizza and that anything that wasn't 
square, a mile high and covered in glass was probably a tree and should 
be bulldozed straight away and be replaced with all of the above. 

After them came the tourists. Who much to their surprise and 
delight, found a ready made modern city complete with super freeways, 
shopping car parks and not an awful lot of people in them. 

Finding nobody to stop them, the tourists immediately moved into 
the New Venice and demanded that the government do something pretty 
damned fast about the chronic sewage and the yearly flooding or it could 
look elsewhere for its 'tidal' voters. 

Of course, the government wasn't going to have anything to do with 
a bunch of foreigners, even if they, the reigning government had been 
solely responsible for the tourists being there in the first place, and 
immediately ordered the New Venicians out of the city, so that the boys 
from Sicily could set up their heroin and canned sardine factories. 

In fact, the real reason behind the government's move, was that 
the stupid newcomers didn't seem to understand the perfectly normal 
and completely legitimate practice of Italian corruption. Whereby the 
ordinary Italian citizen bribes a government official to do or not to do 
something like build a highway or re-route the national sewage crisis into 
Greece, and the official immediately goes out and gets a new secretary.

The New Venicians decided to a person, that no way were they 
going to leave a city that was quite obviously now theirs. 

Hence, they submitted and won an appeal to the United Nations 
International Law Courts, using the International Law of the Sea as a 
precedent to show, that since Venice wasn't quite built on land then it 
couldn't actually be called a city; so much as  a city on a boat which 
having been abounded and was therefore by the international law of 
salvage: the sole property of all those who left their garbage out on 
Thursday nights and sailed in her.

The Italian government, or rather the Mafia, finding it had no 
recourse through legal means, requested the army be sent in to flush out 
these ignorant foreigners. Fortunately, the army refused point blank to 
invade and possibly damage the thousand year old jewel of the 
Mediterranean, that was Venice: even if it was now full of skyscrapers 
and bloody tourists.

Besides, the Italian General in charge of laying siege to cities, had 
been caught at work, by his wife, with the wrong secretary  and was now 
locked up in the attic of his own house learning how to type with his feet.

So it came to pass, that a new city state was born, the New Venice, 
as truly a cosmopolitan city as is possible without a pizza shop in sight. 
Having completely eliminated all of its original inhabitants, barring the 
guerrilla gondoliers who periodically would stage bloody coups to recover 
the independence of their city, by kidnapping members of the new 
Venician Parliament, tying them to gondolas and trying to throw them off 
the top of the skyscrapers. 

Fortunately, they never succeeded in killing anyone this way, as 
they were never able to fit the gondolas inside the elevators.

Erwin watched the rain fitfully trickle down the window outside, 
shivered in the cold of the room and made a mental note to get the air 
conditioning fixed. Turned around and walked back to his bed, ignoring 
the unsightly lump caused by the alien lifeguard, got back into bed and 
tried to go back to sleep. 

He succeeded in doing this, after a fashion, by remembering not to 
think about pink elephants. He did this, because somebody had once told 
him that if you don't want to think about something like pink elephants, 
it's impossible, because you keep thinking about not thinking about pink 
elephants and so of course you keep thinking about pink elephants. 

Which meant, quite naturally that Erwin forgot completely about 
the raving maniac under his bed, as he was to busy worrying about not 
worrying about pink elephants.

Erwin drifted off to sleep to dream fitfully about white Siamese 
cats shooting at him with huge laser cannons which fired small pink 
elephants riding Egyptian obelisks and saying,

"Book-em Danno!"in the best Hawaii Five-O tradition.

After a while, the stranger crawled hesitantly out from under the 
bed and looked wildly around the room. 

Seeing Erwin had returned to bed and either gone to sleep or was 
playing possum. The stranger gave up trying to get any information from 
him and walked over to sit down rather heavily next to the surfboard 
and stared at his hands for a few moments. Then leaned across to the 
surfboard and pushed a button on it marked 'DO NOT PUSH'. Thereupon 
the surfboard opened up like a clam, to display a set of tools that every 
normal intergalactic stormtrooping psychopathic spy carries about with 
them. These being,

A ball point pen with thermo-nuclear fusion bomb in nib;

Manual on Sexual Positions for over 3 million galactic species;

ZargleZit Whalloper Elephant gun loaded with live peanuts;

Combined Intergalactic Transmitter and Pan Dimensional 
Dishwasher ;

A Dehydrated Jabberwocky;

Miniature Space-Time Machine For Pan-Dimensional     

         Philosophers;

Intergalactic Library Card;

One Collapsible Battering Ram;

Combined : Watch in One million Time Zones, Programmable   

       Calculator and Control System For Air To Ground 
Missiles;

A Collection Of 12 Cth  French Postcards - depicting rural scenes   

          from the mountains of young shepherds and 
sheep engaged in coitus;

The universally acclaimed textbook 

 '400 Great Ways How Not To Get Eaten By The Zargle 
          ZitWhalloper'

      by Dr Mervin S@lock of Aspidistra IV;

The Complete Works Of Marcel Proust In Gaelic;

Top Secret  Instructions for The Inv@asion Of Earth.

The surfer/spy pulled out the Combined Intergalactic Transmitter 
and Pan Dimensional Dishwasher, then pressed a button on it.  Only to 
have the viewing screen open up and the machine start spewing out 
broken crockery.

The surfer quickly closed the screen and pushed the rinse cycle 
button, this time the screen lit up to reveal a short grey haired old man 
sitting on a log under a tree, wearing a disheveled old grey laboratory 
coat, looking wistfully  off into the distance and holding a chicken.

The spy now spoke to him.

"Professor, this is your student Albert reporting from Earth...I 
think."

The kindly old man quickly looked down at the chicken and said," 
It talks! That's amazing. I had you all these years and that's the first time 
your ever spoken. That's amazing, say something else."

"No Professor Niels, I'm here on the monitor in front of you. It's 
Albert on Earth."

"That really is amazing, not very truthful mind you, but still 
amazing. I would have thought you chickens would talk about other 
things like chickens  and chicken feed ,but what the hell the 'study of 
mankind is chickens' that's what I always say.You know I used to know a 
chicken who ..."

"No Niels! Here in front of you! I'm not the chicken! It's Albert!" 
yelled Albert in exasperation.

"What a rude chicken you are, first you talk nonsense then you 
interrupt me. If you keep this up my dear chook,I shall turn off all your 
logic circuits and fry you in micro-waves.That will show you what I think 
of robotic chickens that don't keep there place," giving the chicken a 
quick shake to show it its place.

"Professor! I'm not the chicken!I'm your student on Earth!I want to 
get instructions!" yelled Albert frantically.

"Right chicken-you're for it! We're both going down to the lab, this 
instant and I'll have your logic circuits ripped right out. Then lets see you 
try and talk back to me." 

At this the wise old man swept up out of his chair and stormed out 
of sight holding a rather alarmed android chicken under his arm.

Albert stared opened mouthed at the screen for a moment, then 
gulped compulsively for air like a fish having a tonsillectomy.

After a while, he got to his feet and walked over to the window 
only to stare off into the distance with a strange grin on his face. Similar 
to that on people, who after seeing for twenty years the same 
psychologist called Eric, are suddenly told that Eric was really a plumber.

Presently he muttered to himself.

"If only I had been born as a traffic light , life would have been so 
easy."

Then he turned around, walked across the room, picked up his gun 
and woke up Erwin by taking the pillow off his face and sticking the laser 
cannon in his face before politely asking," Excuse me, but could you 
please tell me how to get to the beach?"

Erwin opened his eyes; the psychopathic surfer had returned. He 
lay on his back, stared at the ceiling and tried to think. Then gave up, 
when he realized that the entire previous sequence of events was still 
completely impossible and it was best to ignore it, in the hope that it 
would all go away after he had had his first cup of coffee.

Erwin rolled out of bed, walked around the six foot white obelisk 
that shouldn't have been there and into his kitchen which should have 
been there but half of which was no longer. Followed by the surfer who 
wasn't there with the black boardshorts, sun glasses and a phrase book  
called -'Catchy Surfing Phrases For Intergalactic Stormtroopers'- none of 
which existed.

Erwin looked around for the kettle, that no longer existed, in the 
space where the kitchen used to be. Failing this, he would have tried to 
boil some water on the stove, but it too had managed to mysteriously 
vanish while he had been asleep. What was worst of all was the extreme 
shortage of coffee in the kitchen, there no longer was any, this was 
mainly due to the complete lack of any cupboards; which for reasons 
known only to themselves were now holidaying in the Cocos Islands: and 
having a jolly good time too. 

For a moment, Erwin wondered if the cleaning lady had gotten out 
of control again, like the time she had thrown out all his old ABBA 
records. But he discounted this idea when he remembered he had had the 
Mafia run her down with a garbage gondola. 

He noticed something nudge his toe as he took a step forward. He 
glanced down and saw to his delight that his favourite coffee cup had 
some how managed to go on existing, while everything else was playing 
'hide or  get obliterated'. 

Erwin bent down on his calfs and gazed fondly at it, he had always 
loved this cup with its delicate blue and white petals and chipped enamel. 
He remembered how often he would happily drink coffee from it, while  
busily engaged in designing revolving doors that would decapitate the 
heads off cute little kittens and puppies, when they unwittingly made 
their their way into his huge, safe, sanitary multistory  buildings. 

Suddenly, the lethal lifeguard spoke." Excuse me,I'm not quite sure 
about this, mainly because I've never done anything like it before, but is 
this the planet Earth? More specifically, where is the surf?"

Erwin picked up the cup and looked at it more intently. 

Albert stared at Erwin, amazed at his behaviour.

"You don't seem to understand," said Albert, walking across the 
scorched floor of the kitchen towards Erwin. 

The floor, which had been weakened by the laser's blast, sagged 
slightly beneath Albert's weight.

"You see, I'm a spy from another planet, well universe really," he 
said, having decided that the direct approach was the best in this case. As 
he did so the floor cracked perceptibly under his feet. 

"Look, if you don't tell me I shall have to torture you and do 
horrible things to your furniture." 

On the planet, where Albert came from, this was considered to be 
an extremely effective threat. 

Still finding no response from Erwin, Albert decided a show of 
force was in order and taking careful aim with the laser on fine beam, he 
blew the cup in Erwin hand into a trillion shimmering particles. At just 
that instant, however, the floor beneath Albert, completely gave way and 
he disappeared through a hole in the lino, throwing his laser up into the 
air as he did so, it gracefully gyrated through the air like a whirligig to 
land in Erwin hands and take the place of the now totally vaporized cup.

Erwin stared at the cup become laser cannon in amazement.

"Funny, it's never done that before," he said in a distant voice and 
stood up.

Erwin now looked at about him with an air of puzzlement. For, 
what had seemed a bad nightmare was becoming an even worse reality. 

He walked back into his bedroom and looked disapprovingly at the 
obelisk which a few minutes before he had decided wasn't going to exist, 
then stared down at the surfboard that wasn't a surfboard with its 
manifold of off-the-planet gadgets: which sure as hell weren't supposed 
to exist. 

He then sat down on the floor, pulled out the top secret instructions 
for the 'Inv@asion of Earth' and began to read.







Chapter Two

Nothing puzzles me more then time and space ,and yet nothing puzzles 
me less, for I never think about them.

        Charles Lamb.


Months before all this, Albert had found himself in a laboratory 
with an empty box and a puzzled expression on his face.

Albert stared at the box. Then closed the lid for the seventh time 
and opened it again. He stood staring at it again for five minutes, then 
tried staring at his coffee pot for a change before getting bored and 
returned to staring at the box. 

It was still empty, which was a little odd since it was meant to 
have something in it. In fact, it was more than a little odd it was quite 
serious. The universe wasn't supposed to do this sort of thing. 

He closed the box then quickly opened it again hoping to catch 
reality in the act of being insane, there was still nothing in it. The cat had 
disappeared, vanished, departed in a physical way as well as in a meta-
physical sense. This was very strange as well as very serious, as good cats 
were hard to come by, especially Schrodinger Cats.

Albert looked around the laboratory complete with its computers, 
cyclotrons and laser beams, it was antiquated, dusty and smelled of 
yesterday's science. Which was slightly bizarre, considering that Albert 
was supposed to be a philosophy student. His unfinished thesis resided 
beneath the coffee pot as if apologizing for its existence by serving an 
auxiliary, albeit domesticated, function. It was entitled 'The Existence of 
Hidden Variables in Bell's Theorem, and a Proof using Schrodinger's Cat'. 
Albert walked over and ran his fingers along the edge of the coffee pot, 
unconsciously reassuring himself of those good, simple geometric things 
in life like trains and nuclear bombs, things that wouldn't go bump in the 
space-time continuum.

The whole laboratory itself was tiny and wedged in between the 
senior lecturers car park and the girls gymnasium and was so little 
known of by the rest of the university that people often mistook him for 
being either a pervert or a car thief.

From where he stood he tried staring at the box again, as if 
changing his stance would affect the way the universe behaved. It didn't, 
it just went on being strange. 

Albert sighed. 

When as an undergraduate he had accidently been enroled in the 
Philosophy Department because of a typographical error on his 
enrolment. He had expected to spend the next fifty years of his life 
lounging around in comfortable armchairs, drinking coffee and 
indulgently asking people of a similar ilk, those terribly important 
-though not particularly useful questions-  concerning God, the Meaning 
of Life and did anybody want a game of tennis afterwards.

What he had not expected was that, he would spend hour after 
back breaking hour sitting over a computer terminal checking every ten 
minutes the vital signs of cat. 

It wasn't at all what he had thought philosophy to be, as he had 
once explained to his girlfriend Margret shortly after he began his degree.

"Philosophers aren't actually supposed to do anything, except 
maybe sit around and talk  an awful lot. We're not  meant to measure 
things like cats and temperatures and nuclear reactions. That's what 
we've got physicists and chemists for. All we're supposed to do is sit 
around and say witty things like 'God is dead' and 'I think, therefore I'm 
am!',  since when the hell were Philosophers supposed to deal in raw 
data! I don't even know what raw data looks like!"

That was some years ago. He now knew what raw data was. It was 
a pain in the neck.

Albert went back to the recording instruments that sat on the 
cupboards that housed even more elaborate recording instruments, which 
recorded the first instruments as they were recording. There was also 
parked on top of all the other instruments an obscure little black box that 
just recorded itself, recording itself recording itself, Albert ignored this 
one, as he could never figure out what the hell it was doing there in the 
first place.

Timidly he pushed a button that gave a read out on the main 
monitor. Lights flickered, buzzes buzzed and writing scrolled across  the 
screen of the monitor. In the top left hand corner of the monitor there 
appeared a a series of print outs in large angry letters.

CAT MISSING

EVENT IMPOSSIBLE 

PUT IT BACK - YOU IDIOT!

Whereupon he attempted a bemused look of tolerance that he had 
once seen on the face of a lecturer, then tried a grimace of self-
abnegating dismay but finally opted for an expression of complete 
amazement when he remembered he simply didn't know what self-
abnegating meant.

For according to the screen, the cat had disappeared inside the box, 
passed through the walls of the box and reappeared somewhere else in 
the universe.

Albert gave up trying to understand the universe and went out to 
see his adviser.


Albert's whole life had been one long series of typographical 
errors. 

Beginning with his birth, when the company that made the oral 
contraceptives his mother used, had inadvertently labeled a consignment 
of aspirins  as the pill. To wit, nine months later, Albert had been thrust 
into the world as a bouncing baby migraine. Furthermore, the midwife 
attending his birth had absent mindedly marked his race as black rather 
than white. So that for the first five years of his life, until the mistake 
was cleared up, he had been ostracized by his playmates at kindergarten 
as being a ruddy African and tried burning him occasionally on a cross 
they had rigged up in the sand-pit.

At the age of seven, his father had thought to enroll him in the cub 
scouts. Unfortunately, as the form was processed by the scouts secretary 
his age was mistakenly changed from seven to seventeen and he was 
accordingly drafted into the marine corps. Where he was allowed to 
attend a six week intensive training course for paratroopers learning how 
to defuse anti-personnel mines and kill people with piano wire. Before he 
was finally kicked out for driving a tank through the officers mess, after 
they had refused to tell him any more 'Winnie The Pooh' bedtime stories.

During, the time he spent in hospital, having his tonsils removed, 
the night duty nurse had accidently dropped his file in the deceased 
folder. So the morning following the operation Albert had woken up, lying 
on a large white marble slab in the medical school, with a metal 
identification tag riveted through his big toe and a third year medical 
student about to open up his skull with a hacksaw. Thereupon, Albert had 
spent a very nervous quarter of an hour, trying to convince the self-same 
medical student, that he really was alive and the fact that, he was 
jumping up and down and screaming very loudly, was not due to those 
involuntary muscle spasms that sometimes occur to dead bodies.

Upon his entry into high school, Albert found to his amazement 
that the school computer had duplicated his file over twelve thousand 
times. So that according to the computer there wasn't any room in the 
school for any other students other than Albert. Hence, for the entire time 
he was at high school he had wandered about the school yard surrounded 
by frustrated physical education teachers who kept insisting he form 
himself into basketball and hockey teams, so he could compete with other 
schools and have the living shit beaten out of him when fourteen burly 
footballers pounced on top of him, every time he had the ball. This 
happened frequently, because the opposition kept standing in a circle 
about him and throwing it to him, while Albert screamed, "I don't want it, 
I don't want it!"

Inside the school itself, his lonely footsteps would resound through 
the buildings as the teachers would glower menacingly at him from their 
classroom doorways, daring him to take French or show an interest in 
Mathematics. In particular, his English teacher displayed a capricious 
dislike towards Albert  as she would angrily stare at him over the top of 
his essays, which she marked and remarked in the vain attempt to find 
something interesting to do. As well as getting up every few minutes to 
walk over and give Albert a whack across the back of the head for using 
words which were too obscure like 'verb' and 'onomatopoeia'.

The worst part about it all, was the roll call. Where Albert was 
obliged to stand for over an hour in the main courtyard in front of entire 
the teaching staff and answer to his name: twelve thousand times. 

Finally he made it to university and enrolled in a course in 
Psychology. At first he thought things were at last going to be normal till 
he fronted up at his first lecture and was curtly told to clear off as he was 
enrolled in Philosophy. 

Somewhere along the line another typographical error had been 
made.

This in itself wasn't so bad, as he had always showed an interest in 
Philosophy and had for a while entertained the notion of being a 
Philosopher. That was until he discovered another typograhical error. 

Extraordinarily, the government minster in charge of assigning 
funds to the universities, had somehow managed to write Physics where 
he was supposed to write Philosophy and vice versa on the legislation 
dealing with allocation of funds.

The direct outcome of this was that the Philosophy Department 
woke up one morning and found that all its nice comfortable leather 
armchairs and Picasso prints had all been replaced with million dollar 
nuclear accelerators and huge super-intelligent computers which went 
'ping' every time somebody tried to get a cup of coffee from them. While 
outside the windows, disgruntled Physicists walked back and forth in 
picket lines burning books by Kant and Hume, as they smashed coffee 
percolators by dropping them from the top of the Philosophy building 
onto the heads of the philosophers, simultaneously measuring the 
gravitational acceleration.

Naturally for the Philosophy department to justify the multi-
million dollar funding that the government had laid at its door, the 
Philosophers were obliged to actually perform experiments in Physics. 

Which was were Albert came in. For Albert was a walking, living,  
breathing typographical error.

It transpired, that somehow, in an amazing set of coincidences that 
nobody every figured out, that according to his file, Albert possessed a 
degree in The Thermo Nuclear Quantum Mechanics and Low Temperature 
Relativistic Non-Linear Dynamics of Cats. 

This came as a bit of a shock to Albert, to say the least. Who up till 
then, had always considered himself to be a bit of a moron.

Hence Albert was given the sole responsibility for the performing 
of the only experiment in all of physics that actually involved Physics, 
Philosophy and Cats. 

Namely the Schrodinger Cat experiment.

This extraordinary experiment purported to show that if you put a 
cat in a box with a bottle of cyanide gas, which was attached to hammer, 
which in turn was geared to a radio-active counter which in turn was 
pointed at a particular atom of uranium. Then, depending on what state 
the atom was in, then the cat would either be alive or dead. 

The whole point of the experiment was the matter of the existence 
of the cat. In that, was the cat alive or dead, before somebody opened the 
box and took a look. 

The philosophers after considering this for several weeks came out 
with the slightly bizarre proposal that either the cat the cat was both 
alive and dead at the same time or it was actually a fish which suffered 
from multiple personalities and could they please  have their coffee 
lounges back, as they still hadn't the faintest idea what the square root of 
minus one was supposed to do.

However this suggestion was rejected by the government as being 
impossible and told the department to get its act together and do the 
experiment or they would find themselves shipping boned chickens to 
Paraguay.

So, it was that Albert had opened the box one afternoon and found 
to his amazement, an awful lot of nothingness inside.


"That's very, very interesting ,"said Niels in a vague dreamy way 
that reminded people of those vague dreamy mists that float around the 
Baltic sea, not doing very much but are nevertheless, terribly pretty 
anyway. 

"Did you try the cat pound?"

Niels was a short, grey semi-fossilized old lecturer with thick 
heavy features, similar to a geriatric bulldog stoned out of its brain on 
marihuana. It was Niels, that Albert had had assigned to him as academic 
adviser for his thesis. Lately, however Albert had started to wonder, 
quite seriously, whether he could trade him in for a Coke machine.

"Ah, no Sir you don't quite seem to understand. The cat passed 
straight through the walls of the container, it just vanished" Albert 
explained with some deliberation."In the experiment it's only supposed to 
be alive or dead, it's not supposed to disappear."

"What experiment?" the dreamy eyes wandered around and settled 
on a convenient piece of furniture then moved on: just like one of those 
Baltic mists.

Albert sighed, as he realized his adviser had forgotten what he was 
supposed to be advising him on, this wasn't surprising. As it had been 
almost two weeks since Albert had last mentioned it to him, indeed the 
fact that Niels had even remembered Albert, was in itself a major 
achievement.

"The Cat experiment Sir, the Schrodinger Cat experiment," Albert 
forced out wearily.

"Cat, what Cat?, tell me more my dear boy" as he picked up one of 
his android chickens out of his armchair and sat down. 

Albert groaned internally, with a sound not unlike the death rattle 
of a dying Brontosaurus.

It wasn't that Niels was particularly senile or even sightly stupid, 
but rather his brain worked in such a vague misty sort of a way, that it 
was apt to fade out of existence altogether for several days on end and 
then suddenly erupt into existence with ideas that were so brilliant, so 
insightful and so ingeniously well thought out that his peers had long ago 
put it down to witchcraft and studiously kept out of his way.

Albert briefly described how the experiment was performed, 
finishing it with the statement that the cat was killed off by the cyanide.

"But that's terrible, my boy, what on earth possessed you to do 
such a horrible thing," again picking up the chicken and patting it fondly.

"Because you told me too!"exploded Albert,"don't you remember, 
the whole point of the experiment is that we don't know if the cat is alive 
or dead just like we don't know if the uranium has split or not - until we 
open the lid and look inside."

"Ah," said Niels, which for Niels could have meant he understood 
perfectly or he had not the faintest idea. 

"Is that," Niels said carefully,to see how Albert reacted, 
"important?"

"Well of course it is," Albert said, throwing his arms up in the air," 
it means that large objects like houses or people can exist in more than 
one state simultaneously, depending on how their measured or observed."

"Really?" said Niels shocked at the state of the universe,"that's 
funny I've never seen that happen before."

"Of course you've never seen it happen! That's the whole point of 
observation, as soon as you look at something , throw a atom at it or even 
pick it up with your eyes closed. Then and only then do you determine 
what state it's in!" The veins on Albert's temple throbbed.

"Sort of a split personality ,what?"quipped Niels, but quickly looked 
at his hands when he saw the expression on Albert's face.

Albert turned his back and stared out the window, he couldn't see 
why he bothered, Niels may have been a genius forty years ago, but now 
he might as well be one of those idiot android chickens he kept on 
building.

Niels quietly went on looking at as hands, a puzzled expression 
played across his face like rill by Mendelssohn. He glanced up at Albert, 
blinking twice and then as his eyes gradually drifted off into the distance 
his face became rapt, a stillness swept into his being. The Baltic mists 
flowed away and Niels suddenly spoke with a deep clear voice that held 
understanding,

"You said the cat disappeared?"

Albert spun round and gripped the arms of the chair.

"Yes, according to the monitors it just passed straight through the 
walls of the box and out into the universe."

"But that's impossible," said a high squeaky man who stood in the 
doorway.

Together Albert and Niels glanced up and cried,

"Wolfgang!"

"What you've just said is completely and utterly impossible, it 
breaks all the laws of physics." Wolfgang continued, as he walked into the 
room. "That's tantamount to saying that if you throw a cricket ball at a 
brick wall it will pass straight on through, which is im-poss-ib-le!"he 
punctuated each syllable with his hand banging on the table.

Wolfgang was one of those extraordinary people who regardless of 
what you said to them will disagree with you violently, even when it was 
completely obvious that they are wrong. Wolfgang was known to win 
arguments not so much by dint of intellect but rather force of speech, 
indeed Wolfgang in full flight came across as the philosophical equivalent 
of a tactical nuclear missile.

"But that's what happened," insisted Albert,"I checked and 
rechecked. I put the cat in the box, locked it up and went home for the 
night. I came back the next day. No cat."

"Simple," shot back Wolfgang," The Animal Liberations sneaked in 
under cover of darkness, et ce'tera, hardly worth worrying about,just get 
a new cat."

"No I checked, none of instruments registered anything like that. 
What they did show, was a cat's body moving through a wall of the box 
and then flying off through the universe.

"I also checked with the vivisectionists,"continued 
Albert,"apparently the liberations, were busy at the time highjacking four 
hundred elephants from the vivisectionist's labs,"he said triumphantly. 

"There's no way you could be wrong, is there?" asked Niels.

"No Sir, absolutely none."

"It's mind boggling," said Niels in amazement.

Simultaneously, all three of them stared at the floor and tried to 
figure out what a boggled mind looked liked.

Then Niels spoke up in a deep rich voice,

"Gentlemen, what we are faced with here is indeed a great 
problem, somehow the laws of physics are being violated I  somebody is 
breaking the law."







Chapter Three

"Nevertheless, what may be called the Green Beard Altruism Effect is a 
theoretical possibility."

    Richard Dawkins:The Selfish Gene.


After reading the instructions -the reading of which was 
punctuated by the occasional scream for help by Albert- Erwin realized 
several things, that the aliens whoever they might be, were from another 
planet, which made sense since they were aliens, also they were invading 
Earth because their own planet had had its  entire animal population 
wiped out by a really nasty looking green slime mould which had been 
genetically designed by psychotic veterinarians after they had found out 
that their government was putting them in a higher tax bracket and 
taking away fringe benefits like interstellar frizzbee and cute blond au 
pair's with huge notepads from the planet Xavier. 

As a result the planet no longer had any cute and cuddly animals 
like chickens and water buffaloes and the entire populace were having to 
make do with android chickens and cats which were all right, but have 
you ever tried teaching a chicken to 'Fetch the Ball-Spot'. 

The last live animal  thought to be alive was a red telephone, 
though nobody was really sure about this, as up to then everybody had 
assumed these actually were telephones, it was only through a skilful 
advertising campaign by the planet's telephone company with 
advertisements showing people taking their telephones for walks and 
giving them baths, that anybody had actually started believing it.

Now while digital cats and telephones were a lot of fun they 
weren't quite as popular as the real thing, as a result the aliens were 
quietly sneaking around Earth nabbing the occasional budgerigar and 
telephone booth and shipping them back to their planet. 

To achieve this they were disguising themselves as bus conductors, 
lift attendants and life guards so nobody would notice them, though this 
wasn't quite working as they had expected, as not one of the agents 
actually knew what a bus conductor or a life guard was supposed to do 
anyway.

Erwin also discovered that by some weird twist of the building 
ordnances that their planet had never built any multi-story buildings or 
parking lots and finally that they were all raving loonies who never 
should have evolved out of the primeval slime in the first place but 
rather into something useful like book-ends or lampshades.

Whatever else passed behind those reptilian eyes of Erwin,he knew 
one thing for sure.

He had to go there.

Interestingly enough the plans that Erwin had just read were 
completely erroneous, being in actual fact a false set of plans, placed 
there especially to confuse the living harp seal out of anybody who read 
them and set them on a false trail. What was even more interesting 
however, was that nobody in their right mind would for one moment be 
taken in by such a load of penguin dreck, unless of course they were 
quite mentally defective; Erwin or the reader of this buch.

Erwin quickly put the plans back in the surfboard, closed it, put his 
stetson back on, just in case he ran into any stray eggs, and walked out of 
his door, carefully locking behind him the now faint and rather pathetic 
voice of Albert behind him.

Thereupon he started to make his way across Venice to his 
university friend, Werner the theoretical physicist to show him the 
surfboard and ask his advice, and it would have been easy if it hadn't 
been for the cat.

Now all his life Erwin had been troubled by cats,indeed of all the 
creatures that seemed to like him: cats did it the most. He had only to 
leave his building for a few seconds and there would be a cat purring and 
rubbing itself against his leg as contented as it could be. While he Erwin 
stood petrified at the onslaught. 

This time, as Erwin left his building there was a cat, but not just 
any cat this time it was a great big friendly contented lovable fluffy 
white Persian, smiling and purring away on top of the bonnet of his car, 
out of the rain, like a leopard lying in wait for its prey at the water-hole. 

Erwin froze, between him and the car was the impossible, a 
friendly puss. 

He pondered what to do, the only way to get round the city was 
either by the super freeways or by the canals and the gondolas, Erwin 
had up till now had studiously avoided using the gondolas, as the 
gondoliers had a tendency to throw foreigners in the canals and spit at 
them, or at the very least they would break into long sorrowful dirges 
and songs about how good life used to be on the canals and why was the 
price of pasta so high these days.

A frozen smile of wonder crept across Erwin's face, as stealthily he 
took from his pocket the laser cannon and vaporized the cat.

Unfortunately, Erwin managed to atomize his car at the same time. 

He stared disbelievingly at the resultant chaos, the entire top half 
of the car had vanished into a ball of white smoke,while the engine had 
fallen to the ground leaving the four wheels standing alone for a moment 
before beginning to roll down the hill. 

Erwin then shrieked as he realized the laser-cannon had melted in 
his hand."Eeeh!" and dropped it to the ground, then watched as the 
wheels began rolling away, as if some invisible service station attendant 
was running by their side, as they gathered momentum down the slope. 

The subsequent resulting disaster was  as hailed in the press as the 
appearance of  the 'Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!'.

The left hand front wheel was the first to encounter any resistance. 
As it shot through a set  of traffic lights , into a busload of ninety year old 
geriatrics causing the driver to slew across the intersection and slam into 
a used music instrument store, thereupon fifteen sets of used dentures 
shoot out of fifteen sets of used mouths and bounced off the skin of a 
large kettle drum and ricocheted across the room, to eat their way 
through a section of violas and a antique aeolian harp.

The right hand wheel took off with merry abandon past the traffic 
lights racing down the hill then veering off sharply, bounced up over the 
guttering of the road into the second story window of the stock brokers 
firm 'Rake,Take and Plunder', killing the firms entire executive board 
,with a perfect score in ten pin bowling. Considering the firm was at the 
very moment about to foreclose the mortgage on the cites only drive-in 
bowling club ,this was looked upon by the share holders of the club that 
God was actually a bowling ball in disguise and thereupon were able to 
claim tax exemption for the club, after they had turned the bowling alley 
into 'The Church For Ballistic Bowling Balls'.

The two rear wheels, rolled down an alley way off to the left, 
coming together as they went flying out the other side of the alley like 
the wheels of Ezekiel to punch a hole through the wall of the Neo-Nazi 
headquarters. Which at that very moment was attempting the overthrow 
of a certain middle eastern Jewish country by sending them thousands of 
copies of Mein Kampf, disguised as canned spiced kosher pork. The 
immediate effect, of the sudden appearance of the wheels caused the 
leader of the cell to neatly circumcise himself with the lid of one of the 
cans as the wheels shot across the factory floor and completely smash a 
statue of Adolf Hitler. This event was so traumatic to the psyche of the 
leader, that he promptly lead the rest of the Nazis in an Exodus back to 
the promised land, where they were promptly jailed for having 
contravened the customs act covering the importation of Mein Kampfs 
disguised as canned spiced kosher pork.

Meanwhile, back at the top of the hill,Erwin was having a great 
deal of difficulty in explaining to his neighbour, Mrs O'Flaherty, where 
her cat had actually gotten to.

"But Mrs O'Flaherty, I'm telling you, your cat has just enlisted in 
the French Foreign Legion and gone to chase Marseillaise's water rats." 
Erwin lied very badly he thought.

"Begorra!"said Mrs O'Flaherty"That's the third time this week I've 
lost a cat to the Legion. Are you sure now  it was the French, to be sure in 
the old country we only had to worry the little people and the English,but 
out here it's the French as well. Now what would they be wanting with all 
these cats is what I want to know?"

Mrs O'Flaherty who by some extraordinary set of coincidences had 
been prone to losing cats from as far back to when she had first moved 
into the New Venice. In fact she was so good at losing cats, that she had 
even considered entering herself in the Guineas Book of Records, except 
she found she could never keep a cat long enough to prove ownership.

Erwin, who incidentally was responsible for all of the 
disappearances, had learned a long time ago that whenever Mrs 
O'Flaherty asked a question that the very last thing he should do was to 
he tell her the truth, since apparently Ireland is a country where the 
probable never happens and the impossible always does.

"I dag, Gunter og jeg har vart drinken i Oslo," said Erwin in horrific 
Norwegian and before Mrs O'Flaherty could manage a reply turned on his 
heel and walked down the hill with the surfboard under his arm to find a 
catch passing gondola.

Leaving a slightly mystified Mrs O'Flaherty to be interrogated for 
over three hours by the riot squad as they tried to figure out how she 
had nearly demolished a city block, started a new religion and a mass 
exodus to Israel with just a set of steel belted radials.

Erwin soon hailed a gondola, which brought a moment of indecision 
on the face of the gondolier when he saw the surfboard.

"It's a medieval trombone," Erwin explained without the slightest 
trace of emotion.
"A-ha s, Signore," said the gondolier, grateful for an intelligible 
reply.

As Erwin sat in the gondola, he started wondering about what ever 
happened to all those chance statements that people made like "It's a 
medieval trombone", which were totally erroneous, but nevertheless 
filtered round the world in gossip and newspaper editorials, coming to 
lodge in strange places like Peru and New Zealand where the locals took 
them as God revealed truths, which in turn set off extraordinary chains of 
events that would eventually topple governments and bring to extinction 
rare species of birds like the Dodo. 

Erwin soon decided, however, that this was complete nonsense and 
returned to stareing at the canal, wondering what he should tell Werner. 

Curiously enough, the train of thought that Erwin had had about his 
reply to the gondolier, was exactly what happened to this particular 
phrase which in its perambulations round the world, brought about a 
particularly bloody revolution in Peru and the total annihilation of the 
Kiwi. But Erwin wasn't to know this till several years later, which in any 
case he put down to sociopolitical trends, the influence of the World Bank 
and a psychopathic hatred of Kiwis by New Zealanders.

"Signore, it is a beautiful day today, is it not," said the gondolier, as 
the rain fell in great abundance about them.

"It is?" said Erwin craning his neck round to stare at the gondolier, 
then quickly decided to agree, when he saw how large the gondolier was," 
yes it is indeed, isn't it."

"For many years I have made my way along these canals singing to 
the lovers and the fish, and I have enjoyed this because it is my life and I 
am a gondolier."

Erwin groaned.

"Then came these damn tourists and their damn buildings," the 
gondolier paused and the gondola drifted on through the water of its  
own inertia," do you yourself come from Venice, Signore?" 

"Yes, yes born and bred here, as a matter of fact, though I've spent 
time over seas working for my company, that's where I picked up my 
accent, but now I'm here to stay," said Erwin, lying very convincingly he 
thought.

"Ah," said the gondolier satisfied with the reply and continued 
propelling the boat along the canal."That's good."

At that moment they began to over take another gondola, in its  
compartment, were two women who by the dress and manners were 
quite obviously either actresses or ladies of the night.

"Then the director said to my leading man that he should grab me 
by the pudendum and make love with me, and I said to myself what's a 
pudendum, and then that stupid ass of a directory came over to me, and 
said that, 'since this was a delicate scene, wanted to know if I felt any 
difficulty with the leading man grabbing me by the pudendum and 
becoming romantically involved', and of course I said yes, because what 
else could I say, but the idiot still hadn't told me what a pudendum was, 
and so when we do the actual scene, my would be lover shoves his hand 
straight up my dress grabs me by the pudendum and tries to throw me 
on the bed, naturally I protested loudly and smacked an ashtray over his 
head, poor boy he must have went out likeI"

The rest of the conversation was lost as the actresses's gondola was 
left behind them and they passed beneath a bridge of old stone and new 
plastic.

"Do you mind if I sing, Signore?" continued the gondolier after a 
few moments of peaceful contemplation of the decaying buildings around 
them.

Erwin realizing he was getting off lightly, assented to do this with 
some alacrity.

"Yes, by all means, sing," he said quickly,"I like singing, I often do it 
myself."

The gondolier smiled gratefully and began to sing.

"Venice, Venice, my beautiful Venice"
"it's all become a great game of tennis"
"Of the canals we did love to explore"
"Till the tourists they came and tried to restore"
"Now the buildings there all falling down"
"Since those damn tourists they came to town"
"With their freeways and their skyscrapers"
"Now we can't even buy Italian newspapers"
"And my poor wife she's all gone away"
"In my Venice she could not to stay"
"Which mind you, probably isn't so bad"
"My wife you see, she's a little a-mad"
"And the sewage it's not a so good"
"Now that the tourists have put up the price of wood"
"And maybe this song it a don't-a-rhyme"
"that o-kay, I don'ta a got a dime"

Erwin groaned and wondered if it would have been better to have 
been thrown in the canal and spat on.

Suddenly, out of one of the many side canals of the long winding 
corner of the canal, there shot a long sleek motorized gondola, which 
surged through the water, throwing decent size waves out from it which 
smacked into the canal's walls with a satisfying -clopp- which then raced 
down the canal, following the wake of the speeding boat.

Erwin stared with amazement at the odd collection of people who 
manned its  over crowded deck. To a man, they were fitted out with 
bandoliers, auto-machine guns, copies of Chairmans Mao's Little  Red 
Book and singing "Viva Venezia-Viva Venezia."

The newcomers rapidly bore down on Erwin's gondola, so fast in 
fact, that Erwin thought they were going to ram it, but at the last 
moment, both crafts managed to swerve to either side and rush on past 
each other.

The interlopers yelled an incoherent order at Erwin's gondolier as 
they sped down the canal in a wash of Venician fervour, and for a 
moment Erwin thought his craft was going to be swamped in the wash of 
the Guerilla Gondolier's gondola,  but found that his own gondolier 
managed to prevent this by grabbing a boat ring on one of the canal's 
walls and tying cable to it. 

Somewhat to Erwin's puzzlement the gondolier raced along the 
deck of the craft to it stern, and with a thin cable quickly lassoed an iron 
peg that conveniently stood out on the other side of the canal, then 
hauled the stern of the  boat and made it fast with end of the lasso.
Erwin stared at the gondola and the way it straddled the canal. 
This he thought was a little unusual, even for a Venician, and so he 
prompted the gondolier with the reason for his behaviour.

"Polizia," said the gondolier smiling, then dove into the canal and 
swam away.

"WhaaI?" Erwin tried to say, before he realized there was nobody 
to actually say anything to. 

Erwin picked up the surfboard and stood up on the gondola and 
saw that it straddled the canal like an ad hoc barrier, effectively 
preventing passage to anybody along the canal.

At that moment, Erwin heard the roar of another motorized 
gondola behind him, he span around and saw to his horror a gigantic 
police boat bearing down on him, without the least intention of stopping.

"Ahhhh!" he screamed, and fell backwards into the canal, to land 
fortuitously on top of the surfboard, so that he shot across the surface of 
the water and came to lodge at the base of the wall of the canal, while the 
Police boat smashed through the gondola and churned to a halt amid the 
debris of timber.

"Hey you, you Venician?" barked a policeman at Erwin, while 
steadying a sub-machine gun on him.

"Who me!"shrieked Erwin," No, tourist, I'm a tourist!"

"O.K." said the police man satisfied with the reply and the Police 
boat revved up again and took off, near swamping Erwin in its  wake.

Erwin sat in the water, on the board for a moment, then 
remembered he was supposed to be saving the human race from an alien 
invasion.

-That's funny,- he thought - I never thought saving the world 
would be so difficult.-

And started paddling off down the canal to see if Werner was any 
better at it, than he was.








Chapter Four

The first thing we do, lets kill all the lawyers.

            William Shakespeare 



"I mean, when you think about it, physicists believe in the most 
amazingly ridiculous things, according to them Time can slow down, Space 
can bend, a base ball if thrown slowly enough will pass straight through a 
brick wall, there is enough energy in the head of a pin to completely 
vaporize Paris and the entire universe popped into existence -twenty 
billion years ago- in a totally fantastic explosion out of nowhere; and if 
we ask them 'Why?' they say 'Why not?'."

Wolfgang finished with his usual full stop, by banging his fist on 
the table and glaring defiantly around the room, to deter anyone from 
countering him.

"Yes, yes, yes Wolfgang!"replied Enrico, wildly gesticulating with 
his hands, as if making pasta." That's all very interesting, but it hardly 
helps us with our problem, does it now?"

Almost a score of professors and seniors lecturers had collected in 
the auditorium of the Philosophy department to discuss the astonishing 
result or lack of result of Albert's experiment. The group of them stood, 
sat or slept in the lecture theatre, before an enormous blackboard which 
covered an entire wall with their formulas, diagrams, chalk dust and the 
menu from the Mexican restaurant just across the street. The theatre was 
a stupendously great open space dominated by soaring carved arches of 
oak that spread upwards across the ceiling as filigree-like hands holding 
out the sky beyond the great beamed vault. The walls beneath were 
heavily stained elm panels upon which the portraits of hundreds of 
former white haired respected professors were done in dark turgid 
colours and covered with a millenia of dust and graffiti of hundreds of 
former long haired disrespectful students, who gave each rendering titles 
such as 'Old Apocalypse!', 'The Sleeper' and 'Do Not Go Gentle Into That 
Good Exam'. At the moment, the present lecturers were noisily eating 
their way through a creation of Chilli Concarne and Bean Sauce, and 
discussing the 'Whys?' and the 'Wherefores?' of Cats, Existence and Ant-
Acid; while Albert sat off to one side trying to appear inconspicuous: 
something he found almost impossible as every few minutes one of the 
professors would tap him on the head and tell him to pop off and buy 
some more Chilli. On the lectern in front of all of them sat the box from 
Albert's experiment; with its lid open and a bemused white rabbit sitting 
inside, eating an enchilada which had thoughtfully been provided by one 
of the professors. 
"As I see it, if it can be seen, the crux of the matter lies around a 
missing cat, right, if we get rid of the cat: we you get rid of the problem, 
simple," said Richard, affectionately scratching the spot between the ears 
of the rabbit. 

This brought a few mumbles of approval from the other 'Profs' who 
considered Richard to be a fine man, as well as a burp from the rabbit 
who wasn't so sure about the idea of Mexican food any more.

"Wait, wait ,wait. Are you saying that just because the laws of 
nature, as we know them to be , suddenly break down, because this cat 
which was supposed to take part in this experiment, doesn't. That we 
should get rid of it, that is wherever it may happen to be , or not to be 
which ever state it might be in?" asked a short balding man who 
reminded people of a sparrow and was called Linus.

"Er," everybody muttered, somewhat alarmed at this display of 
intelligence.

"Exactly, it's just as in criminal law," continued Wolfgang pointing a 
phallic finger, covered with chilli sauce, at Linus," if somebody breaks the 
law they get prosecuted, don't they? Well, same thing here. This cat 
-Schrodinger's to be precise-has broken the law. So we have to catch it, 
bring it back and punish it. I mean if we don't then who knows where it 
will end. Next thing you know the whole of science will go out the cat flap 
and we philosophers will be out of a job."

He smiled at his little play on words and sucked his finger.

"But physical law is completely different from human law, for 
Newtons sake!" Enrico cried jumping up and knocking a tasty dip onto the 
head of the professor in front of him. "The laws of nature aren't decided 
in the court of law, they're , they're ......", trailing off as he realized he 
didn't know.

"Well, what is a law?" asked Richard innocently as he fondly looked 
at the rabbit scratching itself in the box. "ProfessorI," everybody looked 
up,"Professor Niels, perhaps you could tell us, just what is a law?"

All heads turned towards Niels, who at that moment was busily 
cramming a tortilla into his mouth, he spluttered sending fragments 
flying away from him.

"A law, a law?IerIwhyIumIOh,I used to know," he rambled 
before finding his way." Let's see I why it's how we think the universe 
behaves, of course," he in slight mystification," I and all the laws go to 
make up how we think the universe behaves I yes, simple really when 
you think about it I er I yes."

"So if you change the laws, you change the universe, yes?" Richard 
asked respectfully.

For a moment the mist started to roll in around Niels, but he 
recovered quickly.

"ErIYes,"Niels said quickly,"Iand no. You see the hypothesis has 
been made that there may be than one universe. There are perhaps, an 
awful lot of themIinfinite in fact."

At this he wandered up to the podium and began writing on the 
blackboard in front of them, speaking aloud as he wrote.

        Infinity 

          what is it?

Consider an infinite universe, with three types of infinity

1) Infinite number of events all using the same laws, an event may 
happen an infinite number of times.{i.e. a person lives their life an 
infinite number of times.}

2) Infinite number of universes all with the same laws.{i.e. there is 
an infinite number of each person.}

3) Infinite number of universes with infinite set of laws happening 
an infinite number of times. {i.e. endless Relations.}

"For instance,"he now continued with feet firmly planted in the 
intellectual firmament," one of the sets of laws determining our particular 
universe are the laws of relativity and a crucial constant for these is the 
speed of light. If, suppose now, we were to change the speed of light, 
what would be the consequence." Here he again turned around to the 
blackboard and wrote in big bold lettering.

    C = 2766692985   kilometres per hour

"If we change this by five kilometres per hour, what happens as a 
consequence. Without doubt the most important for us, as humans and 
rabbits, is that we can no longer exist in any shape or formIat all!"

This immediately brought a score of exclamations and oaths.

"Yes, the universe, our universe would be so radically different 
that it would not be possible for life to exist, we would cease to be, we 
would be non-existent lifeforms. Even though the universe, changed as it 
might be, would still continue to exist in some form or another. "

Suddenly a white haired old fossil rose and with alacrity yelled, 
"Gentlemen, I have a radical proposal to make, let us get some ice cream!"

This was meet with cries of 'hush' and 'bugger off'.

Suddenly amongst the storms of white hair another ancient 
mariner of the mind, jumped up and cried out, "Gentleman, in honour of 
this occasion I have devised a fitting poem."

This brought groans of dismay and several raspberries from the 
distinguished audience, as the man in question -Professor Eliot- captured 
the podium by first feinting to the left then bounding around to the right 
as Professor Richard tried to block on the left.There with a smirk of 
satisfaction, he began his masterpiece.

Professor Eliot was a long winded man who talked in force nine 
gales and of whose parents it was considered by one and all, had made a 
terrible  mistake in not choosing infanticide when he was born. He was 
actually a lecturer in classical literature who had been thrown out of his 
own department for having had the temerity to write original work and 
worse still to speak it publicly. 

He only survived on in the Philosophy department by virtue of his 
making an unparalleled enchilada.

He began,

    Here's a jest of the infinity

    To give a glimpse of our stupidity

    The answers stretch beyond our ken

    Truth's revealed fast with gin and Zen

    I say it's all nonsense, don't you know

    Black holes really do not glow

    Do black holes have any hair

    And if so, where oh where

    Do black holes really radiate 

    Does anti-matter to matter anti-hate

    Has any one seen an event horizon

    What mysteries upon there, lies upon

    How deep inside the Schwarzchild barrier

    Will info find the photon carrier

    What is charge and what is spin

    Do singularities suffer sin.

Then before anybody had the wit to garotte him he began again.

    Einstein's vision from here to Eternity

    that infinite abyss of spacetime, set free,

    On beams of light, thought and space

    Perchance to dream, the truth to chase,

    Beyond the stars, in deepest time

    Tensor and trance begun to rhyme,

    Truth the vision, sparkling over all

    then doubt the absolute did forestall,

    Winged thoughts, melted by uncertainty

    So Icarus as he fell from C,

    For now, the shifting sands held no reality

    As particle and wave had ceased to be,

    What Blake, had found in a grain of dust

    So Einstein in logic, had placed his trust,

    But objective truth became melting ice

    For God however, had chosen dice.


Eliot continued on for some time, speaking on nothing in particular, 
till somebody found an excellent opportunity to wake up.

"Neils, what were you saying about laws?"

This threw Niels for a moment but with prompting from Richard he 
continued on in an excited but low and hushed voice,

"Gentlemen I too, have a radical proposal to make. This universe, 
our universe is changing, it is changing the very laws that frame its 
existence and unless we quickly do something to stop it, then," and with a 
deep thoughtful expression," we will face the end of the universe as we 
know it."

The shadows of the room seemed to darken perceptibly as each 
man present felt the full impact of what Niels had said, sink deep into 
their consciousness and the rabbit fainted as well.
Neils rested his hands on the lectern and absently mindedly let his 
eyes wander about the theatre before coming to rest on the rabbit, in 
doing so, he wondered what on earth it was doing there.

Quietly ,without any fuss at all, a tall thin man with a nova of red 
hair, stood up at the back of the lecture theatre. He gripped the desk in 
front of him with a rigid gnarled hand and stared down at the group with 
a taunt wild gaze that shone through his circular wire spectacles like the 
kindling sun; rising above the Hibernian Sea with the glowing promise of 
great guns afoot.

"Gentlem>n, my n>me is Mac Schrodinger!"he cried, rolling out the 
broad Scottish accent," It was maself who discovered this type of c>t 
yer're been 'erre discussing . .nd I think, tha' therre > few things yer 
should need to know abut this 'erre beastie."

A deep silence fell into the room as everybody looked expectantly 
towards the newcomer. He stood spotlighted by the dust sparkling in the 
beams of light, which shot through the darkness of the room to carve a 
day in the dark of the theatre. The rabbit woke up and poked its head up 
over the edge of the box.

"As yer very well know indeed," said Mac Schrodinger slowly and 
with distinct care as he made his way down the stairs," > few ye>rs >go 
while on > big g>me hunting expedition in Cheshire; on tha dark and 
terrable continent called England," the 'RRR's' thrilled through the air," 
that I first discovered this extraordinary sp>cies of Cat!" He spat the 
word out." At great risk to myself, mind ye, and with a terrible loss of life 
to ma hunting party."

He now stood in front of them, before the blackboard and resting 
his hands on the box in which the rabbit cowered within.

"Ach, n> doubt yer have read in the popular press,"he paused as if 
to show his contempt of that institution," of the extra-orrdinary events 
that took place on the expedition. Of the terrible, terrible battle that took 
ocurred twixt the camps baker and the deadly, deadly Jabberwocky! And 
how we lost the self-same baker in his last heroic final conflict with tha' 
terrible, terrible Boojum Quark!"

This brought numerous shivers of acknowledgement, as well as a 
few shudders amongst the professors as whispers of the phrase,"Twas 
brillig, and the slithy toves," did gyre and gimble amongst the 
distinguished gentlemen.

"Ach, however, I doubt very much, very much indeed, if any of yer 
did chance to hear of the even darker more sinister happening that took 
place on that most horrible journey through that most terrifying of 
countries."

At this, the elderly gentlemen leaned forward half in fear, half in 
fascination: as the room became so quiet you could have heard the 
peristalsis of a rabbit.
"On the eighteenth day of the journey out from Glasgow, after 
many > great mishap and wild empty trail into the careeneiong 
moutaions, we finally came right to the pinnacle of this terrible sheer 
ben, wherre we had corrnered this incrredible fiend on a dark and 
glimmering night n> fit for maun nor beasite, a great hooting of a night 
was it, with lighting bolts and blue blistering thunder rolling from one 
horizon to tha next, the very roots of the Earth shook beneath us.

And > great terrible beasity was it too indeed, the likes of which 
yer wouldna seen before. A great snarling and > hissing, spitting and-> 
cursing us it was. No muckle of a taddy was it with great glimmering eyes 
and long whipping tail, snapping from side to side, daring us to so much 
as pat it!"

Albert found himself gulping with fear.

"Finding that nay maun, marrk me, nay maun," he crooked a long 
bony finger at his audience," in the parrty h> the spleen to volunterr and 
go forrward to tackle the grreat hideous crreaturre.

"'Verra guid!' I said,'I'll do it maself!' Aye! marrk me, maself! To 
trry and capturre the 'orrrible monsterr maself. So I took > drrop of the 
Milk of Loch Tay frrom the foot of Ben More forr > wee touch of the old 
Dutch courrage ya ken, and began making ma way up the cliiface, slowly 
towarrds this terrrible monsterr, the rain poured down as it mushave 
when Noah himself made the Ark, and as I did I saw it turrn its hideous 
face towarrds me wi' its grreat pointy teeth. Yer should have seen its 
eyes, maun, they werre the likes ya never seen afore, they took on this 
weirrd eerie glow hanging like twa grreat shimmerraing moons on > 
foggy Saturrday night overr Aberrdeen -if yer've been to Aberrdeen yer 
know wha I meent- these grreat eyes, they seemed to shine rright down 
into my soul, blisterring and > burning away all the secrrets of my liff. I 
felt the whole world was apperaing a-don at ma. Naked afore the 
universe. Neverrtheless, I was deterrmined to capturre the beastie, so I 
moved forrwarrd once morre to lay my hand upon this terrrible 
creaturre of the night,  and just as I was about to grrab it, I the cat just 
faded away I into the n>hing, atom by atom disappearring into the void, 
until therre was absolutely n>hing left behind but this fantastical 
exprression of an insolent, sarrcastical grrin! And >-then that too in its 
own turrn I v>nished!"

This brought gasps of amazement from the audience.

"Everr since then I have wonderred, wha could have possibly 
happened to that cat and wherre in the worrld it could have gott,"here he 
paused significantly,"orr wherre n> in this worrld it could have gotten 
too!"

The jaw of the rabbit fell open with amazement.

"Now gentlemen, yer ken, I believe I know."

His face took on that strange aura usually reserved for messiahs, 
prophets and punk rockers on heroin.

 "I reckon that both yon cat and mon, jumped into anotherrI," he 
lifted his hands in messianic transformation," Univerrse!!"

Immediately, the air was punctuated with cries of "Sacre 
Bleu!","Mein Gott!", "Good Lord!" and "Eh, What's Up Doc?"


For several hours afterwards the argument railed back and forth as 
to whether Mac Schrodinger and Neils were right or if it simply a case of 
Mexican indigestion. 

In the end, however, they agreed that something had to be done 
about the misbehaving universe and pretty damn soon, before 
fundamental things such as gravity or lavatories started disappearing as 
well.

So it was, that the search for the missing cat began, it being the 
cause of all their problems.

To catch a cat that just disappears into empty space requires a 
great deal of ingenuity not to mention credulity on the part of those 
looking for it.

They searched in all the normal places that nonexistent cats were 
likely to exist in, such as rabbit hutches and cat nip factories but came up 
with nothing more substantial than an irate Guiana pig and a factory full 
of cats stoned out of their minds on prohibited substances: none of these 
cats, however, turned out to be the right one.

Finally convinced that the cat were not to be found in any normal 
place or rabbit hutch. They decided after much discussion and several 
enchiladas to take advantage of the loop hole left in the laws of physics 
by the cat's very own abnormal departure. This being the ability to travel 
through time and space by dropping out of the universe and reappearing 
somewhere else. 

That is to say that since the cat had broken the laws of physics to 
escape from the experiment then why not break the same law as well, so 
as to catch the cat. 

Or as one evening Enrico whispered to Albert in a Machiavellian 
undertone.

"Kid, the Law is an ass, so lets use it to kick the cat's head in."

Hence, after several months of intense experimentation, several 
thousand Mexican take-aways and a government grant large enough to 
pay back the Third World debt, they came up with the Time Crystal.

Its single minded function being to travel to anywhere in this 
universe or another universe by building a computer so intelligent as to 
possess consciousness and time travel and then telling it that there was 
no such thing as space and time, only points on the map and holiday snap 
shots, this so confused the living diodes out of the computer and it 
promptly vanished from existence, taking the entire faculty as it did so. 
With the exception of Albert, Neils and the rabbit, who happened to be 
out at that moment, paying off a mortgage for the Mexican take-away 
place just down the road. 

"What do we do?!" cried Albert as they stood outside the perimeter 
of where the university used to stand.

Neils held the rabbit under one arm and a small barrel of 
guacamole in the other hand.

"ErI" he said, then gave up thinking having found the strain to 
much, after what had just happened to the university, and stuck the 
rabbit in the guacamole, before placing them both in the ground.

"Professor, we have to rescue the other professors now; as well as 
capture the cats, don't we?" asked Albert in a plaintive voice.

"ErI" Neils began again, as he watched the rabbit crawl out of the 
guacamole covered in the green avocado.

"Arrrgh," he screamed ,"it's a green rabbit!" and jumped into 
Albert's arms. 

Albert realized that the shock of the missing professors was too 
great for Neils and that he was on his own except for a green rabbit and 
lifetime supply of hot chilli. 

He carried Niels over to a convenient tree and left him there to 
fight the ravages of his sole surviving android chicken, scratching 
indignantly around his feet.

As Albert walked about the empty space that was formerly the 
university, picking his way through the spaces where his office used to 
be, across the now non-existent staff quarters and over to the girls 
changing room, he sensed he was going to miss being here. Although in a 
little corner of his mind he silently rejoiced that all those annoying people 
he couldn't stand but had to put up with anyway in the cafeteria, had just 
been zapped into oblivion.

 In a moment of inner horror, Albert realized that over four 
thousand people had just vanished into thin air and that probably the 
only person with even the slightest chance of bringing them back, was 
himself.

He froze and stared at his feet, the enormity of the situation swept 
across his mind like a black cloud across the sky, blotting out the horizon 
and the future.

"What do I do?" he said to himself in awe, then he saw at his feet 
the rabbit, and that the rabbit was sitting on the very Time Crystal the 
professors had designed and built, somehow it managing to send 
themselves into the cosmos and not the Time Crystal. 

Albert lent down and picked it and the rabbit up. Suddenly 
realizing, as he looked at the rabbit covered in avocado, that not only 
didn't he know its name but what was worse, was why the hell was it 
always hanging around.

Suddenly he was tackled to the ground by a large burly man 
wearing army greens and yelling,

"KILL! KILL! KILL!" and found he had fifteen very large machine 
guns pointed in his face: none of which had the safety catch on.

"WHO ARE YOU?!" screamed one of the soldiers at him.

"Albert!, I'm Albert," he whimpered back.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?"

"I work here, I'm a post graduate in the Philosophy department." 
Albert said frantically, looking from side to side."Who are you?"

"GALPOLOC." screamed the soldier.

"Sorry?" said Albert.

"GALPOLOC."

"Oh." said Albert quietly," that's nice," not having the faintest idea 
what was going on.

"It stands for Galactic Police Force," said a small quiet man standing 
behind the soldiers, dressed in a large black leather overcoat and 
smoking a Russian cigarette. 

"What happened to the university?" he said pointedly.

"It disappearedIII think," replied Albert, he found this somewhat 
difficult as one of the soldiers was grinding a large black boot onto 
Albert's chest as he lay prone on the ground.

"Yes, I know that,"said the policeman walking over, bending down 
and sticking the tip of the cigarette close to Albert's face," but where did 
it go? Is what I want to know."

"I think it went in another universeI maybe."

"Which one?" furthered the policeman.

"ErI"

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!" screamed, what Albert assumed to be, 
the sergeant.

"I don't know, it just vanished." 

"Why?" said the policeman as he bent down to pick up the rabbit 
before dropping it when he realized it was covered in green slime.

"YukIwhat's wrong with this rabbit."

"We were doing this experiment I" began Albert.

"Experiment, what experiment? Don't you like rabbits?" said the 
policeman fiercely.

"DON'T YOU LIKE RABBITS!" screamed the sergeant.

"No, no not the rabbit, it was for the cat, the cat that jumped in 
time."

The policeman stuck his finger in his mouth and looked thoughtful.

"This is guacamole, isn't it?"

"ANSWER THE QUESTION!"

The police officer turned to sergeant and snapped, "Sergeant, I 
think we already have the general idea." 

"YES SIR!"

"Sergeant I" said the police officer wearily.

"SIR!"

"Be a good chap now and go strangle a horse."

"YES SIR!" screamed the sergeant in delight, and then beaming with 
satisfaction,turned on his heel to march off and find a convenient horse.

The police officer watched the sergeant march away, the arms 
swinging up and down like flails on a suspects head, then turned again to 
Albert.

"Now, guacamole I yes?"

"Yes, yes it is," whimpered Albert beginning to suffocate beneath 
the soldiers boot.

"Good." The police officer peered down at Albert suspiciously." I 
think, that you and I, had better have a little talk about all this, don't 
you?"

"Yes, of course, what ever you say," said Albert, with immense 
relief that it was talking that he was going to suffer and not the third 
degree.

Albert spent the next three months in an isolation tank with just a 
microphone and a rabbit to keep him company, while what appeared to 
be the entire police force for the universe asking him questions covering 
everything from his political affiliations to breeding techniques for 
Himalayan white rabbits. 

Till eventually they ascertained, either he was a raving loony who 
might just be telling the truth or he simply was a raving loony. 

So he found himself being dragged before what he assumed to be 
the head of the department of Galactic Strange Happenings.

"Good morning Albert," said a kindly white haired old man with 
glasses and a very large pistol which he fondly pointed in Albert's 
direction.

Albert sat slumped on a hard wooden stool, in a large wood 
paneled office before an imposing marble topped desk and flanked by 
two enormous soldiers wearing brass knuckles and sadistic grins who 
would have quite happily beaten the living daylights out of Albert if he 
would only give them a reason, something Albert wasn't going to do 
lightly. The old man waved them away using the pistol and smiled 
benevolently at Albert.

"Well Albert," he continued," what are we going to do with you 
then, hmmm?" 

The 'hmmm' seemed to float around the room for a second as the 
old man eased back in his leather chair and Albert pondered the 
question.

Up till then, he hadn't wondered about being let free, he had 
simply assumed they were going to kill and dump his body on the cosmic 
garbage heap of life. He wasn't sure why they would want to do this,as he 
hadn't done anything anyway, it just seemed the sort of thing that they 
would do, just for the sake of doing it.

"Ummm,"Albert said hesitantly," you could let me goIback to the 
universityIcouldn't you?"

The old man smiled, he smiled benevolently, without malice as if 
Albert were a young child who had just asked for another glass of milk.

"Yes, we could do that, couldn't we?"

Albert wasn't sure if this was a rhetorical question or what, so he 
simply smiled hopefully and nodded his head.

"But we're not going to, are we?" said the old man comfortingly.

Obviously rhetorical questions were to be avoided at all cost, so 
Albert  simply stared at the floor.

"Well Albert," said the old man suddenly, so that Albert lifted his 
head in surprise.
"We've examined what you've said and we think there might just 
be a grain of truth somewhere in what you have told us."

Albert shivered when he remembered what the old man called the 
'telling'.

"So we are going to send you after the cat, wherever or whenever 
it may be."

Albert sighed with enormous relief, anything would be better than 
what he had just been through.

"But if you don't bring the Cat back then don't bother coming back 
either, do I make myself clear?"

Another rhetorical question, Albert groaned inwardly.

"Yes," he said quitely.

At this, the kindly old man reached forward and pressed a button 
on his intercom with the muzzle on his revolver.

"Send in Oppie," he barked angrily.

He smiled at Albert. This sent shudders of wild fear down Albert's 
back.

"I'll introduce you to the head of our technical division, he'll 
explain a few things to you."

"That's nice," said Albert, "I'd likeI"

"Shut up!"

"Yes Sir."

The door opened and in walked a nattily dressed young man who 
looked as if he could do with a few beef dinners and a years sleep. He 
shuffled across the room, leaned on the desk and lit a cigarette.

"The spacetime machine, the one your professors made?" Oppie 
said quickly and with great intensity.

"Yes?" asked Albert expectantly.

"We suggest you don't use it."

"Ah."

"We're not sure about this, but it's just possible you could wipe out 
this entire planet with it." He continued rapidly,"You see, it appears that 
your professors knew an awful lot about time travel but damn little 
about thermo-nuclear bombs."

"I see," said Albert awkwardly.

"So, to get rid of it we're going to give it to you as well as one of 
ours to make sure you get off the planet and as far a way as possible. We 
going to give you a few other things as well, just to make your life a little 
easier: or should I say a little longer."

Oppie smiled deliciously and drew some smoke from his cigarette.

"We're going to give you, as well as, a cover."

"A cover?" prompted Albert.

"Yes, so no one will know what your really doing," explained Oppie 
gesturing pointedly with his cigarette to add weight to his statements.

"But, but surely all I will be doing is looking for a missing cat. I 
mean, what could be the harm in that?" asked Albert 

"Do you really think"asked the white haired old man, with what 
Albert knew by now to be the rhetorical tone," that anybody in their 
right mind would spend billions of dollars to travel about in the universe 
from planet to planet, just to find a missing cat?" 

"No, not really."

"In fact," Oppie continued on," the only time that people start 
traveling around the universe in a big way, is when one bunch of over-
sexed under-brained neurotic primates decides it's going to invade and 
wipe out another bunch of over-sexed under-brained neurotic primates 
on some far flung and distant mud ridden planet, just for the hell of it all 
and to get into a lower tax bracket."

"Ah."

"Which means, you're going to be a spy."

"Really,"said Albert with genuine excitement," you mean like in the 
movies?"

"No, we mean like in reality," said Oppie sardonically. 

As a result, Albert spent the next six weeks going through 
intensive training for Intergalactic Assassins and Storm Troopers before 
they finally gave him the cover of being a surf life guard, kicked into a 
large white box and told to go off and save the universe.

The rabbit, they ate.







Chapter Five

Farce creates people who are so intellectually simple as to hide in 
packing cases or pretend to be their own aunts.

            Gilbert Keith Chesteron.


When Werner opened his door, he looked as dangerous as a tub of 
yogurt in a washing machine. 

Werner was a short, powerful man who spoke every sentence with 
an apostrophe mark and would use words like 'Gosh' and 'Wow' to talk 
about the weather. He was also labeled as being indecisive, not because 
he actually was indecisive but rather because nobody could ever decide  
how to label him. With the exception of Erwin, who seemed to consider 
Werner to be a bit of an overweight and quite insane ferret.

Werner was one of those people who had spent his entire 
university years trying to convince everybody else he was a genius and 
that he shouldn't need to study but should be given his degree outright 
without the need for bothersome details like lab reports and exams. As a 
result he had ended up spending fifteen years as an undergraduate and 
only graduated finally by using the greater proportion of his inheritance 
in bribes.

"What happened?" exclaimed Erwin, as before him stood a 
deranged black grubby object, wearing a white lab coat, encrusted with 
pencils and carrying a lump of coal.

"I.I..I've m..m..aking h.h..homemm..m.made d..d..iamm..monds."

"But that's coal for Newton's sake!"returned Erwin as he picked it 
out of Werner's  hand.

"Well yy.y..y.essss,"he stuttered," bu...ttt if yy.y..ooou h..h..hit it 
ll..l..long en..nn..nough w.w.wwith a ha.ha..hammer it t.tt..turns into 
d..d.iamm..monds."

"Why are you stuttering for then?"asked Erwin, almost afraid the 
answer would shake Werner to pieces.But he needn't have worried as 
Werner wrote his reply on a piece of paper. 

-So would you be, if you had spent three weeks using a jack 
hammer-

Erwin sighed and followed his friend, into the warehouse which 
had been converted into a  laboratory, sat down on a bench and waited 
for Werner to come back to normal, whatever that was.

To do this Werner strapped himself into the harness of what could 
best be described a cross between a medieval torture chamber, a drive-in 
car wash and an isolation tank for Helen Keller.

For immediately upon his pressing a large red button, labeled 
Kamikaze Wash, he shot across the warehouse into a large stainless steel 
container with small glass windows and a door which slammed shut 
behind him as the machine went into the Wash and Enema cycle. 

So for a few minutes there came cries of either sheer orgasmic 
delight or excruciating pain-Erwin had never been able to tell the 
difference. After this, came the Rinse, Cerebral Stimulation and Porno 
Movies cycle, during which several minutes of silence would be 
punctuated with,

"Eureka!I've Found It!" and "Do It Again Baby!"

Finally came the Spin and State of Perfect Zen Enlightenment, this 
consisted entirely of the machine spinning faster and faster like a run 
away miniature Ferris wheel with Indian sitars playing music in the 
background and the entire mechanism lighting up like a psychedelic pin-
ball game,with the faint voice of Werner singing away inside,

"Hari Krishna,Hari Krishna."

Till suddenly the door burst open and Werner was ejaculated 
across the room in an immaculate pink dinner jacket with tie ,top hat, 
tails and walking cane to land at Erwin's feet , whereupon Werner  got up 
and looked at his clothes.

"Damn, the cycle keeps finishing every time,just before I get to the 
eighth level of Satori," Werner said," everything's very pink and formal 
around there for some reason."

Then smiled as Erwin began to explain, to what Werner rapidly 
became convinced was the modern day equivalent of a Icelandic Norse 
saga with its Grendal like cats, magical surfboards and berserker car tires. 

He would have quite happily remained smilingly silent, well 
accustomed as he was to Erwin being a raving looney, if Erwin had not 
insisted on mentioning the Time Machine.

Werner looked him up and down as if he was some defective reject 
from a lunatic asylum. As a thought shot down the right frontal lobe of 
Werner's brain, took a left turn at his Sylvan fissure, reconnoitred his 
Corpus Callosum and finally shunted into the speech and drama 
department of his left hemisphere, whereupon he exclaimed,

"Rubbish! Where on Earth did you come up with such a 
preposterous idea! It's simply not possible to travel through time you 
know, it's completely against all the laws of physics ever discovered by 
Einstein, Lorentz or Minkowski," he bellowed.

"Its all to do with entropy and times arrow you know, sure maybe, 
you can slow down time relativistically if you travel fast enough! But by 
Schrodinger's Cat,"he fairly yelled.

" You can't travel through time! Here let me show you, if I take this 
bottle," he said in quieter tone as he picked up a glass retort flask and 
threw it to the ground, where it exploded into a fountain of glass 
splinters.

"There see, each one of those splinters exists in a different time 
frame, each one exists separately. If you wanted to change time and 
move it around, then you would have to determine the position and 
direction of each of those splinters and then reverse it. Now that's only 
for that bottle if you wanted to do it for all the universe , which you 
would have to do if you're going to travel backwards through time you 
would have to know everything that ever went on in the universe, so it's 
simply not possible for them to come back together again!"

 He beamed with satisfaction at having shown one of the simpler of 
the species how brilliant he really was.

Now from a statistical point of view what he said was quite correct, 
the chances of the glass shards suddenly coming together were so remote 
that if you waited from the beginning of the universe to its end, including 
weekends and just a bit longer, it still wouldn't happen, but the trouble 
with statistics is there is always the chance it might, which in this case, it 
did.

For suddenly, without warning the fragments happily flew 
together, joyfully unaware they were breaking the second law of 
thermodynamics and the bank of Monte Carlo, to perfectly reform the 
now slightly bemused flask, which had at that moment  hoped to be 
making its acquaintance with its honourable ancestors, only to be  
suddenly whipped back into existence by a fluke of statistics.

For a moment, Werner  stared silently  at the impossibility now 
sitting on the floor, then burst out smiling.

"Well so much for Physics! Where's the time machine?"

Within no time at all they had broached the surfboard and spilled 
its more than  exotic contents all over the floor.The manual on 'Sexual 
Positions for over 3 million galactic species' probably occupied the 
attention for more time than  it should have but they found the section 
on the zero gravity missionary method for the nubile nymphets of Virgo 
III, to hold great intellectual promise.

After Werner had pocketed most of the items, including the 
Intergalactic Library Card and the thermo-nuclear ball point pen they 
investigated the space-time machine.

It turned out to be a small black cube the size of a small lemming 
with one of the sides covered with strange hieroglyphics and writing 
which were completely undecipherable to anybody who wasn't an expert 
in the ancient South American language of Cotopaxi and had a degree in 
non-linear, pan-dimensional deep space basketball. Something which 
Werner just happen to have, so he quickly explained the box was to 
Erwin.

"Well, you know those black boxes they have in airplanes, so if the 
plane crashes, they have a record of what went wrong like the wings 
dropping off and the  pilot screaming "shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii"."

Erwin nodded his head.

"Well what they have done here, is rip out the pilot ,the black box 
and all the laws of physics from Newton onwards, shoved in a time 
machine, galactic star charts, a coffee percolator and then crammed the 
whole lot back inside another little black box."

Erwin nodded his head again, not because he understood  what  
Werner  said or had even the faintest idea what it was supposed to mean, 
but simply because it gave his brain something to do.

Werner suddenly leant down, placed the cube on the floor, pressed 
some of the lettering in the appropriate order, lit a candle for Buddha and 
then dove for cover. While leaving Erwin to be punched neatly on the 
jaw, by the tip of a crystal attached to a gigantic tessellated polyhedral 
crystal sea urchin which had erupted out of the box like a huge three 
dimensional snowflake with sinister intentions.

"What is it?", Erwin shrieked as he scrambled away from what 
appeared to be a cross between a chandelier and a sea urchin on 
hormones.

"It's a space-time machine, of course,what did you expect, a police 
box?", said Werner.

"But it's alive!,"yelled Erwin ,"Look it's moving!" 

As he pointed out the dozens of rhombic arms moving up and 
down while at the same time projecting and retracting from the main 
body, as Erwin cowered fearfully in case it might turn into a kitten.

"Well no, it's not alive in the sense you'd understand it like a dog or 
a cat,"Erwin shuddered as he said this," but it is, in that its had so many 
sensing devices built into it and the onboard computers are so advanced 
that it might as well be."

"How do you know?"

"I'm a genius of course," and left it at that.

Werner walked up to it cautiously, as he did so the arms directly in 
front of him stopped moving and fell to the ground forming a ramp that 
lead up onto a  flat space on top of the machine.Werner  turned and 
called to Erwin,

"Come on up, I think this is how you get in."

"Are you sure, I mean is it safe?"

"Probably not , but as a child I found the best way to catch 
butterflies was with a butterfly net," said Werner sarcastically.

Erwin thought about this, but as it didn't make sense he guessed it 
was right and walked up the ramp after Werner. As he did so the 
tentacles, if they could be called that, lifted up behind him and left them 
surrounded by hoola skirt of waving crystal blocks.

"Now what happens?" asked Erwin wide eyed with apprehension.

"Oh, I expect the limbs will fold up on top of us and make some 
sort of roof ,separating us from the rest of the universe, a whole lot of 
lights will start flashing and the ship will lift off the ground and will 
probably fly off through the wall into the nine dimensions of the space-
time continuum. Flying faster and faster than  the speed of light 
skimming through the stars and the infinite variety of galaxies and arrive 
at some strange and dangerous planet, inhabited by green or pink aliens 
who will ask mysterious questions like the meaning of life."

"I think I'd rather go shopping," said Erwin, wishing for any 
reassuring feature he could hang onto.

At precisely the moment he said this, the panel beneath them gave 
way and they fell into the machine, down, down, down into the bowels of 
time and as all around them became a white haze of nothingness 
punctuated with complete void and a few clumps of oblivion which gave 
it just the right touch of total nonexistence.

Erwin's and Werner's first reaction was to scream very loudly, 

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!"

"What's happening!" screamed Erwin.

"How the hell would I know!"screamed back Werner.

"I thought you're supposed to be a genius!"

"I am, but the stupid machine doesn't think so!"

Erwin and Werner looked around them at the white loneliness of 
time. As they fell, tumbling slowly through space, from time to time they 
would stare into the grim mask of fear in each other's face or some other 
part of the posterior but  usually off into the nowhere which by a general 
consensus was a lot more interesting than  strange pieces of anatomy. 

"How far have we fallen?" yelled Erwin after some time,"It seems 
like we've been falling forever."

"We probably have been , it's a time machine remember." Then in 
answer to his first question," I'm not sure. In fact, I can't see anything to 
judge our motion with, I'm not even sure we are movingIin fact."

"But I can feel myself falling and I can't feel the ground with my 
feet, so we must be falling," returned Erwin.

"Well yes, since there's no gravity, you feel vertigo and so you 
think you're falling, but if so then where is the wind that should be 
whistling past our ears," said Werner.

"Are you saying that just because we can't see or feel ourselves 
moving therefore we're not actually moving," said Erwin floating upside 
down and talking to Werner's shoe.

"Actually it could be worse than that, if we can't see anything then 
nothing actually exists for us, does it?"furthered Werner.

"What! Are you saying we don't exist any more?We're dead?!"

"Well just between the two of us, no, but from the point of view of 
the rest of the universe then quite possibly yes."

"That's ridiculous that equivalent to saying if you can't observe 
something then it doesn't exist" pointed out Erwin.

"Exactly!"

"But where are we then, is it outer space?"Erwin asked mystified.

"I don't think so, we would be dead if that was the case. No I think 
we're outside both outer and inner space or to be more precise we 
haven't any space or nospace I in fact!"

"What in Bauhaus is that?"quizzed Erwin.

"Well you know that in time and space you have to travel a 
distance between points A and B, well I think that here not only isn't 
there any space here between the A's and B's, but there are no A's and 
B's too get to anyway."

"There's nothing here then, not even room to move around in?" 

"I doubt very much if there's even a Cooks Tours here, or even if 
you can actually use the word 'here' here. I in fact!"

"For his a jolly good fellow." 

"Shut up Erwin, don't be a bigger idiot than  you already are," said 
Werner bluntly.

"Well, how long are we going to go on falling?" whined Erwin.

"Oh, I expect we will probably go on falling until we hit something."

"Does that.....," started Erwin but never finished as the ground 
suddenly reappeared beneath their feet and they fell to earth like two 
sacks of potatoes exhibiting extreme aversion behaviour to pain.

"Ouch!", cried Erwin as the cube came into being above his head 
and landed on top of it.

"Are you all right ?" said a kind friendly voice behind Erwin, he 
jumped up, spinning around and screamed.

"Ahhhhhh! It's an Alien!" 

At a rather pretty blond girl with a cute little turned up nose and 
wearing a apron, who walked off in a huff at being called a alien. 

They found themselves in what appeared to be a large 
supermarket, as around them milled dozens of people and things that 
weren't quite people or anything else for that matter, pushing enormous 
shopping trolleys with shopping lists the length of the dead sea scrolls. 

"Where are we? ", Werner asked as he stepped onto a carton of 
Canis Major Dog Biscuits, which growled slightly as he did so.

"Well it looks like",said Erwin  ,"well it looks a bit like Harrods, I 
think," in an uncertain voice.

Werner looked up and pointed at a gigantic flashing neon light that 
floated above them in complete and utter comtempt for gravity, 
displaying a sign.

Gigafords
The Supernova Supermarket
We have Everything, from Aardvarks to Zigguraats, Bifurcates to 
Billingsgate, Deicide to Deodorize,  Grunions to Gryphons, Hernias to 
Hopolites, Kiangs to Kindersang,  Ribosomes to RibaldGnomes, 
Thermometor to Thermidor, Zugzwang to ZwitterionIet cetera.

We have the A to Z of the Universe, our motto isI 
If Gigafords doesn't have it - it just doesn't 
exist!

Erwin spoke up.

"I thought you said this was going to be full of green aliens who 
would ask us the meaning of life?"

Werner ignored him, as he stared at the rather pretty shop 
assistant walking back towards them in the crowd.

"Excuse me miss, but can you tell us where we are?"

"Yes Sir, you're in the  crockery, pots, pans and laser beams and 
sock department, are you being served?" she asked with an insanely 
bright smile, ignoring Erwin.

"No, that's not quite what I meant , I mean where in the Galaxy are 
we?" persisted Werner.

"Sir, there is no need to swear,I'm sure we can find whatever it is 
you want." 

"Yes, but where in the Milky Way are we?!"persisted Werner.

"Really Sir!" and walked off in a huff, leaving Werner  spluttering.

"Funny, she didn't look very green," said Erwin laconically.

They started off through the shopping centre walking through 
hundreds upon hundreds of aisles containing nothing but socks or 
children's toy interplanetary space ships that really flew and engaged in 
deep space warfare, these were so good in fact, that they had actually 
been used in one space battle when a particularly harmless species of fly 
from Musca II had totally obliterated the Zorgan killer robots of 
Gargantua IIIV.  

Erwin and Werner found, as they shouldered their way through the 
crowd, that the people around them consisted of two types, those who 
had money  and those who didn't. 

Those that had, also had huge shopping trolleys the size of Volvos 
which occasionally crushed to death the people who didn't have them, 
and that the trolleys were also stuffed to the gunnels with every type of 
home appliance and handyman tool imaginable. 

Oddly enough the trolleys were occasionally pushed around by 
members of a species of intelligent sock who thought it was the the 
funniest thing in the universe to be accidently picked up and bought by 
the other so-called intelligent species of the universe, only to bite off 
their feet,  when they later tried them on at home.

After walking for some time through endless aisles, Erwin and 
Werner suddenly came across a particularly appetizing selection of 
twelfth century Greek icons done in french pastry, going for a song. Erwin 
not  a very good singer looked to Werner to see if he had enough cash to 
buy some, in reply Werner fished in his pockets and pulled out a 
crumpled note.

 They both looked at it suspiciously.

"Do you think they will accept it?" asked Erwin. 

Werner hummed for a second like a Ugandan dung beetle with 
piles. 

"Maybe," he said.

And they walked off to find a teller, who curtly told them that 
while the note was worthless, currency wise, it probably had a collectors 
value and they would be best suited if they went to the Coin Collectors 
Department.

Arriving there a few minutes later they met a smartly dressed 
young man who after viewing the note for a moment, cocked an 
observant eye at them and said.

"You're from another universe, aren't you?"

To this Erwin and Werner looked at their feet and muttered,

"Ah, kind of." , "In a casual sort of a way."

"Well in that case, this is probably worth about,Oh,"and punched a 
few figures into the keyboard in front of him, which lit on the huge wall 
screen with some enormous figure that shouldn't have existed since 
nobody had ever bothered to write it down before," probably about 
several major planetary systems, one or two species of extinct animal and 
a fair chunk of what is commonly called heaven or the hereafter."

Erwin felt his jaw drop and then rise again of its own volition as it 
asked,

"So, it's worth a bit then?"

This being the single greatest understatement of his life.

"More than a bit, Sir, it's unique, it's quite literally the only one in 
the universe, unless of course you have some more in your pocket," he 
quipped.

"Do you want to sell?"as he handed it back,though with a smirk on 
his face that Werner failed to plumb.

"Yes of course!" said Erwin excitedly as he tried to return it.

However as he did this, the figures on the large screen started 
falling dramatically with astonishing speed, so by the time the note had 
actually made it across the counter it was worthless. 

"What happened?" shrieked Erwin,"One second it's worth a star 
system, the next it's zilch!"

"Simple," replied the smug cashier as he fondled the now quite 
bewildered note." It's all to do with traveling through space and time and 
in this case through universes. You see, some time in the future, 
somebody finds out what you've just done, like me for instance, and they 
think why can't they do the same thing and bolt off to wherever you 
come from grab a whole stack of these things and come back and sell 
them, which naturally enough this decreases the value since there are 
now several of these around and then someone else and their friend does 
the same thing and so on, till eventually, our or in this case, my  universe 
gets flooded with these things. Hey presto, their worthless." 

At this he handed back the note and watched its price shoot 
straight back up to its previous ridiculous figure.

"It's a bit like conservation of energy," continued the teller 
remorselessly," it's how the universe balances its books."

Then broke out in a fit of laughter.

"But, but, but I," stammered Erwin, as Werner dragged him away.

"Don't bother," said Werner,"don't even think about it," as they 
made their way back to where they came." Just forget it ever happen, and 
maybe just maybe we'll both get over it."

For a while neither of them said anything except to apologize 
occasionally to the passing sock till they had returned to where they had 
landed.

"Werner, how do we get out of here, I mean where's the exit?" 
asked Erwin in a voice appropriate to a man who has just lost half a 
galaxy.

"Let's ask somebody," and started making his way over to a 
counter where the same shop assistant that Erwin had called an alien 
before, was standing.

"Excuse me miss, but could you tell us where the exit is?"queried 
Werner.

"Oh, it's you two again," and looked them up and down as if they 
were the mess left over from the office Christmas party. "Well Sir, the 
nearest rocket bay is on level B, quadrant 9.45 ,four hundred kilometres 
away and the nearest time facilities are on the next continent,"and turned 
smiling to another customer who was asking her about the plants she was 
selling.

"Miss, did you say the exit is on the next continent?" Werner's 
voice rose to a shrill.

The girl turned around as if surprised to find them still there.

"Of course Sir, Gigafords covers the entire planet, "and then in a 
puzzled tone ,"didn't you know?"

"Ah, well you see we just dropped in, sort of. I don't suppose you 
could tell us what planet this is by chance?" asked Erwin while staring in 
a distracted way at a plant that was displayed upon the counter.

The girl frowned and started to reappraise her customers. 

It felt strange, she thought, talking to people whose I.Q. was so low, 
that she felt a need to put a leash on them and go for a walkies.

"Why, it's called Earth of course,"she said and began taping her 
fingers.

Werner smiled wildly.

"Earth, that's great! Erwin where still on Earth we haven't  left 
Earth,but that makes perfect sense, everybody speaks English.Miss, Miss 
what year is it this then."

The girl raised an eyebrow in exasperation.

"Which calender are you used too, there are over nine billion 
planetary systems with recognized calenders, which Earth do you come 
from?" in a voice not unlike nails been drawn across a Skilliarian 
blackboard.

"Which Earth!?" shrieked Werner.

At this point Erwin walked off having decided that this was one of 
those times when he would be a lot better off if he could only go back to 
sleep. He shuffled along the counter and became fascinated by the 
flowers labeled dandelions and snapdragons that were on display, he 
bent down to smell what appeared to be a rather large and beautiful 
dandelion, as he did so all the heads of the flowers swiveled towards him.

-How pretty,-Erwin thought,-they must be genetically designed to 
be heat sensitive,- and was just about to pick up the pot when suddenly, 
a wicked grin with tiny pointy teeth appeared on the face of the flower 
and it lashed out to neatly take a chunk out of Erwin's white overcoat.

"Yioookee" yelled Erwin and jumped back into the displays of 
snapdragons, which thereupon tiny spurts of blue-white flame shot out 
from the flowers, Erwin bounced back across the aisle and almost back 
into the dandelion display, till he remembered at the last moment and 
bounced on one foot towards Werner, mistiming this and falling head first 
across the counter, knocking the attendant to the ground, who 
immediately began screaming for help.

Werner seeing it was high time to get out of the place and fast, 
leapt across the counter taking the time cube out of his pocket, activating 
it as he did so.

Instantly they were sent flying straight up into the air by the 
crystal arms exploding out from the cube which at the same time 
smashed their way through the counter and knocked a cash registrar into 
a nice parabolic arc across the aisles to crush to death a member of a 
particularly belligerent species of Arcturan gnome whose friends had had 
enough of being pushed around by these big nosed humans and 
immediately started a riot, which lasted four days and took the lifes of 
twelve thousand people, the entire population of Arcturan gnomes 
visiting Gigafords and a rather small inconspicuous vacuum cleaner called 
Yert, who was on the verge of  discovering consciousness and was busily 
formulating a philosophical dissertation on the state of being, based on 
the premise "I think, therefore I clean" but was prevented from doing so 
when a settee, which harboured beliefs about its own divinity and 
delusions of grandeur, had pounced on the vacuum cleaner and forced it 
to recant before burning it at the stake.







Chapter Six

When I drink, I think; and when I think, I drink.

                Francois Rabelais

Albert fell through the floor, into a large fish tank.

"Yuk!"

And began to drown.

"Argh!"

After laser beaming Erwin's kitchen and obliterating his coffee cup, 
Albert had fallen through Erwin's floor and landed in the offices directly 
below, and was now spending an anxious time learning the Australian 
Crawl in a large ornate glass-sided fish tank, formerly occupied by half a 
dozen melancholy looking gold fish.

"Help!"

The goldfish were not amused and showed this by angrily flopping 
about on the floor outside.

"PupItth!" Albert spluttered, swallowing another mouthful of 
water and then going down for the fourth time, to see if he could still 
hold his breath as long as could when he was a boy.

"ArgI!" he cried, upon resurfacing, and looked around frantically to 
see if anyone was fooled by this little joke he was playing with his life.

Nobody was; as there was nobody there, so he quite happily went 
on drowning.

"Help!" he managed once more, this time with a little more panic to 
give the 'show' a more authentic touch. Then in between coming up: 
gulping, and going down: drowning, Albert had an idea, it was such a 
brilliant idea that it took him by some surprise and he stood on the white 
pebbles of the tank's bottom to think about it: that was the idea.

"Oh," he said, a little embarrassed with the farce."Oh well."

He remained standing, up to his waist, in the fish tank and looked 
up at the ceiling. Where a large jagged hole had been formed by his 
impromptu entry, creating an imperfect circle in the very centre of an 
expensive copy of a pre-raphaelite painting, The painting depicted a 
colourful pastoral of a mountain side where tame old goats were chased 
around by wild young maidens, who gleefully tied them to hot tubs and 
taught them whole chapters from the 'Kama Sutra for Impotent Satyrs'.

Albert stared around the room he found himself in. It appeared to 
be a waiting room, as borne witness to by the secretaries desk, fish tank 
minus fish and a large blue sign saying 'waiting room' on the wall, but 
Albert wasn't sure about this, as he had given up being sure about 
anything a long time ago.

He hauled himself out of the tank onto the thick, red, plush carpet 
and dripped a great deal, a wonderful deep rich redness formed around 
his feet as the water streamed onto the carpet from his slick wet body. 
This wetness was appreciated slightly by the fish, who were now doing 
their best 'Jaques-Cousteau-minus-scuba-at-300-metres-down' 
impersonations. 

Albert suddenly felt very much alive. This was due to the fact that 
he was not dead, a state he had been expecting to be in for some time 
now, but by a continuing set of completely impossible circumstances he 
had miraculously managed to avoid. He also suddenly felt very, very wet. 
This was due to the fact that he I was.

Albert dripped his way over to the front glass paneled door and 
tried to open it, but found it would not budge, having been locked by the 
secretary as she had left for the weekend. 

He turned around and tried calling for help again, in a thin 
wavering sing-song voice, which instantly reminded him of those little 
field mice which scuttle around the desert dunes at dusk, just before they 
get pounced on by a great hairy fox and processed orally into fox 
droppings. Albert quickly looked round for a great hairy fox, but finding 
none let himself be tempted into a louder cry.

"Help, can somebody hear me!"

To this he only heard the very faint footsteps of Erwin, walking 
across the ceiling into his bedroom.

"I say, can you hear me,"Albert faltered," I sorry about your 
kitchen, but I've never tortured anybody before, you see, and it really 
was an accident."

This only brought a heavy silence from the ceiling, while the 
virginal maidens continued to discover fellatio.

"Oh, dear," muttered Albert dejectedly and found himself 
wondering just why the man had been standing inside a wardrobe 
wearing an old lab-coat and a Stetson. He soon, however, put this down to 
some local proclivity and started wondering about more important 
matters such as where the surf was supposed to be; if indeed there was 
any, and most importantly what exactly was he supposed to do when he 
found it.

Besides the desk and the now gasping fish, the office contained the 
ubiquitous pot plants, coffee table and torn magazines, as well as an 
enormous beer bottle which sat in the corner, advertising the companies 
product, namely enormous bottles of beer.

He tried another door and found it wasn't locked. 

Interestingly enough 'doors' are used by every species of 
intelligent animal that exists in the universe and even those that don't, in 
the latter case they are usually used as portals to get into this universe, 
where they play nasty little tricks on the locals, like superglueing space 
shuttles to their launching pads.

Inside the door was an even larger office used by the typing pool 
with connecting doors leading onto a jacuzzis, bar and a small room used 
for dissecting gerbils by the lawyers, when they got bored with dissecting 
the general public. Beyond these lay the main offices of lawyers rooms 
themselves, to all of these Albert let himself in, only to find they lead to 
nowhere but sealed windows and sealed files on underhand legal actions 
that weren't supposed to happen, except in cheap novels and seedy court 
rooms.

Eventually Albert made his way back to the waiting room and tried 
the front door again, it still wouldn't open, he attempted forcing it with 
his shoulder but only succeed in hurting his shoulder. Then he tried 
throwing a plastic pot plant at it but it only bounced back and gave him a 
tiny cut on the forehead. 

He tried talking to it for a while, but gave up when he realized it 
would rather hold an inanimate conversation with the brick wall.

Albert then stood in the middle of the waiting room, his scrawny 
white chest standing out in high relief against his still wet and black 
swimming trunks, giving  him the appearance of a malformed killer 
whale. While the half a dozen goldfish which lay scattered around his feet 
were busily in the process of decomposing on the carpet. Albert looked 
up at the ceiling again. The faint inkling of an idea took root in his mind 
like a potato falling apart in an Irish stew. 

He dragged the secretaries desk over to beneath the hole, then 
placed the chair on top of this, it was one of those swivel sort with leather 
seat that are advertised as a must for up and coming secretaries who 
have a penchant for leather and bondage. 

Albert stood on the seat, but found he could not quite reach the 
ceiling, where the plaster, electric cables and a nubile nymphet languidly 
hung loose from their support. He jumped down and grabbed the plastic 
pot plant that had earlier attacked him, pulled out the palm and dropped 
it beside the desk; which it lay effetely on the carpet and tried vainly for 
the next two days to utilize the now dead goldfish as fertilizer. 

Balancing the pot on the chair and carefully holding it there, he 
hauled himself onto the table, before endeavouring to place one leg on 
the chair only to find it swivel away from him as he did so, dropping his 
foot back to the table. He tried again, grasping the back of the chair with 
both hands he cautiously lifted one leg onto the chair and then the other, 
balancing like a performing seal with the pot between his legs and his 
bottom poking out into the air.

Lifting his left foot onto the inverted pot, the chair quickly span 
back and forth on its axis till Albert managed to bring it under control. He 
followed this by pulling his right up as well and placed it awkwardly next 
to the left. Again there was an anxious moment as the swivel chair began 
screwing down into it's base under Albert's weight. Albert watched with 
maddening frustration the room slowly revolving around for a circuit 
before he came to a stop with a slight jolt. He breathed a gentle sigh of 
relief; before slowly, very slowly, reaching up to grab a support from the 
ceiling.

Unfortunately, this turned out to be a live electrical cable. 

Instantly there was an arc of blue flame which erupted from 
Albert to the ceiling and ran along its surface, exploding great chunks of 
plaster into a storm of powered dust which snowed down into the room, 
quite literally blowing the tits/unmentionables/foghorns off the virginal 
maidens.

The shock tore the electrical cable free from his hand throwing him 
bodily off the chair to crash painfully into the desk on his shoulder then 
tumble spectacularly over its edge and nosedive head-first onto one of 
the -now quite dead- gold fish. The soul of the fish, immediately 
celebrated by re-materializing in another life as a used car lot for 
reconditioned Fiats.

As Albert lay on the floor, he seriously considered formulating a 
proper plan of escape. Where dozens of inter-galactic stormtroopers 
broke down the front door firing off canisters of tear gas and laser 
beaming into oblivion anybody foolish to get in their way. While above 
the planet, a huge deep space battleship launched a devastating space to 
earth nuclear missile attack that would totally annihilate the entire 
planet, except for himself, who would be miraculously beamed up to the 
ship, where a bevy of really cute blond physiotherapists called Claire and 
Elizabeth would tend to his every need and hurt, besides a few other 
needs and hurts he could name.

But as he lay on the carpet, with the blood, slime and scales of the 
dead goldfish sticking to his face, he realized this plan was slightly 
unfeasible when he remembered not only does that sort of thing only 
happens in third rate movies and deluded imaginations, but more 
importantly he was an alien on somebody else's planet and they may not 
like this sort of thing to going on, especially since he was only a third rate 
philosophy student who in the great cosmic hill of beans of existence, 
didn't amount to very much, if anything at all.

Albert rose up on his arms, turned over and sat on his behind to 
stare down at one of the fish. It was one of those large floppy gold ones 
that don't do very much other then do very bad impersonations of being 
stoned out of their minds, on water.

He then looked up at the ceiling and wondered quite seriously if he 
could meditate himself up through the hole and back to his surf-board, 
like the eastern mystics do when they're high on unreality. 

He had never done this before, in this life or any other life, and as 
far as he knew, in fact he had never known anybody else to have 
managed to achieve it either, if fact, he realized that the whole idea of 
levitating was probably completely impossible and that the only reason 
people thought it was possible was because a lot of eastern religions tend 
to have very good propaganda machines and are even better at brain 
washing people into believing the most absurd things, so as to get them to 
dance round in circles screaming "OHMMM" at the top of their lungs, 
before collapsing in a muddled heap of religious ecstasy and giving all 
their money away to the guru who was really a real estate agent from 
Kent.

-However- thought Albert, - thinking about my belly button is a lot 
easier way of trying to save a universe then getting electrocuted, landing 
on my face and using squashed goldfish as pimple cream- 

He folded his legs, closed his eyes and thought about flying belly 
buttons. 

After a few moments he thought something was happening, then 
he realized it was only his stomach grumbling through lack of food and 
that it, had no intention of being party to something as ludicrous as 
floating around a room, pretending it to be divine.

He then tried emptying his mind of all its thoughts and 
perceptions, but quickly found that as soon as he had gotten rid of one of 
them, another would pop up out of nowhere and take its place, telling 
him to scratch his nose or start a world religion based on the principle 
that god actually manifests itself in this world as our belly buttons and 
that the whole meaning to life is that we should spend all our time 
contemplating our belly buttons and levitating dead goldfish.

Finding he couldn't empty his mind, Albert tried filling it with as 
much as possible, by thinking about the entire universe and every 
particle, atom, molecule, rock, planet, star, life form and book that had 
ever existed and holding them in his brain simultaneously, so as to 
become one with the universe in that way, but his brain found this so 
impossible that it overloaded and told him to bugger off and concern 
himself with more mundane matters like goldfish and pot plants.

Strangely enough, as Albert had been doing all these mind 
exercises, to levitate himself off the carpet, the remains of the squashed 
fish in front of him, had in actual fact been levitated up off the ground, 
and was now orbiting, at eye level, like a small planet, around Albert's 
head.

Albert opened his eyes and stared at the fish as it slowed to a halt 
in front of his eyes. The body of the fish or that metaphysical entity that 
was the fish, suddenly sensed it was doing the impossible and that things 
which were impossible simply do not exist, hence the fish promptly 
vanished out of physical existence, only to travel the rest of eternity 
trying to meet up with its lately departed soul.

Albert fell back with shock when the space in front of him 
imploded  as the air rushed in to fill the space of the missing fish.

"WhaI?" he half asked, but gave up, when he concluded it was 
another one of those impossibilities that were going to happen to him, not 
for any reason but rather, there was really no reason for they're not 
happening.

*He could sense his bio-rhythms were out of 'synch' by the way the 
floor kept tilting at ninety degrees to the horizontal and his head kept 
smacking into the floor, with a satisfying though painful 'thud!' a instant 
later.

At this Albert got up and went back into one of the other offices 
beyond the typing pool to lay down on a sofa and close his eyes.

As he rested there contemplating his position,  his mind went back 
to how it had all begun, way back all those months on his home planet 
Earth, which interestingly enough had the same name as this planet had, 
even more interestingly it was the same name as about nine billion other 
planets. 

He considered this in depth.

The reason for the same name being, that evolution has a habit of 
producing the same biological artifact, life form or social structure or 
whatever, regardless of where  and how they evolve, because the same 
driving forces of evolution arise in the same way within every system of 
life. 

Like primates in the old and the new worlds have essentially the 
same biological structures even though they arose from different lines or 
fish have identical streamlining regardless of what they started out as 
from an evolutionary point of view because the most effective shape for 
moving through water is that of a fish or a nuclear submarine.

So, not surprisingly, languages being an evolutionary product, will 
form in identical fashions on all planets which have the basic human 
structure, and a necessary consequence of this is that English was quite 
naturally the universal language throughout the universe, in more ways 
then one, which quite naturally meant that Earth had the same name 
virtually everywhere in the universe and a few not in the universe.

The more Albert thought about it, the less he wanted to think 
about it and the less he wanted to think about the more he wanted to go 
home, which ever home amongst the nine billion Earths was the closest, 
besides the present one.

He stood up and stared around the room. 

Besides having the usual office furniture, it had on one of the 
cupboards a selection of beers that the company produced.

Albert picked one up and after a moments hesitation, tried to 
balance it on his head and thought of drinking beer, as this was the 
technique whereby they opened beer bottles on his home planet. 

This however failed to work, he soon discovered, as the bottle 
lacked the all important integrated chip for deciphering brain waves and 
opening beer bottles.

Albert clenched his teeth in frustration, but several minutes went 
by without any resulting pop from the cap and the bottle breaking into 
that song from The Student Prince - 'Drink, Drink, Drink- to eyes that are 
mine'.

Suddenly the whole of his time on Earth and how unbelievingly 
frustrating it had been swept into his mind. How every single thing he 
had attempted had gone wrong, how he had failed even the simplest 
tasks. 

He felt as if he had spent his entire life pushing on pull doors.

This so infuriated him that he grabbed the bottle off his head and 
tried to smash it on the cupboard. 

He missed.

So instead of slamming down the bottom of the bottle on the desk, 
he raked its edge with his knuckles, tearing tiny pieces of flesh from his 
hand and badly bruising his fingers as the momentum of the bottle in his 
fist carried it on, to hit him square in the groin.

"Ai-uugh!" he silently groaned. 

Then stared down in stupefaction at the foaming mess rising from 
the lip of the bottle. 

He had, he realized, managed to just catch the cap of the bottle on 
the edge of the desk, thereby knocking it off.

Greedily he drank the bottle, then another and then several dozen 
more. Each time gouging neat little holes in the edge of the sideboard and 
hitting himself in the groin with a beer bottle. 

Eventually he collapsed in a drunken stupor and there he would 
have quite happily remained had not a very large policeman thrown a 
glass of beer in his face and said,

"You're for it, mate."


Albert was taken down town, tossed in a cell and left to sleep it off. 

He woke up the next morning, surprised at the fact that the 
universe still acknowledged his existence. This he determined was the 
case, when he found himself in the company of a large unsmiling 
detective who sat behind a large wooden desk, playfully rapping its 
surface with a set of large brass knuckles. 

The big detective, it seemed, had developed the most exquisite 
habit of appearing to knowing everything by saying nothing and 
culminating each unspoken sentence with an air of complete certainty.

"Now let me get this straight," said the detective," you're actually a 
surf life guard from Miami whose looking for a cat that drinks beer and 
tunnels through buildings, right?"

"Yes," said Albert , surprised that the detective should know that 
much of his cover story.

The detective tried to smile but failed, he put this down to not 
having attended the public relations seminar while he had gone to the 
police academy, having been too busy that day learning how to head butt. 


The detective was not having an easy time, as he had spent the 
entire weekend taking care of a near riot when the wheels off a stolen car 
had been instrumental in demolishing two city blocks and destroying the 
dental work of the entire cities founding fathers who wandered around 
the police station for several hours demanding that somebody should be 
shot and would the police please return their dentures from accident 
investigation team.

He stared morosely at the idiot before him, whom he strongly 
suspected was going to be responsible for every crime that was 
committed within a five mile radius in the last five years and that all it 
needed was a gentle nudge and the suspect would confess all. 

The detective considered nudging him with the brass knuckles but 
frowned when he remembered the interrogation was being video taped.


"Now Sir, tell me in your own words , just what lead you to end up 
here in this wonderful establishment, on this nice sunny day." 

The detective finally said, after much consultation with his 
annotated Sherlock Holmes.

At first Albert tried him his cover story which had been concocted 
by Oppie and a few of the back-room boys back at GALPOLOC, of his 
being a surf life saver who had gotten lost from Miami, etc.

The huge detective stared unperturbed for a while then opened the 
drawer beside him and took out a large iron bar. He then proceeded to 
twist it into a pretzel and invited Albert to try the other leg as it played 
Jingle Bells.

Albert gulped compulsively then began again.

The detective listened quietly for over an hour to the intricate and 
complex series of events that had lead Albert to this planet. 

How the cat in the experiment had vanished and the professors at 
his university had designed and constructed a spacetime machine using 
the anomalies in the universal continuum to get around Time's Arrow but 
then somebody had pushed the wrong button when Neils and himself had 
gone out down to the Mexican take-aways so that the entire faculty had 
disappeared into another universe and then the riot squad had arrived 
and interrogated himself and the rabbit and then made him go after the 
cat by himself and how had he arrived at Earth to capture the cat and 
take it back for trial on his planet but he had missed it when the man in 
the wardrobe wearing the lab coat and Stetson wouldn't talk to him so he 
accidently vaporized the kitchen and fallen through in the fish tank and 
gotten electrocuted while standing on the pot plant and decided in the 
end to open the beer with his hands and not his head.

The detective's massive jaw did a good impersonation of total 
disbelief, then had Albert thrown out of the police station. As he couldn't 
be bothered doing all the paper work that goes with processing a lunatic.

Afterwards, Albert sat on the edge of the canal for several hours 
pretending to be a letter box whenever anybody stop to talk to him, and 
probably would have stayed there for life had not a group of drunks 
picked him up in their gondola and dressed him in an old overcoat, filled 
him up with vodka then thrown him into the canal,  once he had 
explained his story to them.

Albert sat beside the canal again, almost pleased with the turn of 
events, now that he had discovered that nobody wanted to know or even 
to talk to him. Which had been one of his chief fears when he had arrived 
here, namely that of being found out and lynched or vaporized for being 
an alien. 

Then the alcohol sank into him and he became depressed because 
nobody would talk to him.
After a while he discovered the technique of walking whereby he 
put one foot in front of the other and fell forward in an organized fashion, 
without hitting the ground and repeating the process till he had covered 
some distance, the trouble was however that he could never seem to fall 
in the same direction long enough to actually get anywhere. So that after 
quarter of an hour he had moved about five feet.

Another trick he discovered was to stick out his thumb and whistle 
and be picked up a few moments later by short swarthy gentlemen in 
striped shirts, who would ask,

"Where you going, mate?'

Who would then row him a short distance, before stopping the 
gondola, dragging Albert out by the scruff of his neck and saying things 
like,

"Bloody drunks."

After Albert had repeatedly asked him, where Miami was.







Chapter Seven

Certain women should be struck regularly, like gongs.

            Noel Coward.


"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii,"

 The three of them screamed, as they fell or rather floated through 
the white, empty nothingness of no-space.

"Where are we, I'm going to report you to my union!" screamed the 
girl.

"It's okay, it's alright,"Werner tried to explain," we're just jumping 
through time and space into another universe." 

"O'h is that all," she said and immediately started screaming again.

"I do wish you wouldn't do that," yelled Erwin," there's really no 
point in screaming since nobody can hear you anyway and you're making 
us both deaf. "

The girl stopped and looked up or down at Erwin, she wasn't sure 
which direction was which.

"Well excuse me,! But what do you expect me to do, I've just been 
kidnapped by two very strange men. I'm now floating about in," she 
looked around,"Iin heavens knows what and I'm going to miss this weeks 
stop work meeting! What's a girl supposed to do, other than scream very 
loudly. Especially when the poor girl's getting engaged  tomorrow," and 
immediately started screaming again.

"Bother", said Werner, putting his hands on his ears," we never 
should have given them the vote."

"We didn't", countered Erwin," I think they took it by dint of 
scream."

Suddenly the girl was quiet and became preoccupied with keeping 
a tight rein on her skirt as if worried about the possibility of free fall 
troilism. The three of them tumbled through the space or lack of space, so 
for a while there was nothing but the white hiss of nothingness to 
accompany their fall, however she presently introduced herself.

"Um, Hello, my name is Margret, "followed quickly by," Who are 
you? What do you want? Why are you doing this?"

Erwin who at that moment happened to be facing the other way 
twisted his neck around to speak.

"This is Werner and I'm called Erwin," the second question he 
wasn't so clear on," we're .. " then faded off into silence.

"We're trying to stop an invasion of Earth by aliens," finished 
Werner excitedly,"Are you an alien?"

"Yes,exactlyII thinkI have you seen any cats lately," said Erwin, 
not really sure about anything anymore.

"WhatIWhich Earth?" Margret asked, having decided to ignore 
completely the questions about the alien or the cats.

"Ah," Werner said, for one of the few times in his life when he 
could remember being uncertain," well our Earth of courseII think."

"You really don't seem to know, do you?" Margret replied rasing an 
eyebrow to pour scorn on them, but as she was facing the outer direction 
at the time it lost its full impact.

"My would-have-been-fiancee told me, who I might add is six foot 
tall and plays full forward for the local team, that there are probably nine 
billion universes with laws sufficiently similar to have planets called 
Earth and where the major language is English, which particular universe 
are you referring to," she said with a sardonic sneer, but then frowned as 
she noticed she was still facing the wrong way.

"Hey, you said something like that back at Gigafords." said Werner 
in return," are there really so many universes, I mean where did they all 
come from and more importantly what do you mean you were getting 
engaged tomorrow, don't you mean your boy friend who is already your 
fiancee?"

"No, "she paused delicately," I haven't said yesIyet."

"Why not?'

"He hasn't actually asked meIyet," and went all silent and would 
have stared off into nowhere in particular except she had finally rotated 
back around to face Erwin and Werner, who tried their best to look 
interested.

Werner and Erwin exchanged significant glances between their 
feet.

"Well, what about the other universes, how come there are so 
many of them?"

"Oh that's easy ,"she began again, relieved at the change of topic," 
my best friend Elizabeth told me, that each universe consists of an 
infinite number of particles like quarks and electrons which contain a 
whole new universe of other universes and they in turn go off into 
infinity, also since each of the universes has a set of laws which defines it 
and if you change any of the laws even just a tyne-wyne bit, why you get 
a whole new universe, so of course there are an infinite number of this 
universe. Finally this universe is just a quantum fluctuation in another 
universe which is like an atom in another and so on, do you follow ?"

The heads of Erwin and Werner were spinning literally.

"Ah, sort of, it's the bit about the infinite that's scares the shit out 
of me,"said a rather dumbfounded Erwin.

"Why are there so many of them anyway why not one or two," 
asked Werner," why have infinity plus a bakers dozen?"

Margret giggled as if he had mentioned black frilly underwear.

"That's the best part, you see that's what a universe is, it's just an 
infinite number of other universes all slightly different or exactly the 
same, depending on which direction you take, "

At this her head cracked against Erwin's,

"Ouch!"but she  continued speaking anyway,

"you can't have a single universe without all the rest of them. 
Albert calls it the self-contradictory non-linear boot-strapping universe."

"But that's ridiculous, how ..."

But never finished it as at that point they fell into another 
universe.  









        Chapter Eight

"Oh, you can't help that,"said the Chesire Cat:"we're all mad here."

        Lewis Carroll: Alice In Wonderland


The cat began to think about thinking and once it started, it wasn't 
sure if the thoughts passed through its  mind or so much as its mind 
passed through its  thoughts.

Unfortunately for the cat, it was one of those simple souls that had 
as yet to be introduced to its  own subconscious and that the problem 
with its  thoughts was that the cat had trouble distinguishing between 
what was going on inside its  mind and what was going on outside. For as 
soon as the cat had an idea concerning a object it would have an idea 
about that idea and so on ad infinitum till the cat lost track completely 
about what it was supposed to be thinking about in the first place. 

Wearily the cat stared down at the mouse in front of it and 
frowned. An hour ago the mouse hadn't been there, in fact an hour ago 
the mouse hadn't even existed except as a thought in the cats mind, 
which went something along the lines of,

"Gosh I'm hungry,wouldn't it be nice if a plump little mouse 
suddenly popped into existence, right now in front of me."

An instant later, there had arrived the mouse. That was the trouble 
with the cats thoughts, it could never predict what they were going to do 
next and they could never be forced to do what it consciously wanted 
them to do, at least not on cue.

The small, sleek, cowering, timorous beastie sat rigid in panic. 
Terrified that if it tried to run away then the best laid plans of mice and 
man would oft go agley. It looked up at the cat  and began wondering,

"How in the Cornfield!" it had suddenly been transported from a 
cold and bleak patch of grass to the inside of this large square box,with a 
cat and more importantly why it kept thinking in Scottish.

After a while, in fact no time at all or was it for ever, the cat wasn't 
sure as it didn't know what time was, the cat spoke to the mouse,

"Well, now that we have seen each other," said the cat,"if you'll 
believe in me,I'll believe in you. Is it a bargain?"
        And would have then pounced on the mouse had not both the mouse 
and the cat, suddenly disappeared. 








Chapter Nine

Chivalry : going about releasing beautiful maidens from other 
men's castles , and taking them to your own castle.

        Henry W Nevinson 


The cat landed on its head. Then rolled onto its feet and licked its 
fur, just in case anybody was looking. 

All around it, beneath an eternally blue sky through which trailed 
several long white clouds, was a empty stony desert plain. Empty, except 
for the occasional ziggurat and wild eyed Mesapotamian king charging 
across the desert. Who suddenly threw a spear which landed right next to 
the cat which in turn took off, followed close behind it and in hot pursuit 
by the king in his chariot.

A few minutes later, the time crystal exploded into existence, ten 
feet off the ground, it's crystal arms jutting out like a transistorized 
octopus and a door opened beneath it as out tumbled Erwin, Werner and 
Margret onto the ground. The moment they did so, the time crystal shot 
back into being a time cube and fell unerringly down on Erwin's skull.

"Ouch!,"followed by,"why does it always happen to me?" Erwin said, 
then pocketed the time cube, while Margret sat down on one of the many 
rocks that lay scattered on the white dusty plain.

"Where are we?" she asked, in a tone indicating she would prefer 
to be drawn slowly across red hot coals than be with them, or better still, 
not be with them while they  were drawn across red hot coals.

 Werner picked up the spear, gingerly fingering the blade with the 
tips of his fingers.

"Looks like ancient Mesopotamia with an influence of 
Assyrian,probably made in the city of Ur around 3000 B.C.." He paused, 
looking around, "I expect the owners not too far away, although the way 
things are going lately, they could be in the next universe!"

This failed to raise an eyebrow from Erwin and Margret, as all 
around the extremely un-level sands stretched far away.

"Werner, shouldn't we be trying to get somewhere, like the planet 
where this cube comes from. Last time it was a supermarket and now...."

"The  supermarket!"interrupted Margret," Gigafords is the  
supermarket in the galaxy."

"Last time we landed in the   supermarket ," continued Erwin 
starting to get annoyed withthe fact that both of his companions were 
always right, and he was just insignifcant." By the looks of those 
oversized sandcastles, now it's some kind of  oversized beach for 
oversized kiddies. Don't you think we should learn how to control this 
dammed thing!" Taking the cube out of his pocket as he did so and 
throwing it to Werner. "I mean next time we could end up falling into a 
black hole, for heavens sake."

Werner caught it neatly in the air then looked intently at the 
inscriptions on the side.

"It doesn't seem to come with flying instructions, possibly it's pre-
programmed or somebody is controlling it remotely."

Suddenly Margret stood up and put her hands on her hips, pointed 
her cute little nose in the air and rather brusquely said, 
"Excuse me for butting in," arching up an eyebrow as she did so to 
do a reasonable impression of the Sydney Harbour bridge," I don't know 
what you're up to, but let me tell you this, if for one nano-second you 
think you're going to tie me up and ravish me or do weird and exotic 
things like sell my body to the white slavers for the kinky sex with 
mutant robots or worse still make me take part in pornographic videos of 
horrible sexual acts with huge white stallions dripping in sweat. Then you 
had better know, Buster! "shaking her finger at Werner," that the 
Gigafords Shop Assistant and Lift operator Union take a very dim view of 
such un-unionized work practices."

Werner looked at her as if she was a new species of beetle which 
had just crawled out of the evolutionary woodwork.

"Actually, we hadn't," he said with a sneer, then went back to 
peering intently at the cube.

"Pity it sounded like a lot of fun," said Margret, chewed her bottom 
lip and stared glumly at the ground.

Erwin ignored them as he stared out into the distance then put a 
hand to his brow to block out the sun, as the sweat trickled irritatingly on 
his face, he felt hot and uncomfortable as the water of his cells poured 
through his skin to make distasteful yellow stains beneath his arms 
which never seemed to come out in the wash. Up above the sun played 
hide and seek with a few clouds across a blue kindergarten for the 
elements. Beneath his feet the red dust of the Earth lay in disarray, its 
rocks having been cracked and shattered so many times as to be almost 
completely atomized by the games the Sun played with the rain and wind  
like 'ring a ring a planet' and 'pop goes the meteorite'.

He was about to speak, when suddenly only three dunes away in 
front of him up rose the chariot of the wild eyed Mesapotamian king, 
thundering across the desert towards them.

Margret and Werner looked up open-mouthed, when they felt the 
shuddering of the dust beneath their feet, then looked to each other for 
explanation. Since none was forth coming, they went back to staring 
opened mouthed at the incoming air to ground missile in the form of an 
armoured man riding a two wheeled chariot screaming in a manner 
vaguely reminiscent of a football crowd.

"What the ..?" uttered Erwin.

As the chariot ducked beneath a dune then shot back up over the 
top with its occupant grimly holding on to the reins with an expression 
not unlike that of an eight year old Gengis Khan as he hacked to death his 
favourite teddy bear.

"Arggggh!!" the man screamed then slewed to a halt in front of 
them and jumped down, to throw Margret over his shoulder then 
bounced back into the chariot and rode off again.

Erwin and Werner didn't say much for a few minutes as they 
stared at the retreating figures racing away across the dunes, with 
Margret screaming something about strike action and un-union practices.

"Hey! That sort of thing should happen more often!," said Werner 
with a smile, then he frowned ,"I suppose we'll have to rescue her now?"


"Do we have to, I mean we never invited her along in the first 
place,did we?"Erwin countered.

They looked at each other for a moment then both stared after the 
chariot, as the dust from the wheels rose like a gauze veil above the 
desert. For just an instant a glimmer of a smile passed across Werner's 
face. 

Then he muttered something about Erwin's lack of gonads and ran 
off in the direction of the retreating figures.

"I was only joking!" whined Erwin. "Werner! Wait up!"


For two days they walked across the desert following the trail of 
the wheeled chariot. Living off lizards and flyblown camel carcasses 
which festered on the sand {actually they didn't but that's what they told 
everybody afterwards} till in the evening of the second day, they saw in 
the distance a large ornate structure that didn't seem to have any 
purpose, yet at the same time didn't seem not to have any purpose, 
rather it was what is normally described as, as being a thing , a 
something  or a big thing , but what sort of thing  people could never 
quite tell.

As Erwin and Werner approached the what-ever-it-was they found 
that for a least a mile around it, what-ever-it-was, were scattered odd 
implements and pieces of machinery like watch springs, dead bus 
conductors, nuts,discarded rocket boosters, bolts, wheels, catheters, sex 
manuals, bed posts, teddy bear legs, coconut shells, elephant foot 
umbrella stands, teddy bears{minus legs}, Freud's jock strap, the 
occasional billion dollar supercomputer, tea pots covers and so on. 

These objects seemed to have nothing in common other than their 
oddity and increased proportionally to the distance towards the edifice 
itself, making it actually difficult to approach the what-ever-it-was till 
eventually they were climbing over or crawling through the bits and 
pieces that lay scattered around the decay of the colossal wreck, which 
wasn't quite a wreck but wasn't quite not a wreck either.

Eventually Erwin and Werner made it to the base of what-ever-it-
was, then climbed over the top of a large green stuffed dinosaur and 
found themselves looking down the other side at a withered old man in 
filthy rags and ragged beard who fossicked around at the base of the 
thing and picking up what appeared to be a Black forest Cuckcoo clock 
before trying to stuff it in a crevice of theThing .

"Hello old timer! What are you making?" asked Werner in what he 
hoped was as congenial a tone as could be expected from a complete 
stranger in the middle of nowhere.

The old man looked up and fixed them with a glittering eye. The 
lines of his face stretched deep into the weather born skin around his 
eyes giving him the appearance of ageless eons of suffering.

"Who's there? What do you want?" shot out the old man, staring 
aimlessly off into nowhere.

Erwin and Werner looked at each other, slid down the side of the 
stuffed brontosaurus and landed next to the old man, who was still stared 
aimlessly at nothing in particular.

"Hello,"said Werner with a smile," have you seen any psychopathic 
Mesapotamian kings running around carrying off shops assistants lately?"

The old man twisted his head to one side as Werner spoke, his 
eyes, though dancing in his sockets, seemed to registrar nothing.

"No,I can't see, I'm blind, who are you?" he said curtly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't reI" started Werner, before the blind old man 
cut him off.

"Who are you?"

"Well I'm Werner, I'm a genius and this is Erwin and I," but again 
the blind old man cut him off.

"What do you think of the my watch?" he asked eagerly bending 
slightly forward.

Erwin not seeing a wrist-watch, thought he was referring to the 
cuckoo clock and so said it was very nice.

"Nice! Nice! That's all you can say! It's a work of creative brilliance, 
it's taken me years to build! It's the greatest timepiece of all time. Just 
look at it!"

Erwin and Werner looked at the cuckoo clock. At that moment the 
hour struck and the door on its face opened, to let out a small figure of a 
bird which sang.

"Erk! Erk!"

Then went back inside and died of wood rot.

"Yes, it's very impressive ,"said Erwin in a befuddled manner,"I've 
never seen a cuckoo clock quite like it before."

"Not the Cuckoo you idiot! The clock! The clock!" he said stretching 
his arms out indicating the Thing become wrist-watch behind him. 

The two heros looked up. Now at close up, they were able see what 
it actually was: a pile of junk.

Werner frowned at the blind watch-maker, then spoke in a 
derisory fashion.

"It's a pile of junk, a big pile mind you, but it's still a pile of junk."

"No it's not! It's a clock, can't you see!" cried the blind watch-
maker.

The two stared hard at the pile of junk, it went on being a pile of 
junk.

"NoI," said Erwin shifting his feet edgily.

Time froze for a moment as the seconds bunched up together and 
marked time, till eventually the hour ordered the minutes to give them a 
hand and Time marched on remorselessly, trampling to death the errant 
seconds.

"Not even a little bit?" queried the blind watch-maker.

"Nope," Werner said with satisfaction,"not even a little bit."

"Oh well, it really is supposed to be a watch you know. That is, it 
originally was a watch but I kept adding things to it to make it more 
functional. Things like wake-up alarms, video games and thermo-nuclear 
reactors. Maybe I got out of control." 

The blind old watch-maker said this in a sad voice and started 
staring off aimlessly into nowhere again. Erwin found this disconcerting, 
as he found 'the nowhere' being stared at, to be a spot somewhere just to 
the left of Erwin's nose.

"Where's the watch now?"asked Erwin, suddenly finding he had an 
irresistible urge to scratch his cheek.

"O' it's somewhere inside the pile of junk," the blind watch-maker 
turned around and sighed softly.

"But, how by Newton,"boomed Werner in his best imitation of a 
perplexed manner," did you ever construct such a fantastic timepiece? I 
mean surely you must have realized you can't carry such a monstrosity 
around on your wrist?" 

"Ah' well you can actually wear it,"the blind watch-maker said 
brightening up," that's what the rocket boosters are for, to lift the whole 
thing off the ground.

"You know building it wasn't so hard, all I had to do was to wait 
long enough for the right parts to come by and then stick the whole lot 
together. It's quite easy really, all you have to do is be very, very 
patient."

"How patient?" asked Werner beginning to find the limits to his 
credulity to be a little broader than he had previously thought.

"O' several billion years," he smiled," You see, that's how long it's 
been since I became stuck on this stupid planet. I was only supposed to 
be on a short trip, to do market research for my firm."

"Firm?" prompted Erwin.

"Sorry, I used to be a traveling salesman for a company which 
specialized in musical instruments, offensive weapons and diesel powered 
nuns. 

This statement managed to lull Erwin and Werner into a false state 
of security as they assumed they were now dealing with either a 
complete raving loony or at the very least somebody with the mental 
equivalent of a bicycle pump.

"Anyway, we wanted to see if we could sell atomic violins played 
by quartets of steam-driven Little Sister's of Mercy, to the locals at this 
end of the galaxy. Unfortunately, one of the nuns decided to blow up in 
the cargo hold, so we dropped through eleven dimensions of space-time 
and the ship smacked into the side of this stupid planet. I survived and 
have been pottering around ever since, trying to figure out how to get 
back off again. 

He paused and scratched his beard for a moment.

"It must be four billion years by now. No time at all really, 
considering I started from scratch, a vaporized rocket ship and a puddle 
of goop which was all that was left over from the rest of the market 
research team. Which incidentally, I eventually turned from a puddle of 
life into this planets biosphere, but that took some time."
"How old are you?" asked Werner in some awe, looking with a new 
appreciation at the weirding.

The blind watch-maker smiled and winked an eyeless socket at 
him. As the evening about them settled into dusk and desert owls silently 
sailed above them against the endless depths of stars and space.

"Well, that's a good question. It all depends on what you mean by 
you or me or I."

"I don't understand," said Erwin in a bland way that reminded 
Werner of tripe.

"That's not surprising, most people don't know who or what they 
are or what anything is for that matter."

He stared wistfully off into the distance, which Werner thought a 
bit peculiar for a blind man.

"For instance I wasn't always this shape, in fact if I remember 
correctly I was at one point a seven foot giraffe with wings and 
seventeen eyes who played a mean game of chess, and at another time I 
was a form of edible fungus that was used as a form of money amongst 
Arcturan gnomes and as an entree in their best restaurants, and at 
another point in my existence, if you can call it that, I was large 
computing system for an accounting firm dealing in fraud and tax 
evasion. I'm pretty adaptable."

"I don't understand," said Erwin in an excited way that reminded 
Werner of tripe with custard.

"I can see this may take some explaining," said the blind watch-
maker," you see your genes, the genes that determine your physical 
make-up like how big is your nose or how fast you can run from a Zargle 
ZitWhalloper and so on, well they work on a Darwinian scheme of 
evolution. In my case my genes are a little more sophisticated, they are 
based on a Larmarkian type of evolution, my genes change to suit their 
environment. If there's a change or a pressure in my environment then 
there's a likewise change in my physical make-up to compensate. I am, in 
fact the sum total of evolution from the planet from where I come from. 
Simple really, when you think about it."

"But how does your body know how or when to evolve or change?" 
asked Werner in amazement, his eyebrows doing push-ups with his 
forehead.

"Oh' that's the easiest bit, I tell it. My brain interprets the 
environment, does an extended statistical analysis with a result that  
predicts the best possible shape for my survival and voil, a thousand 
years later I'm something else."

"I see, hey that's cool, I can dig it," said Werner bouncing up and 
down on the spot,"and at the present moment, where are you, sorry 
where are your genes headed?"

"Well at the present moment, I'm actually evolving into a very rare 
species of  Danish lemming."

Werner and Erwin smiled awkardly and painfully tried thinking of 
something that was a little more akin to the reality they had previously 
known.

"Then what are you then? I mean are youI what are you?!" 
whined Erwin."There must be some point at which you can draw a line 
between what you are and what you are not, surely."

"Good question."

"Hey I know, try this for size,"piped up Werner,"how about, you are 
your thoughts, since they seem to be a little more permanent than your 
genes. Your thoughts, your memories are always there, you are what you 
think."

"Not really, I quite often change my mind as well, you know. So the 
thoughts that make up my mind change as well. Also when I remember 
something, it's never in a vacuum but always in connection with 
something else and so how I interpret my memories depends on how I 
feel at the time or what I doing which in turn changes the intrinsic 
meaning of that particular memory."

"How I howI how,"asked Erwin, his voice rising as he did so,"can 
you go on using the word 'I' all the time if you don't know what it means 
for Newton's sake?!"

"That's another good question, Look at it this way," said the blind 
watch-maker." Instead of asking what 'I am', ask what 'I am not'? Where 
do you draw the line between what you are and what you are not, is 
there really any difference between those things which you think are you 
and those things which you think are not?"

"So what are you then?!" Werner yelled in exasperation.

"AhI" came the reply," I don't know, I've never figured it out 
myself, to tell you the truth. But it helps to pass the time-doesn't."

All around them the wind, sand and stars shifted uneasily within 
the endless expanse of the space, as they pondered the great questions of 
existence and being, then the sky farted and it began to rain.

"Look come inside, I'll make you some tea, the watch as well as 
telling the time also has a greasy chip dinner built into it."

Thereupon the three of them went inside to munch on pomfrits 
and donuts and to talk about the weather, having found that the blind 
watch-maker found this to be the only thing left around that had any 
originality in it.

Surprisingly, Erwin and Werner found themselves, as they sat 
around a small wooden table, to be in the presence of a large brown 
gorilla who madly tapped away upon a typewriter seemingly oblivious to 
the two humans and whatever the old man was.

Erwin, who while normally terrified of cute and cuddly animals 
like kittens and ducklings found instead the creature to be tolerable. 
Especially as the beast looked quite cabable of ripping Erwin into shreads, 
just out of sheer boredom.

"Um lookII was wondering,"Werner addressed the old man having 
found the temptation too great to remain silent on the matter," if you 
could tell me what your chimp is doing?"

The ape threw a quizzical look at Werner then went on typing.

"Who?" the old man said in surprise,"William?"

"Is that its name, yes the chimp," replied Werner.

The gorilla looked up again with an expression of annoyance on its 
face.

"Who are you calling a chimp, Neanderthal?" It said with derision 
and then back to its typing. 

Werner coughed uncomfortably for a moment.

"SorryIumII didn't know that you were intelligent."

"His not,"said the old man smiling," It just comes out that way."

"What?" asked Werner.

"He just happens to say the right thing at the right time, it's all 
pure coincidence."

"Rubbish!" cried the gorilla," I know exactly what I'm talking 
about."

The blind old man gestured significantly.

"There you see, right on cue."

"Nonsense," yelped William," I reacting in response to a statement 
made by the human, or supposed human across the table from me. There 
is not the slightest amount of randomness in my speech, I am interacting 
in a purely intellectual fashion with my environment."

"He does it all the time,"continued the old man merrily," it's very 
entertaining."

William jumped up and stormed around the table to grab the blind 
watch-maker by the neck and started shouting at him.

"For the last time, you blithering idiot. I am an intelligent rational 
being. My actions are perfectly consistent with an organized perception 
and coherent world view. I do not fluke what I'm saying!"

At this William sat his rump down on the table and began picking 
through the blind watch-maker's hair for bits of salt.

"Have a look to if his written anything interesting," said the blind 
watch-maker in good humour, obviously enjoying the massage William 
was giving him.

Werner and Erwin got up and walked around to where the 
typewriter was and read the typed sheet.

"Read it out," said the blind watch-maker," I always wanted to 
know why he spends so much time at it."

Erwin drew the sheet out of the machine and read it aloud.

But soft! what light through yonder window breaks?

It is hte bus stop and Juliet is the fan belt


This is supposed to be Shakespeare, isn't   it?" asked Erwin 
frowning in puzzlement, before continuing.


See! how she leans her infrastructre upon her hand 

O! that I were a panda upon that soccer ball,

That I might ozone layer her infrastructure.


"It's crazy!"burst out Werner,"It's Shakespeare in a mental 
institute."

"No it's not!" yelled back William," it's poetic licence!"

"What!" cried Werner staring aghast at William, before Erwin 
continued reading aloud,


O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou two chickens with stir fry?

Deny thy international rate of exchange and refuse thy pancake Or, 
if thou will not, be but a mushroom,

And I'll no longer sell it down the strip.

"After that it breaks into, I don't know what, sort of ;

"wq8andhvfzEPwc'ui]lihgpw850uiojf09wq5mx9yeh9andthe0w9uf0l.u9
0ruw0t09therimc9u90wtugordw50andyofiew09t0fwi[4tpwgmur4r9s;"

"I really can't say, it all a bit chaotic," finished Erwin.

"It's complete drivel!" sneered Werner.

William walked over and picked Werner up by the collar with one 
hand.

"It's Art! Big Nose!"

Werner smiled weakly and nodded his head in agreement as he 
began to suffocate.

"Don't let him bother you, he's really quite harmless, you know," 
said the old man."Except of course when you insult his poetry. Then he's 
liable to rip your arms off."

William dropped Werner on the floor and went back to his typing.

At the sound of typing, the blind old man spoke up again, while 
Werner crawled around on the floor trying to find his breath.

"You see, I once made a bet with him that he couldn't write out the 
entire works of Shakespeare out by guess work."

"Guess work, isn't that a little extreme," said Erwin," I mean Iisn't 
that a little impossible. Shakespeare wrote an awfull lot you know."

 "Impossible, imposible? " said William lifting up his head from the 
keyboard,"No, I wouldn't say that, just very, very bloody  unlikely." Then 
went back to his mad typing.

Erwin picked up another piece of paper and read it aloud.

     "What seest thou else
In the backward and abysm of time
The strain of man's bred out 
Into baboon and monkey
5469465965298+649-2959+
But here upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come.
Thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges."

"Except," said the blind watch-maker staring off into nowhere," for 
the bit in the centre,it's all a lot of nonsense."

"What you mean, the bit with all the numbers in it?" choaked out 
Werner as he pulled himself up to lean againgst the wall.

"Yes, it's quite melodic isn't it?" 

"It is?" said Erwin with a puzzled expression on his simian features.

"Well," spoke up William defensively," I liked jfgojrw."

"What, sorry what did you say?" asked Erwin.

"Don't worry about it," said the blind watch-maker," he gets these 
little glitches from time to time, and nothing seems to make sense."

Werner and Erwin stared at each other helplessly as if expecting 
the other to explain what the hell was going on. 

Werner coughed a little, and leant himself againgst the wall for 
more support. As he did so, one of his arms, pushed down on a black 
plastic lever and suddenly there was a tremendous roaring sound, that 
rattled the room and their bones in symphony.

A moment later, huge sections of the walls slid back to reveal great 
panels of flickering lights and banks of television sets, racked one top of 
each other, each displaying a different view of the thing or wristwatch, 
that housed them, with great sheets of flame expolding out from its base.

"Ignition of primary boosters verified," boomed out a voice.

Werner and Erwin stared at each other in cataonic fear, then Erwin 
put his hands to his head and began running around in tiny circles 
screaming,

"We're going to die! We're going to die!" 
"WhaI"yelled Werner, before his voice was drowned out in the 
growing roar. He spun round to look for William and the Old Man and 
found them simply hiding under the table. He tried to yell at them, but 
found this impossible because of the noise.

The violence of the rocket boosters was so great the typewriter 
began bouncing around the room like a hyperactive kangaroo with shock 
absorbers for legs.

A voice came over a loud speaker system, to scream above the 
deafening tumult.

"WE HAVE LIFT OFF."

Erwin mouthed wordlessly at Werner.

"Bastard!"

Then suddenly, the roof of the diner and all the rest of the wrist 
watch took off and blasted its way into orbit. Leaving Erwin and Werner 
to stare wordlessly after it disappearing into the inky blackness of the 
night.

For a while nobody said anything, they simply stood around 
pretending to be lamp posts. 

Eventually the blind old watchmaker croaked out two short 
words."It's gone."

Werner gulped for air and anything else that was handy.

"ErIyes."

"FourIbillion Iyears of evolutionIstraight down the tube," 
whispered the old man.

Werner's face fell. "UmIsorry, erIlook if you need a watchIhere, 
umIhave mine," said Werner taking off his wristwatch and clumsily 
placing it in the old man's hands. 

The old man bent his neck and quietly fondled his new watch. 

"It's a Rolex, isn't it?" he said.

"Yes," said Werner apprehensively.

"That's nice," he said," I've always wanted a Rolex," he paused and 
didn't say anything for a while, before piping up again. "It's not so bad 
you know. I can always evole myself into Big Ben, I suppose."

And stared off aimlessly into nowhere.


For the rest of the night, the four of them spent their time playing 
charades, this turned out to be a little difficult. As the blind watch-maker 
could never make out what the everybody else was miming and William 
kept doing  movie titles like <Gone With The %unUrkkfcr39p[p,vcgo> and 
<A Bridge Too plokmaketuey>

They carried on their way in the morning, after the blind watch-
maker had pointed out the direction of what he thought to be the next 
civilization in ascendancy and where pretty young girls from another 
universe were likely to be held hostage.

As Werner and Erwin were walking away, Werner turned around 
and called back to the blind watch-maker.

"I sorry, I didn't catch your name?" he yelled out as they reached 
the apex of a distant dune, and on the wind they heard the faint wafting 
reply of,

"C-A-G-A-T-C-T-G-C-C-G-C-T-C-A-T-C-G-T-IIIIII"

Erwin turned to Werner, as they made their way down the  
opposite side of the sand dune. 

"What did he say?"

"I'm not sure, but I think it was his genetic code.

Werner stopped and paused in thought.

"Of course! I'm brilliant! That what he was, he was that part of his 
genetic code that dealt with figuring out what he was supposed to be, that 
was the one thing that didn't change in time."

"What about when he was a giraffe?" asked Erwin, not really 
caring, but because he found life intolerably boring when he didn't have 
anything to say.

"ErI" Werner stopped and stared at Erwin before giving up trying 
to fathom the deeper implications of the Neo-Darwinism and they 
trudged on across the desert.

That evening they eventually came in sight of a large mudded 
fortress, upon which strode a handful of soldiers wearing iron helms 
,tessellated breast plates and carried short curved bows, with which they 
shot arrows at Erwin and Werner as soon as they were in range.

"Bloody 'ell!" yelled Erwin as they ran for cover behind a 
convenient palm tree. Which proved less than convenient when they 
found their bottoms or some other part of their anatomy protruded 
beyond the all too slender trunk of the tree. 

"Yiokkee!" yioked Erwin as another arrow slammed into the bark 
next to his face when he poked his head around for a second look.

"I don't think they like visitors, maybe we should send them a 
letter of introduction first?" quipped Werner.

"How about we just run awayIvery fast," said Erwin in a very 
sincere tone of terror," I mean what if she has relations in there?"

Werner countered by pulling out of his pocket one of the devices 
he had taken from the alien's surfboard. This turned out to be the 
Intergalactic Library Card which he quickly pointed at the battlements 
and pushed a button, only to have a string of library fines burst into 
paper and drift languidly to the ground.

"Ah," said ,"Werner," unless this lot is terrified of librarians, we 
could be in trouble."

At that instant the heavy iron and wood doors to the fortress 
creaked open with maddening slowness. Only to have a horde of mad 
Mesapotamians race out on their horses, firing arrows and blood curdling 
oaths at the two intruders. Who up till then hadn't known how 
excruciatingly painful it was to have ones blood curdled, especially while 
it's still in ones body.

"Do something!"screamed Erwin.

The armoured horsemen began thundering towards them, the blue 
war paint glistening in the heat.

Werner tried once more, as he pulled out the Dehydrated 
Jabberwocky and threw it in the Combined Intergalactic Transmitter and 
Pan Dimensional Dishwasher and punched the wash cycle. The device 
exploded into a front loading washing machine which churned and 
hummed for a few seconds as if confirming with itself what it was 
supposed to do next.

Suddenly the air was filled with a strange terrible sound which 
drifted across the dunes with a deep primeval groan that shook the bones 
of the two loose from their flesh and caused their skin to horripilate 
horribly.

"What is it? What is it?!" screamed Werner.

"It's Bing Crosby!" screamed back Erwin.

Somehow the Combined Intergalactic Transmitter and Pan 
Dimensional Dishwasher had managed to dysfunction magnificently again. 
As the strains of 'I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas' rose up poignantly  
from its glass faced door.

Werner and Erwin looked at each other and moaned.

At that moment the horsemen were upon and around them, the 
leaf shaped spear heads pointing at their throats.Two of the soldiers leapt 
down and quickly bound Erwin and Werner's hands behind their backs 
then grabbed them by the scruff of the neck and threw them over the 
pommels of one of their companions horses. A few sharp jabs at the 
washing machine soon put paid to Bing's rendition by finally putting the 
machine, albeit accidently, into wash cycle, and the horsemen rode back 
to the gates inventing songs of their great valour and daring about how 
they had captured the two white strangers and their singing washing 
machine. 

These songs were latter passed from generation to generation to 
form part of the great oral tradition of ancient Mesapotamia and posed 
such an impossibility to modern day translators that eventually it was 
decided it was all a hoax  comparable to the Piltdown man and a complete 
thousand years of pre-classical history was thrown out of the history 
books.

Inside the gates Erwin and Werner were taken across a courtyard 
and up onto the balcony of one of the buildings. This turned out to be the 
day-court of the king, who at that moment was holding session in the sun, 
sitting on his throne with Margret lying down before him, languishing 
delectably in a loose shift of silk and a white gauze veil embroidered with 
pearls covering her face. Upon her feet gold sandals with silver bells 
tinkled as she idly tapped her foot, behind her a slave girl slowly cooled 
the two with a enormous fan of ostrich feathers.

"Uhhhg" said Werner and Erwin simultaneously, as they were 
thrown to the ground and had a pair of dusty sandals shoved on the back 
of their necks. 

What made it worse was that the sandals had both managed to 
walk through horse droppings on their way across the court yard. Erwin 
had a sneaking suspicion it had been done deliberately, but felt he was in 
no position to argue.

The king spoke.
UO oxmxm NM7@7@7@NMUOmxm1PP? 

he asked.

Werner, though he was a little rusty on a language so dead as to be 
positively fossilized, managed a reply.
~~~48"]~_FGHHJz`"

Werner grunted as bested he could.

The king, though a little mystified at first seemed to accept this 
and motioned for them to stand up. Which they did so with some alacrity 
as they were grabbed by the neck and hauled up before having the blade 
of a sword pressed against their throats.

"What are they going to do?" Erwin forced out.

"Hopefully they'll boil you in oil," said Margret with some 
satisfaction, swaying slightly on her elbow as she quaffed something from 
a gold cup, which smelled distinctly of alcoholic milk and honey." Though 
really I should be grateful to you two idiots for accidently bringing me 
here. The king here, Ozymandias," the king grinned at hearing his name," 
or Ozzie as everybody calls him here. Ozzie  seems to think I'm best the 
thing since fermented camels milk, so watch it!"

She finished, by jerking her head back in a manner which was 
supposed to be disdainful but only succeeded in spilling some of the 
koumiss down the front of her dress. 

"What!" Werner yelled, slightly annoyed at her response," We've 
just tramped halfway across the Sahara Desert, attacked by wild animals, 
nearly vaporized by intercontinental ballistic missiles and finally taken 
on the entire Babylonian Riot Squad,  to come and rescue you. And all you 
can do is lie around and get smashed on goats milk!IWhat sort of thanks 
is that? Surely you don't want to stay here for ever, what about your job 
at Gigafords, what about the union?!"

Margret looked down her particurly pretty nose at Werner.

"Are you kidding !  Ozzie wants to make me his queen. Shop 
assistants don't usually make it to queens and they certainly don't live 
like queens on the pay I get. No way matey, I'm here and I'm staying 
here."

For a moment Werner was completely taken aback, then he 
exploded in a torrent of oaths.

"Of all the ungrateful, self-centred, egotistical, stupid, half-brained, 
simplistic, dimwitted idiots that I've ever had the misfortune to come 
across, you would have to be without doubtI" and Werner rambled on for 
several minutes before running out of breath.

Margret swayed slightly on her arm, quite taken aback by 
Werner's ranting, then twisted her head round to the king behind her and 
said curtly.

"Cut off his head."

"What!!" yelled Erwin and Werner.

"Cut off both their heads."

The king, having seen the conversation drag on for too long, gave 
an order to this effect to his deputies,

P p m m 

? ,said his captain.

@ ,repeated the king.

"I don't like the look of that last symbol," said Werner 
apprehensively.


Meanwhile, outside the fort the washing machine had completed its 
rinse cycle. Whereupon the machine began to rock from side to side as 
deep primeval groans sounded from within the device. Suddenly the door 
burst wide open, and the body of some strange creature erupted out of it 
backwards. It was covered in great black scales and had a long whipping 
tail that lashed from side to side, a pair of gigantic bat wings thrashed 
about to knock against the palm tree. The two long and spindly legs 
ended in savage sharp nails which raked the ground with uncontrolable 
vehemence, as its horrific arms with their even more horrific claws 
slashed at the washing machine which sat twisted and writhed upon the 
end of its long sinuous neck, having remained caught upon the head of 
the terrible Jabberwocky.

Also, for reasons which were best known to itself, it wore a natty 
little green vest with the words 'Teddy Loves Bunny' sewn into the lapel.

Suddenly the beast, after reaching its neck back as far as it could, 
jerked its head forward, throwing the washing machine up over the 
parapets of the fortress, to reveal the nightmarish head of the beast of 
darkness.

Its eyes were milky white with flame and hideous like ping-pong 
balls dipped in molasses which swiveled grotesquely in their orbits above 
the huge parrot beak incisors of the teeth from which green slime 
dripped in two putrescent streams on either side of its gaping mouth.

The creature lifted up its head upon the long sinuous neck to  stare 
uffishly at the fortress, snickering and snackering its beak-like teeth as it 
did so. 

The sentries after first catching sight of the washing machine sail 
over the wall and then this extraordinary creature detonate itself into 
existence immediately began immigrating to Iceland, leaving the fort to 
defend itself.

Inside, the washing machine screamed in like a dive bomber 
bounced across a roof onto the kings open air court before flattening the 
guard who was just about to turn Erwin into diced salami. Whereupon the 
machine promptly turned back into a post war radio with a sense of 
humour as Bing Crosby started up again.

With blinding speed Erwin rolled onto his feet, grabbing the 
dropped sword as he did so and with a short step crumped his fist, 
weighted with the sword, into the back of the head of the soldier about to 
skewer Werner. Erwin kept moving around the falling figure to bounce 
off the balls of his feet and throw his shoulder into the chest of the third 
guard and as they tumbled to the ground gave him a sharp chop to throat 
which floored him.

Erwin made straight for the king who was just on the edge of 
throwing a spear at Erwin's head. Erwin half crouched as he ran up the 
steps, jumping over the reclining Margret, jolting from foot to foot as he 
moved, twisting to one side as the spear blade whizzed through the air, 
scoring a thin red line along his back to smack into the washing machine, 
effectively turning it off. Erwin grunted in acknowledgement to the pain 
but kept moving to finally slam himself head first into the stomach of the 
king, knocking him back into the throne. Whereupon the two of them 
toppled back over the chair to lie in a sprawled mess behind the throne. 
Then grabbing the king by the ponytail at the back of his head, Erwin 
pulled back him onto the dais and poised the blade at the kings throat, 
while the rest of the court ran screaming from the room, as a terrifying 
shriek pierced the air, heralding the arrival of the Jabberwocky.

The great leathery wings of the beast snapped and flapped as the 
Jabberwocky bounced ungainly to a halt upon the parapet. It paused for a 
moment, then lashed out with a claw to catch a soldier around the waist 
and dragging him screaming towards it, its green spittle splattered the 
man as the beast gave out an insane primeval shriek and buried its teeth 
in the man's chest.

Erwin dropped the king, raced down the steps to lift up Margret by 
an arm and a moment later pushed Werner towards the low wall of the 
court's terrace. Pulling the cube out of his pocket as he did so and bowling 
it over the edge. 

The Jabberwocky dropped the soldier to the ground, its green 
putrescent slime mixing the violent red of the man's blood. It swung its 
head around for a second till seeing the retreating figures, raced forward 
on its two legs towards the three, using its wings for propulsion and its 
horrific clawed arms for crutches.

The three stood at the wall for a moment, then toppled over as 
Erwin grabbed them around the waists and pulled them over.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" they screamed, as the head of the 
Jabberwocky snaked over the parapet screeching behind them, sliding 
through the air behind them. 

They fell into the time crystal lying on the ground into the 
nothingness beyond, but the head of the Jabberwocky still came after 
them, the long neck whipping in past the crystal arms, through the open 
door. The beast's foul breath polluting the air as it opened its jaws, 
screeching as it did so and just as it was about to crunch its way into 
Erwin's torso, the door snickered shut, neatly incisoring off the head of 
the Jabberwocky.





Chapter Ten

His mind is open; yes it is so open that nothing is retained; 

ideas simply passed through him.

        Francis Herbert Bradley.

Thoughts stalked through his mind like pink elephants on stilts, as 
Albert stared morosely at the rain pouring down out of the drainpipe into 
the canal.

He sat, wedged on the steps leading down to a canal beneath a 
bridge, above him a sign was chiseled in white marble into the wall of a 
building saying PONTE DE L'OSPEDALETO, Albert had translated this to 
mean -Point Of The Speeding Two Beers-, and while he realized this 
didn't make very much sense: his newly developed affection for beer 
wouldn't let him consider otherwise. 

Albert sat wearing his borrowed overcoat and a depressed 
expression, while the sky fell in great chunks of water on top of him. 

He had been there for several hours already, having found that 
once he got used to the lung sucking damp, the bone numbing chill and 
the overwhelmingly depressing darkness of the canal: that life was about 
as miserable as it could get and the only way to survive was to pretend it 
wasn't happening.

He was pondering the problem of the missing cat and the 
misbehaving universe, or the big 'U' as everybody seemed to be calling it 
nowadays, which lay as the cause of his present predicament and 
whether he could try surfing in the canal. 

He felt sure he could solve the problem, provided he could give it a 
painstaking analysis; intense experimentation and a bottle of gin, none of 
which was at hand. And he wasn't sure where he could get a surfboard 
from: at this end of the universe.

This left him exactly as he had started, nowhere in particular-and 
what was worse-not anywhere in general.

The rain fell out of the sky, washing the city, turning into water as 
it hit the roofs of the  buildings and rushing down the red terra-cotta tiles 
before again changing into drain-water, as it poured through the 
drainpipe to dive head first into the canal in front of Albert, churning up 
the water with a profusion of effervescent playful bubbles which joyfully 
gurgled, guggled and gobboly-bobbely foamed about, chortling in the 
froth.    

A thought bubbled up through the brain of Albert into his mind, 
that great extended, reticulated, neurological, system of religious beliefs, 
scientific facts and sexual fantasies. He wondered if by only looking at the 
large bubbles of a particular size, the apparently random motion of the 
bubbles would become an ordered system. Well, not really an ordered 
system, more like a bunch of bubbles floating around on top of a canal, 
but he had to start somewhere. 

The bubbles-he thought-would form and move at regular intervals 
across the surface of the canal in a way that was not apparent when lost 
in the confusion of all the other bubbles.

He thought intensely, before muttering to himself,

"A-ha, so how I look at the world, determines how I understand 
the world, and if I expect to find something and it's there then I will find 
it, but if I don't expect to find something then unless it jumps up and  hits 
me square between the eyes and forces me to notice it, then I won't 
notice it."

His brain went on hold for a second while he sneezed.

"Ah-choo!"

Then as it came back on-line, an idea jumped up above all the 
normal noise in his brain that dealt with water, cold and surfboards to 
shout out like a clarion from his subconsciousness,

-Something is only obvious when it's obvious,-then paused again ,-
but that's obvious!-

It was like a chess board with all the pieces splayed over the 
squares in random. It was random because one looks at a chess board in a 
particular way, with a chess mind and through the squares so if one 
changed the shape of the squares then the pieces would fall into the right 
relationship to each from the point of view of a chess game. 

Admittedly, the board would look like it had been designed by 
Heriomous Bosch and anybody playing would develop an swift case of 
schizophrenia. 

He mused to himself, and finding musing to be such a nice feeling 
that he kept on doing it, since it was the only nice thing that had 
happened to him since he had arrived. In fact, he found it such a nice 
feeling he decided to muse aloud.

"Suppose I measure it , like the number of pawns per square?"

It seemed to make sense. 

On the other hand anybody whose last meal was a carton of beer, 
has been thrown out of several gondolas and marooned in an alien 
universe: is entitled to start believing in some pretty odd things.

He wondered what would happen if he made the squares bigger 
and fewer so they still took up all the space on the board. 

The thought startled him, it meant the pieces would be clumped 
together or they would be ordered in a different way further still. If fact, 
if he made the board one big square it would be completely ordered, 
there would be no chaos at all.

"Bingo!" he cried. Then frowned as he realized that what he had 
just thought, had absolutely no relevance to the problem he was trying to 
solve."Bugger!"

He didn't understand, that was his problem: he didn't understand 
the problem. 

In fact there didn't seem to be one, if only he could find the right 
question to which he already knew the answer then everything would be 
okay. 

That was a problem. In fact, come to think of it, he wasn't quite 
sure what questions and answers were supposed to be anyway. 

That was another problem. 

He knew, they were made of words, that was clear enough and 
when you put words together you got sentences, that was grammar. 

-Fair enough-

But the instant he stepped outside his head, and wondered what all 
the laws of grammar and physics were supposed to mean then things 
started to get pretty murky, if not a down right pitch black nightmare. 

That was the problem. 

He knew words were supposed to stand for things like traffic 
lights, chickens and super novas and when you put them together you got 
ideas. But the ideas were not the things themselves, he was supposed to 
be thinking about, in fact from the point of view of the objects they were 
meant to represent, they didn't mean anything at all, in fact they meant 
so little: he wondered if the very meaning of meaning had any meaning.

It was only when he thought about them as all the words and 
pictures in his mind came together and buzzed about in brain like a 
personal computer just after somebody had shoved a micro-wave 
through its screen, that they actually meant anything.

That was the problem. 

He knew when he touched something it was there. Because he had 
touched it. But afterwards when he remembered it, he wasn't so sure. He 
knew he could remember what happened but he couldn't be sure if what 
he remembered was what had had happened because what he 
remembered could be wrong. He knew it could be wrong because he 
could remember it being wrong on several occasions. 

Which was a problem, because what if his memory of that memory 
was wrong.

That was the problem. 

What he thought, was not the universe itself, it was just a picture 
of the universe. To anybody or anything else his pictures were just a 
confused blob of grey matter, pink matter and ecstatic electricity. 

From this his brain took a very small leap of imaginative 
speculation by letting his imagination take over the steering wheel of 
consciousness and began thinking of all the universes that constituted 
this universe and realized that by taking the proper framework of 
reference or set of ideas that are the mesh through which we perceive 
the universe we are able I

Every few minutes a tourist would stop and take a photograph of 
Albert sitting beneath the bridge, under the impression he was one of the 
old Venicians. Who having been thrown out of their ancestral home who 
was comtemplating the end of Venice and life itself. Among these, was a 
hot shot Time-Life photographer who in a moment of artistic zeal, shot off 
an entire roll of film: just of Albert sitting in the rain staring at the canal. 
His editor, later, was so impressed with these, that the magazine ran an 
entire article based solely on them, entitled <The Last Venician>. This in 
turn brought a horde of television cameras and crews from the world 
press rushing to Venice, to search for months through the canals and 
thousand year old villas in the vain hope of finding the Last Venician and 
interviewing him, causing no end of trouble amongst the real Venicans. 
Furthermore, an emergency fund was started up by a group of rock 
singers, calling themselves VenAidIum, who also traveled from around 
the world to met the Last Venician. Upon arriving, they found the city so 
appealing, so fascinating that they immediately bought up half a dozen of 
the few thousand year old villas which still housed some of the few real 
Venicians, kicking them into the canal and turning the villas into 
recording studios for displaced lama herdsmen from Ecuador. These in 
turn wandered around the city singing love songs to their Ecuadorian 
Lamas,who now freely gamboled amongst the mountains of Ecuador, no 
longer having to worry about oversexed Ecuadorians any more.

The solution lay before Albert like a well eaten four course dinner, 
nothing but bones, burps and insolent satisfaction, as three separate ideas 
suddenly sprang into his mind and came together to create a whole new 
idea in itself.

-When I measure something in atomic physics like the state of an 
atom, then depending on how I measure it and what I measure it with, 
will determine the state in which it exists, and when a planet moves 
through space it warps the space it moves in and the space around it at 
the same time affects the motion of the planet itself, and how my mind 
works when I view the world determines what I will see in the world 
and what I consider the world to be, which is equally balanced by the 
actual world in which I live in-

Suddenly he realized, that all these three things, were really the 
same thing but just at a different level in the world, he froze and thought 
very clearly and distinctly.

-What if they were the same thing, what if all those little laws that 
exist at the very bottom of the laws of universe reached up into the real 
world and affect the way I think and live, what if I was such an 
indesoulvable part of the universe that there really was no such thing as 
I, rather there is an just an 'i' which is just a part of the universe,like the 
laws and the atoms and the universe itself-

A deep oceanic feeling swept across the soul of Albert as he felt 
himself caught up with the flow of the universe and let himself become 
one with the pulse of the existence. The rain, he believed, no longer to 
held a vendetta against him, appearing to fall lighter with a glowing 
translucent quality that made his heart race with a strange emotion. It 
was as if there were no longer a barrier between himself and Venice, as if 
he had became one with the city, its rain and its eons of captured time, 
frozen into the stone work like a modern gargoyle, a man in perfect 
stillness.

When suddenly, a drunken gondolier drifted out from beneath the 
bridge and threw half a pizza at Albert's face, knocking him onto his back 
in shock.

"Whhaaa!!"

He stared at the pizza splattered across his mackintosh with stringy 
bits of cheese and red sardines.

"Yuk!"

"Scuzi Signore," called the gondolier as he drifted away.

This brought Albert  back to reality, and in short he realized that 
what he had just thought about the universe, made about as much sense, 
as giving a frontal lobotomy to a manic depressive Christmas pudding.

Albert paused as he tasted the pizza and found it to be pepperoni 
and sardine, then spat it out when he remembered he hated sardines, 
especially when encrusted with soggy pastry and stale olives.

He looked up from the bottom of the universe, at the black, 
turbulent clouds which rolled unceasingly across the terrible abyss of the 
infinite, masking the face of the sky. The universe became a dark, 
brooding place, a sombre unrelenting tenseness creeping through the 
space between the earth and nothingness beyond, as the silent visage of 
the great unknown stared down upon the littleness of man and his deeds.

Albert drew the coat about himself and wondered about the cat. 
Perhaps, he thought, it was a meta-physical cat, it was only there when 
you didn't look. In which case, it was a bit like dimples: you noticed them 
not because they was something there but rather there wasn't.

Albert liked dimples. He especially liked Margret's dimples, 
although he wasn't too hot on Margret herself: as she had a tendency to 
open her mouth and hold unending monologues on how unimportant he 
was. Even so, of all her dimples, he most  especially liked the cute little 
ones  on her cheeks, that spontaneously plimped into being existence 
every time she smiled. In fact, Margret had dimples in the most amazing 
of places, she had only to pin her hair up and quiet little dimples would 
pop into existence on her shoulders then disappear again a moment later. 
Albert wondered for a moment where Margret's shoulders began and 
where her dimples ended: but decided he would rather just think about 
Margret's body. 

Suddenly, another thought bludgeoned its way into Albert's brain, 
like a refrigerator falling out of the blue into his living room and crushing 
the pet dog.

-It was the observation that allowed the universe to exist, not the 
laws that were the universe-

Albert began picking pieces of the pizza off his mackintosh and 
throwing them into the canal, as he did so his train of thoughts kept on 
inexorably to their conclusion.

-Life,-he thought,-is so wrapped up in the meaning of existence 
that life can't easily distinguish its own meaning from any absolute 
meaning, except by stepping outside the process of life into the cold 
severed lifelessness of logic and becoming as detached as the laws it was 
trying to understand, but in doing so it loses the very meaning of the 
pursuit itself-

Suddenly, a large police boat slid to a halt in front of him and a 
small gesticulating police officer with a megaphone yelled at him through 
it." Don't throw rubbish in the canals!" then raced off to catch the 
gondolier.

Albert ignored him and went on throwing, polluting the canal and 
following his thoughts.

-The universe, my universe, only exists in my mind; and when and 
only when I do something like stubbing my toe or get assailed by a pizza, 
does it actually exist in any real sense, only then can I be sure of my 
world-

The past might be the past, but it was only a memory and the 
universe was the now. So when his brain shut down like in extreme 
moments of intoxication, sleep or reruns of that classic movie -Bengi 
Takes On Rambo- , then the universe ceased to exist. 

He knew that, because he wasn't around to watch it. 

Indeed the more he thought about it the more it seemed just like 
that limerick that Neils had once taught him.

    There once was a man who said 'God

    Must think it exceedingly odd,

        If he finds that this tree

        Continues to be

    When there's no one about in the Quad.'

He let the words roll over and over in his mind till he got quite 
dizzy and nearly fell over again. 

The rain continued to trickle invidiously down his collar and onto 
his collar bones and there after a brief consultation with the hairs and the 
collagen on his shoulders collaborated to form pretty collages of damp 
splotches on his overcoat.

It wasn't what you observed, but who you were, that mattered.

Albert closed his eyes, shutting them hard and tried holding a 
point of view where he was still in his home universe dating that cute 
little sales girl from Gigafords with the turned up nose and the dimples, 
whom he would probably propose to one day if he could ever summon up 
the courage and catch this damned cat.

Unfortunately, when he opened his eyes nothing had happened, 
beyond the world being a little wetter, the canal seemed deeper and the 
flu which had been incubating in his lungs suddenly giving vent to voice,

"Ah-choo!"

Suddenly, there arose bubbling out of the murky water, in front of 
Albert, what appeared to be a metal box stuck on a pipe with a glass 
window.

Albert stared at this, while it stared back at him.

"It's a periscope," said Albert numbly.

Immediately the canal erupted in a boiling mass of surging water, 
as out of the depths the long unmistakable metal superstructure of a 
submarine burst onto the surface.

Albert clawed his way back towards the wall behind him, both 
amazed and terrified at the possibilities of the situation arising before 
him.

A few moments later the hatches of the submarine broke open 
with a loud metallic crash and half a dozen strange men in black and 
white striped shirts and funny hats came careening out of them, leapt 
across onto the canal bank screaming, 

"Viva Venicia!,Viva Venicia!"

They pinned Albert to the ground, handcuffed him behind the back 
before blindfolding him and carrying him bodily to the submarine and 
dropping him unceremoniously down one of the hatches to land on his 
head, with the instant effect of knocking him outIcold.


Albert awoke with a loud ringing in his head and a bowl of 
spaghetti bolognaise on his stomach." Oh, my head!" he moaned with 
considerable conviction, before looking around to see where he was.

Before him sat a somewhat nervous young man cradling what 
appeared to be a very large bazooka, which interestingly enough was 
trained on Albert. The young man, seeing Albert was awake, quickly lent 
across to the bulkhead of the cabin and operated an intercom."The tourist 
is awake!" he shouted, before picking up the bazooka and pointing it at 
Albert's head.

Albert froze. This he found was his only possible option, as he had 
been bound hand and foot with an amazing amount of rope, so much so, 
that he could no longer make out where his body was supposed to be, so 
hidden was it in the coils of rope.

The door of the cabin dramatically burst open and Albert caught a 
glimpse of a tall dark man in a striped shirt and an angry expression on 
his face, before the door bounced back off the bulkhead and slammed 
shut again.

"Aieeee!" screamed a voice behind the door and there was an 
interesting  silence for a few moments before the door was cautiously 
opened again.

The man stood leaning for support against the door frame, as he 
gripped his nose from which blood dripped down through his hand on the 
deck.

The tall man tried to walk into the cabin and stare angrily at 
Albert, but managed to crack his head on the top of the door frame as he 
did so.

"Aieeee!" he screamed for the second time, and for a few moments 
stomped uncertainly about on the spot before sitting down heavily on a 
wooden box and glared at Albert.

For several minutes nobody spoke, as the tall man waited for the 
bleeding to stop as he held a handkerchief against his nose.

"So Tourist," the tall man spoke finally with derision,"how do you 
like Venice?"

"Venice,"answered Albert, realizing for the first time what city he 
was in," is this Venice?'

"What?"the tall man jumped up and instantly bumped his head on 
the steel ceiling.

"Aieeee!" he screamed once more, and jumped across the cabin to 
kick Albert in the shins.

Unfortunately, as he did so, his foot caught in the coils of rope that 
bound up Albert, and became stuck there. So for half a minute, the tall 
man ranted and foamed trying to free his foot.

"Damn Tourists!," he yelled at the top of his voice finally releasing 
his foot. Then span on the spot and tried to tear the bazooka free from 
the grasp of the young man and bring it to bear on Albert.

"No! No!," cried the young man," you'll kill us all!" Before managing 
to wrest it out of the tall man's grip and hold the him at arms length.

"Ci!" said the tall man curtly, then turned again to Albert and held 
the handkerchief to his nose, as the dripping blood had started again.

He stared viciously at Albert for what seemed to Albert to be an 
age, then stormed out of the cabin. As he did so, his foot tripped on the 
foot of the cabin door and he fell bodily across the hall way to crack his 
temple against the bulkhead on the other side of the passage way.

This time he slumped to the deck and fell unconscious.

"Capitain! Capitain!"cried the young man unsure whether to assist 
the tall captain or blow up the prisoner.

"Are you alright, my Capitain?"

Eventually, this was meet by a low groan as the tall man slowly 
lifted himself off the deck, turned over and drew his back up to rest 
against the bulkhead.

A large bruise was forming around the cut on his temple, he now 
held the handkerchief upon this, so that one eye peeped out from 
underneath to glare defiantly at Albert.

"So Tourist you think, you can jest with the Venician Front for 
Liberation," said the tall man, his voice wavering slightly with the shock.

"What Venician Front for Liberation ?" asked Albert before he 
realized this was the wrong thing to say.

"What!" cried the tall man and attempted to stand up, only to sink 
back down again, obviously feeling too woozy to try anything else.

"What,"he said quietly," have you never heard of the V.F.L.?"

Albert thought for a moment before replying.

"NoIumIsorry, I don't think I have to tell you the truth."

The tall man stared amazed at Albert.

"What? Never? Not even once?"

"No," Albert shook his head timidly.

"But everybody has heard of the V.F.L.,"the tall man said with 
astonishment," we're the ones freeing Venice from the dreaded tourists," 
then with a flourish of a hand," We are theIGuerilla Gondoliers!"

"ErIsorry I've don't think I've heard of the Guerilla Gondoliers."

The tall man groaned for a moment.

"Very well Signore,"he said wearily," you are now the hostage of 
the Venician Front for Liberation, and here you shall remain our hostage 
until the rest of the Tourists leave our sacred city or we decide to kill 
you," the tall man said deliciously."Which ever comes first."

Albert baulked considerably when he heard this.

"But I'm not a tourist! I'm just a philosophy post-grad! I didn't 
even know Venice had been invaded. This isn't even my universe, for 
Newton's Sake!"

The tall man smiled weakly, this may have been due to an 
inclination not to believe Albert or simply loss of blood.

"Signore, what do you mean -this isn't your universe- of course it's 
your universe, what other universe could it be and who the hell is this 
Newton?"

"No, seriously," spluttered Albert," I never been to this city before 
a few days ago. I really am from another universe."

The two guerilla gondoliers glanced quickly at each other.

"You're from another universe?"

"Yes,"began Albert," I'm trying to catch a cat, so I can save my 
universe from falling apart."

He then launched into his story for the next half an hour while the 
Captain and the young man listened opened mouthed to the ever so 
slightly unbelievable sequence of events.

When he had finished there was an interesting silence. That was so 
interesting that Albert began to sweat.

"I see," said the tall gondolier who by now had made his way back 
into the cabin and was perched like a predatory bird on top of the 
wooden box again.

"Il Pazo Cazo!" cried the young man, Albert interpreted this to 
mean crazy, which he thought was a fair enough comment, since he 
himself was starting to disbelieve his own story as well.

"Ci" The tall man said  quietly and stood up. As he did so he drew 
from behind his back a long black sinister knife and advanced with it on 
Albert.

"No! Please I'm telling the truth!Please don't!" screamed Albert as 
the tall man grabbed Albert by the shoulder and in one swift slicing 
motion slashed the ropes holding AlbertIsetting him free.

"Oh no! I'm dying,"cried Albert, as his life flashed before his eyes, 
or at least those bits of his life which he had always considered 
important, but on seeing the rerun he quickly concluded they were so 
boring; that he wondered why he had ever bothered being born in the 
first  place. And made a quick mental note to think about something more 
juicy the next time he lost his life.

Albert flopped helplessly about on the deck desperately trying to 
staunch what he thought to be his blood and intestines torn from his 
insides to be spilt across the cabin like a plate full of stewed tomatoes but 
was in actual fact the bowl of spaghetti  bolognaise that had been sitting 
on his stomach the entire time.

"Tell MargretII would have marriedIher," he said faintly, as he 
drew what he imagined to be his last breath. He sobbed. Then he stopped 
sobbing when he realized dead people do not sob: they're too busy being 
dead.

"Signore?"asked the tall gondolier in a puzzled tone," Are you 
alright Signore?"

Albert looked down at his stomach then rose unsteadily to his feet-
still clutching his stomach-in case anything else should happen to fall out.

"Yes I yes, I think soIbit of a shock that's all."

"That's good," said the tall gondolier quickly," now follow me, if you 
please."

At this he swept out of the cabin and stormed along the corridor 
with his young lieutenant in train. Albert wavered for a moment then 
chased after them.

They had not far to go,  bobbing and weaving their way along the 
submarine's corridor till they came to its bridge. Here the tall gondolier 
turned and ordered them to stay where they were, before disappearing 
further down the ship's tunnels.

Albert stood in the doorway and watched with amazement as the 
crew frantically ran around trying to bring order to the  over crowded 
bridge ripping open wooden boxes and hauling out strange metal objects 
and in a set of intricate manoeuvres connecting them all together then 
putting the now connected metal objects into larger wooden boxes.

Albert turned to his delinquent terrorist and asked him for an 
explanation.

"Pasta machines," said the young guard.

"Pasta machines?"shot back Albert.

"Ci, we make pasta machines for a business.It is how we pay for 
our glorious struggle to free Venice from the infidel pig dog tourist."

Then spat on the floor in contempt.

"Are there many pasta machine factories where you come from 
Signore?" continued the youthful killer gondolier.

"What?" Albert said slightly dazed," No , hardly any at all, not 
many cats eitherII thought this was supposed to be a submarine?"

"Ci Signore."

"But pasta machines?!"

 "Ci, but you know a buck is a buck."

Suddenly a klaxon rang out harshly and the entire crew ran to the 
action stations in a flurry of motion. Albert saw the tall gondolier come 
stomping back towards them, occasionally cracking his head on the 
bulkhead or on an errant pasta machine. He stopped at the periscope and 
turned to a crew member.

"Up periscope!" he yelled out.

The smooth steel cylinder surged up out of the floor as its handles 
dropped away from the side and cracked onto his jaw.

"Aieeee!!" he screamed out and held himself against the periscope 
as he waited for the pain to subside.

"Is he always this unlucky?" Albert asked his guard in amazement.

"Ci Signore, he is the most unluckiest gondolier in the world. Every 
gondola he has ever had has sunk beneath him."

"You're kidding, then why is he captain of the submarine?"

"Signore," the young guard smiled," it is not possible to sink a 
submarine."

Albert saw a vague logic in this but it was so vague that he didn't 
see any point in pursuing it.

"Full steam ahead!" yelled out the gondolier captain.

A head popped out from behind Albert in the doorway and yelled 
back with a Scottish accent." Captain, we are an electric submarine not 
steam, you've got to say 'All Ahead Full' not 'Full Steam Ahead'." 

The head popped back and disappeared, as the captain looked 
around to glare at Albert believing him to be his heckler, then returned 
his eye to the lens.

Suddenly a tremendous screeching howl shook the vessel and 
everybody was thrown forward to collapse into little piles of huddled 
masses of people, which crawled around on the steel deck making painful 
little 'err' noises or digging their way out of pasta machines.

"What happened?" cried Albert.

"We have run aground Signore," said the young lieutenant.

"In a canal?!" asked Albert in astonishment.

"Aiieeeeeeee!!!" a voice screamed out and somewhat to Albert's 
expectation it was the Captain of the Gondoliers. Who, at the moment the 
submarine had grounded to a halt had had his eye resting upon the 
periscope's eyepiece. He jumped up and on the spot, stood still for a 
second, jumped up and down again, looked around for somebody he could 
hit, chanced upon Albert who was still struggling to his feet then raced 
over and started laying into him.

"Damn Tourists! Damn you all!" he screamed as his fists railed onto 
Albert. 

Albert cringed against a large metal box that went 'ping' ever time 
he bumped it with his shoulder, then on its seventh knock began 
sounding  very loudly.

"BongIbongIbongI,"it  boomed out as if it were Big Ben being held 
hostage by the Irish navy.

The entire crew froze and stared at the machine while the Captain 
of the Gondoliers continued to hammer away at Albert.

"The Bomb!" they cried with a single voice and madly raced out of 
bridge like a pack of canal rats.

The Captain stopped pounding into Albert and looked at the empty 
space where his crew used to be, then looked at Albert and  stared wide 
eyed at the bomb: which was still sounding off.

"Aieeee! The bomb! It is alive! The Atom Bomb!" he screamed.

Albert jumped up, stared at the bomb and started screaming too, 
so that both of them just stood there for about five minutes doing nothing 
but screaming.

"AieeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeI"

Eventually Albert stopped and grabbed the Captain by the 
shoulders and shook him.

"What do we do? How do we stop it?"

"What? You mean Stop the Bomb?!"

The Captain in turn grabbed Albert by the shoulders and shook 
him.
"What do we do? How do we stop it?"

"I just asked you that!" Albert yelled back in frustration.

"I don't care, I've got to ask somebody."

"Don't you know how it works, how do you turn it off?"

"Turn it off?"

"Yes, you mindless blithering half witted imbecilic cretin of a 
deranged gondolier! How do you turn it off?!"

"There's no need to get personal, you know," sniffed the Captain.

"What!!" Albert screamed and lunged himself at the gondolier, 
grabbing him by the throat and tackling him to the ground, before 
smashing his fists repeatedly into the Captain's face.

"You Bastard! You absolute Bastard!"sobbed Albert as he let fly 
with his fists,"I'm trying to save a universe and all you can do is blow up 
Venice and feel insulted!"

"Blow up Venice?" said the Captain in surprise, before throwing 
Albert to one side and sitting up.

"Blow up I my beautiful city I Venice?" the gondolier whispered 
softly, as Albert collapsed sobbing to one side. 

The tall gondolier stood up and stepped towards the bomb, it went 
on booming away like a trumpet sounding the end of the world. He knelt 
down, to peer at the row of buttons and lights that were flashing on and 
off upon the control panel. Uncertainly, he pushed a large green friendly 
button marked 'ignition'.

Instantly, a piercing howl erupted from the bomb, deafening 
Albert and the Gondolier, as a tape recorded voice started in the 
background, saying.

"This thermonuclear device will self-destruct in five seconds."

"4."

"3."

"Stop," said the Captain.

"2."

"Stop It!" he screamed.

"1."

He grabbed the machine with both hands and banged  his head 
against it as hard as he could.

"ZerI."

"STOP!!"

Surprisingly, it did.


Outside, the rain was pelting down with amazing violence, making 
it near impossible to see more than a hundred metres. Albert had 
climbed up the ladder into the coning tower, through the open hatch, to 
peer about himself in the rain. The sky hammered down so hard as to 
give physical pain to anybody standing in it. Lifting his hand to shield his 
eyes from the onslaught, he saw to his amazement that the city streets 
were awash with the sea and Venice was flooded. Albert realized with 
even greater disbelief, where the submarine had beached itself.

The submarine was grounded in, of all places I St Marks Square. 

Albert, having left the tall gondolier captain slumped beside the 
bomb to fend for himself, followed the crew up out of the submarine into 
the rain. As he stood on the deck, he saw to his consternation the entire 
Venician Police Force surrounding the submarine, busily in the process of 
arresting its crew, and armed to the teeth with sub-machine guns and 
umbrellas.

"Ah-choo!"Albert sneezed, before slipping off the deck and 
tumbling into the water below, to find himself hip deep in clean, salt 
water.

"YOU!" boomed out a loud speaker,"COME HERE!"

Albert peered again, across the sheet of water upon which 
drummed the leaden sky, and saw the unmistakable hulk of the police 
detective who had interviewed him the day before. Albert gulped and 
made his way through to the back of the hordes of policemen over to the 
detective, splashing his way across the great squares of black and white 
that lay beneath the water in the square.

"Hello Sergeant," yelled Albert in the tone of somebody who is 
about to spend the next four hundred years of their life in solitary 
confinement.

"You!" the huge detective yelled back, finally confirming it was 
Albert who stood before him in the rain."HowI?"

Then gave up and shook his head.

"You're under arrest, don't ask what for, I don't know yet, maybe 
we'll even invent something just for you. Hell! How about parking a 
submarine in the middle of Saint Mark's Square, Yeah! That's it!"

At this he placed his hand on Albert's shoulder and in a deep voice 
suitable for the occasion.

"Sir, I arrest you in the name of the Vencian State. For the grievous 
and heinous crime of parking a submarine in the middle of Saint Mark's 
Square. Anything thaIwhat the fuI"

As he looked beyond Albert to stare at the submarine. On top of 
which now stood the tall gondolier captain holding a large black metal 
box, faintly yelling.

"Viva Venicia, Viva Venicia!"

Albert turned and stared as well.

"Oh Newton! He's got the bomb!" Albert cried.

"What?" said the detective and pulled back his fist, as if 
considering punching Albert, just for the hell of it.

"It's a bomb, a nuclear bomb."

"Did you say nuclear, like in radioactive?" yelled the detective, a 
look of amazement swept across his face.

"Yes, exactly."

The detective frowned. The last four days had not been easy, what 
with missing cats, psychopathic car tires, lunatics from another planet, an 
armoured submarine beaching itself in the middle of Venice and now he 
had some crazy gondolier with an atomic bomb. If fact, to say the 
detective was having a pleasant time, was like saying Julius Caesar had a 
great day on the Ides of March. The detective longed for the good old 
days, when all he had to do was beat the living crap out of people.

"Stay here," he barked at Albert, and then in his heavy overcoat 
splashed away through the flood to the deranged gondolier. 

Albert watched the police detective wade his way across the 
square to the submarine. He realized, that now, in the very capable hands 
of the detective: everything was going to be alright. The gondolier's would 
be arrested, the bomb would be defused and Albert would spend the rest 
of his life in jail, after he had been beaten to a pulp by the gigantic 
detective.

Albert turned and ran as fast as he could.


The huge detective soon clambered up on the submarine to stand 
before the tall gondolier in the hammering cataract that fell upon them. 
They stared at each other. The lights on the box flickered on and off 
ominously. The two men blinked as the water trickled into their eyes.

"Hello Carlo," said the detective.

Carlo tensed uncertainly, his face a mass of bruises and cuts.

"Allo Max," replied Carlo after a moments silence,"how are you?"

"Not bad,IerIWhat's the new toy?"

"It's not a toy, it is a I bomb!"

"That's what I was afraid of, I don't suppose you would mind 
giving it to me, would you?"

The gondolier smiled and shook his head.

"Not unless, you leave the city!"

"Oh come on Carlo," holding his palms face up," there's plenty of 
Venice to go round,  even if I wasn't born here. I'm sure we can live 
together."

"Ha! I don't want to live with you, you damn tourist. I want my 
wife and my kids back. I want my gondola too,"then muttered to himself," 
even if it is at the bottom of a canal."He burst out again," I don't want all 
those I those damn towers!"

He gestured with his hand at the skyscrapers. As he did this the 
bomb slipped in his grip and both men sucked in their breath. Carlo 
caught it just in time.

"Carlo!" cried the detective.

"Ci, I'm sorry, it slipped. The rain, you know."

They stood upright again.

"I never realized it rained so much in Venice before I came here," 
said the detective relaxing a little,"I always thought this was sunny Italy." 


"Ci, but it is winter, it rains a lot in winter, in Venice. It cleans out 
the canals, you know. It was bad in the old days, lots of typhoid, very 
bad, but at least it killed off a lot of tourists," Carlo smiled deliciously, 
then frowned," we must get the bomb out of the city, quickly."

"Yes of course, any suggestions?"

"Ci I  the Italian parliament?"


Albert ran like Ben Johnson tripping out on amphetamines, till he 
ran out of breath and collapsed down a flight of stairs beside a canal. 
After a moment he looked about him and saw to his disgust his was 
sitting in the remains of half a pepperoni and sardine pizza. 

"Great Newton!"he cried," I'm back where I started."

Then sneezed.

"Ah-choo!"








Chapter Eleven


What astonished him was that cats should have two holes cut in 
their skins at exactly the same place as their eyes were.

        Georg C Lichtenberg.


The Cat lay half dozing in the warmth of the last ray of sunbeams, 
dreaming obscene thoughts about mice and catnip. Prone on the rock, its 
claws were languidly curling around the wind dried reeds that grew 
fitfully at the  base.

The Cat was not particularly unusual in anyway in that it had fur, 
claws, ears and a lacked a tail. 

Or at least it seemed to lack a tail, since the last time it looked 
there wasn't one there. 

The trouble with its tail was that it kept disappearing and then 
reappearing out of nowhere, yet at the same time still being attached to 
the Cat's behind. As if the tail wasn't sure if it belonged to the Cat or not. 

The Cat thought this odd, since it had always believed the tail did 
in fact belong to it, the Cat, rather than anybody else and wondered if the 
tail was having a mental breakdown or some sort of identity crisis. 

The more it wondered about this the more it wasn't sure if the tail 
really was its tail, anyway. After all, just because the tail had been stuck 
on its behind for the last nine years didn't necessarily mean that it 
belonged to the Cat. Or that the Cat, in return, belonged to the tail for that 
matter. 

Or lack of matter in this case. 

The Cat wasn't even sure how it could prove ownership in a court 
of law, after all if the Cat took a hair and threw it to the wind, then did it 
still own it or even more ridiculously could it prove that the air it inhaled 
actually belong to it, the Cat.

The Cat sighed.

Then smiled indulgently to itself. As if to say, that even if it was all 
terribly confusing, it was still a pleasant enough way to pass ones life 
away, provided one didn't take it too seriously and die of starvation 
worrying over it.

A zephyr of warm desert air began to flow over the sands,  riffling 
the fur of the Cat, as the moon hung insanely above the sand dunes in the 
evening dusk. Seemingly magnified enormously in proportion to the 
rippling sand of the dunes that it rolled across, and palpably heavy like a 
castle or brick in the sky that doesn't fall to the Earth but rather floats 
across the heavens to discombobulate the senses in a welter of 
contradictory beliefs and perceptions. 

The Cat thought this odd, indeed the Cat thought a lot of things 
were odd, but most odd was the fact that it thought at all. 

However the brick kept on falling and the Cat kept on dozing, and 
all was right with the world - except for the schizophrenic tail. 

One of the few clouds that streamed through the gathering ink of 
the dusk chanced to pass across the face of the moon. Giving a 
shimmering phosphorescent aura to the globe as the filaments of mist 
drifted over its surface. In return the glowing beams of light swept down 
from the moon, across the endless dunes, washing them with the 
afterglow of pink sunset. So that the very air itself became alive with the 
glimmering flush of the days dissolution.

A short while later when the dusk had really set in, the Cat noticed, 
that the Moon, appeared to pass in front  of one of the clouds.

A twinge of doubt crept into its mind. It rattled its tail as if to show 
its annoyance with this imperfection in the universe. 

-The Moon,-the Cat thought- isn't supposed to do that.-

The Cat frowned, there was something not quite right with this 
particular universe.

Suddenly an Owl swooped out of the gathering stars and made a 
grab for the Cat's tail but missed by a cat's whisker. The Cat leapt a foot 
in the air then danced off across the dunes while the Owl kited and 
swirled above, trying its best to stick its needle sharp talons into the Cat's 
back.

What made the attack even more annoying was the way in which 
the Owl kept singing in a high baritone each time as it launched each 
attack,

'Oh lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are.'

As the Owl battered and shook the air around the Cat's ears with 
its wings.

The Cat raced over a dune and literally fell into the abyss beyond.







Chapter Twelve

I am fond of children (except little boys).

            Lewis Carroll



"Ah-choo!"

Albert looked up to find himself in the presence of a large rotund 
man, who seemed to take up more presence than was socially acceptable. 

"What are you doing muckling around with Time, in weather like 
this," the man said, in a rotund Irish accent.

For an instant, Albert thought this made sense, then realized it 
didn't and in a glaring way.

"Sorry, did you say Time just then, it sounded like you said 
muckling around with Time?"

"Ay, that I did indeed, muckling is what I said and muckling is 
what you've doing," returned the Irish gentleman. 

"Ah-choo," sneezed Albert.

"Bless you," said the Irishman genially,"You'd had better come with 
me lad, I not seen anybody get rained on as much as you, since the great 
flood of Dublin in 62'. To be sure, and that was the year we were fishing 
Englishmen out of the Liffey."He gave Albert  a quizzical look" You're not 
an Englishman yourself, are ya?"

"No," Albert replied politely," I'm an alien."

"Laddy, where I come from, that amounts to the same thing."

He helped Albert up from the canal steps, this was achieved by 
picking Albert up by the scruff of the neck with one hand and carrying 
him bodily to the bridge above the canal. Thereupon, giving Albert an 
umbrella, before motioning him to follow as he walked off. 

Albert stared for a moment at the retreating figure disappearing in 
the encroaching darkness, gave a critical glance at his only other option 
and ran after him: having realized his only other option; was to end up as 
a very wet spot-with a umbrella-in the rising waters of the canal.

They walked through the many winding alleyways of the ancient 
city, twisting in and out of the centurys old buildings for several blocks, 
the tall villas seeming to crowd out the falling sky: so close together were 
the buildings to each other above the canals and alleyways.  Albert found 
the stranger playing a pertual game of 'I can jump puddles' with the 
endless pools of rainwater; Albert thought it extraordinary that anybody 
should do this sort of thing at all, let alone in public. Albert found it 
especially extraordinary; when what appeared to be a shallow puddle 
turned out to be a deep canal and the stranger diappeared into six foot of 
water: leaving the umbrealla sticking above the water.

"Damn!" came a voice from beneath the umbrealla," What a place 
for a pothole," then the stranger hauled himself and they continued on 
their way.

Eventually, they came to a large dark building that suggested 
Gothic with Edwardian overtones covered with phantasmagorical carved 
stonework, gargoyles and griffins shrieking out errie silent warnings 
against intruders and traveling salesmen. Next to the door, a huge dog 
tied by a chain was painted on the wall and over it was written in large 
capital letters 'Beware of the dog.'

The stranger took from his pocket a long chain, upon which hung 
keys of every shape and description imagnable, he choose from these a 
tiny one next to a fob-watch and used it to unlock a pocket on his 
waistcoat. From which he took a diners card and slipped it into an 
electroniuc lock in the door. The door immediately opened inwards to the 
sound of Irish bagpipes. They went inside and after they had removed 
their Mackintoshes, the Irishman turned to Albert and said,

"Come in laddy, I'll get you some tea," then caught sight of Albert's 
board-shorts." My god!" he exclaimed staring at the offending 
articles."You're naked!"

"Is that bad?" asked Albert fearing he had trespassed some ancient 
religious custom and would now have his toes cut off in a fit of religious 
intolerance.

"No, no, just strange," Hamilton replied, looking at Albert as if he 
was a refugee from a war torn demilitarized zone like the Lebanon or 
Disney Land.

He  went inside: Albert following with some trepidation. 

Surprisingly, inside was an enormous empty white space, which 
was lit not by light but rather darkness visible.

The stranger walked over to a pale blue-white table and lit the 
pale-blue gas stove for the pale blue-white kettle. Albert looked around 
and saw everything had the same soft pale blue-white. Which made it 
incredibly difficult to distinguish objects and their environment. In 
contrast to which, Albert and the stranger stood out in marked relief in 
their black wet clothes and sickly white skin. They sat down or rather fell 
into a comfy pale blue white sofa which somehow stumbled into existence 
as they walked from the kitchen space into the living space.

Albert seeing how much it resembled the interior of his own space-
time machine posed this question to the Irishman.

"Time machine? No laddy, it's my daughter and her bloody interior 
decorator friends. Cost a fortune to do up and what do we get out of it, a 
non-stop fog without the rain, can't see a bloody thing. Just like her 
Mother Alice, I say, just like her Mother."

Then went silent for a minute, till the whistle boiled and he walked 
back to the kitchen to make the tea and scones.

Albert tried to take some bearings on the room but found this 
impossible as there didn't seem to be any edges to the place, only a 
continuous white deafening silence punctuated by the occasional hint of 
furniture and what appeared to be indoor pot plants which had been 
soaked in white paint and left to bleach in the white sands of Mercury for 
a year.

The Irishman clattered around in the kitchen, swearing fluently to 
himself in Gaelic as he did so,"Pg Mo Hn!" followed by,"I can't see the 
kettle for the kitchen," and "Damn, I've spilled the milk." 
He returned after this carrying a tea tray with scones and tea set in 
the ubiquitous white. He placed these down on the coffee table and asked 
if Albert took milk or sugar. Albert declined the milk as he wanted to be 
able to see what he was drinking.

The large Irishman eased himself down opposite Albert the water 
still dripping off him onto the carpet, then introduced himself, "My name 
Hugh Hamilton, I am a Merchant of Time."

He paused-with a steady stare at Albert-for effect. This turned out 
to be very effective as Albert spluttered and spilled his tea onto the 
carpet and settee. Both of them noticed this with some satisfaction that 
this had rendered part of the carpet visible, with a large brown stain. 

"Don't worry about it laddy, it comes out in the wash."

Albert, saw with some surprise, that as well as serving tea and 
scones that Hamilton had placed several packets of chewing gum on the 
tea tray and were in contrast to everything else in the house, wrapped in 
a nice nausous green plastic that stood out just brilliantly on the coffee 
table. Hamilton caught Albert's eye.

"Have a stick," he said," you never know when they may come in 
usefull."

"Er I," began Albert.

"Go on laddy, I insist," said Hamilton encouragingly," gum is 
incredible stuff, you never know when you'll need it."

Albert took the gum hesitantly and then with a shrug of his 
shoulders slipped it into one of his pockets. After this Albert felt 
strangely more at ease with his surroundings and lent back in his chair.

"What do you mean, you're a Merchant of Time? You sell clocks I 
suppose," asked Albert with some circumspection, flicking a raisin to one 
side while Hugh's head was down.

"No not at all. I buy and sell Time in return for Energy. Sorry I 
didn't catch your name, laddy?" said Hugh.

"Albert - sorry what? I how on earth can you buy and sell time 
and energy. I mean ...well I mean ..." ,then gave up when he realized he 
didn't know what he meant.

Hugh smiled both at Albert's remark and the fact that  as he was 
returning his saucer to the table he let it slip and crack on the table's 
edge. Inside was a thin layer of black glazing that stood out quite nicely.

"Well, you see I took advantage of one of the laws of nature. 
There's this thing called Heisenberg's Indeterminacy Principle which goes 
like," 

He paused for a second noticing Albert's gawking jaw hanging open 
like Queen Victoria's after she found out about superlite prophylatics, 
then Hamilton continued on,

"which goes like this. Time and Energy are sort of like money and 
goods, their interchangeable, they're what the different parts of the 
universe like people, golf balls and black holes use to move about with, 
they're really the same thing only different, sort of."

He frowned, obviously not too sure about that part himself.

"Now you can borrow Time from the universe, which is, if you like 
a great celestial brokers house, but the trouble is you have to pay back 
the appropriate amount of Energy and vice versa."

Albert, who was long past the capacity to comprehend, smiled 
noddingly.

"So, that's where I come in, if somebody wants to borrow some 
Time, for a time, then I lend them some in exchange for some work. 
Simple really, or not simple depending on how little you think about."

"I see,"said Albert though not at all, simply wishing to be polite." 
But how do you catch Time and make it do what you want? It all seems a 
bit odd really."

"Yes, most people seem to think that. In fact I used to wonder 
about it myself, it's as if the universe is a bit odd on weekends, vacations 
and Cup Day then downright peculiar for the rest of the year, but don't 
worry about it, it all comes out in the equations. Something to do with 
taking the fourth root of minus one and going off at forty five degrees 
into the space time continuum."

"Oh",said Albert wondering if he should start talking about Mexican 
food, since Hamilton was behaving in a way strangely similar to his 
professors,"I see."

"You do!" Hamilton said in genuine surprise," funny I've never 
quite figured it out. But that's what  the boys in the back room say and 
since it works, who am I to complain." Hamilton said, as he scuffed some 
mud onto the carpet. Then caught Albert's eye and they both smiled the 
shibboleth of conspiracy.

Albert froze, as an idea was thrown up out of the unknown onto 
the flotsam of his mind like a rock, and hit him square between the eyes.

"You mean you can travel through Time and Space,"he said 
excitedly.

"Well of course laddy, why do you think I brought you here?" 
Hamilton replied. "You've been muckling around in Time haven't you?" 
cocking an eye brow at Albert.

"Yes, I suppose I have, if I knew what muckling was suppose to 
mean?" he grinned.

"Muckling , why muckling is a grand word, I use it whenever I 
don't know what I'm talking about. However I do know, because the boys 
in the back room told me, that you're not quite what you seem to be and 
their not even sure what that is, you ken they picked you up on the 
sedation which is meant to stand for String Detection And TIming Of 
Neutral current, but you'd best not ask what that means because it 
always sends me to sleep when I try to read the papers on it, you ken?"

"Not in the least, "said Albert in complete befuddlement," it's like 
reading Arabic backwards."

"Laddy" Hamiltion grinned," you're supposed to read Arabic 
backwards. It's written that way : right to left. But aye, I suppose it's all a 
bit picturesque when you think about it. " 

"Yes," Albert said slowly ," it's all a bit picturesque." 

Albert had even less of an idea what 'picturesque' was suppose to 
mean.

"Anyways now, getting back to you muckling around in time. I take 
it you're trapped here on this evolutionary forsaken planet and just 
possibly you need a ride back to wherever you came from." Hamilton said 
with a low intensity and leant forward in his seat to emphasize the point.

"Yes, I guess I do at that. Actually, I'm not even sure I'm on the 
right planet,  come to think of it I'm not even sure I'm in the correct 
universe. What are you suggesting?" Albert queried cautiously.

"Well I'm a Merchant of Time and I would like to sell me some 
Time." His eyes glinted in the ever present white of the room.

"Really, I mean can you really, can I travel around with this Time. 
You know jump to somewhere else in the universe," said Albert 
excitedly."How much does it cost?"

"It doesn't cost any money at all. In fact money has no meaning 
when you're dealing with time. What I want is raw energy!" Hamilton 
smiled maniacally.

"Energy! What do you mean raw energy? I can't just give you 
energy. Don't I have to do work or something for you to get energy. There 
isn't such a thing as raw energy. It's not something anybody had even 
seen or touched. It's like light, you can see what it does and where it goes 
but the instant you try and catch some it disappears, doesn't it?"

"Yes laddy," whispered Hamilton and as he leant forward on the 
edge of his seat," but everything has energy, it's energy that makes things 
things, don't you ken."

"You want me to give you something?" returned a puzzled Albert.

"Ay."

"Anything in particular?"

"Ay."

"Such as?"

Hamilton paused dramatically then spoke.

"A pound of flesh," the pound sounding more like poooondd.

"What!"

"A pound of flesh."

"You're joking surely?"

"AhISort of."

"Sort of, what do mean sort of. Are you saying you sort of want to 
hack me into little bits. "

"Yes and no." He paused in a moment of introspection."You see as a 
child I was forever frustrated as a Shakespearian actor by my parents 
who wanted me to be a surgeon and every now and then it just erupts 
out of me, you ken."

"ErI yes I supose so. Well, what do you want then?" insisted Albert 
relieved at not being somebody's alternative to haggis and potato.

"If you work for me for a month, I'll give you Time off from the 
universe."

 "What, thats all?" asked Albert wide eyed."What do I have to do 
then?"

For a moment Hamilton tensed.

"You have to go down the String mines!"

"The what?"

"The String mines."

"You mine strings!"said Albert in amazement. "Is this another 
Shakespearian play."

"No, no you don't understand, these are no ordinary strings, laddy, 
these are Super Strings," His voice low and with intensity.

Albert laughed. There was obviously something quite out of the 
ordinary with Hamilton's mind, like reality.

"What, you mean like 'Superman', 'Batman' and 'The Thing That Ate 
New York' ?"

"No, No laddy," flustered Hamilton," They're sort of likeItheir very 
unusual you ken. You'll understand when you actually see them or don't 
see them, whatever the case may be. Well, do you want the job?"

"Job! It's a job you say, what mining strings," Albert thought for a 
moment then rapidly said," yes of course. If it will get me back home, 
then certainly!" nodding his head so rapidly he almost gave himself 
whiplash.

"Good then,you can start tomorrow," Hamilton said slapping his 
knees," I'll take you down the string pit myself and introduce you to the 
foreman, Herr Planck."

At that moment, there walked into the room a particularly pretty 
girl of about nineteen with long black hair; that offset very well the by 
now blindingly white room, that was giving Albert a blinding headache. 

Hamilton looked up at her entrance and smiled before introducing 
her to Albert.

"This is my daughter Alison and sorry what was you're name 
again?"

"Albert, I'm from another universe."

"Good, you should get along very well with Alison's friends then," 
said Hamilton, as in behind Alison came what must have been the 
weirdest collection of people and quite possibly not-people that Albert 
had ever seen. What made them so extraordinary was principally the 
clothes they wore or didn't wear for that matter or lack of matter.

"Hello," said Alison who was a stunning beauty with a pointy nose 
that seemed to glow in the ever present white. "These are my friends 
Kristiansand, Bergen, Molde, T?nsberg, Oslo, Troms? and Smegma."

For some reason know only to the group, all of them with the 
exception of Alison and Smegma were tall, named after Norwegian cites, 
dressed in black clothes from head to foot and constantly giving 
soliloquizes from Hamlet. Smegma it seemed was a bit odd and nobody 
liked to talk to unless he forced them to, which turned out to be most of 
the time.

"Hi there guy," said Smegma," What cha' doing?"

The entire group with the exception of Smegma seemed to moan 
and strike postures of sublime resignation.

"Oh hello," said Albert getting the hint from the behaviour of the 
rest of the group that Smegma was something to be avoided at all costs.

"You like the layo-out?" Smegma said, somehow contriving to insert 
an extra vowel in his question; and hence reinforcing Albert's view that 
Smegma didn't adopt the sort of behaviour that was commonly acceptable 
to all the higher life-forms; like a common mode of speech and wearing 
clean underwear.

Hamilton interceded at this point; suddenly finding a reason to take 
out last weeks garbage, "Well, you must excuse me now ," he said as he 
blundered his way through the discombobualting whiteness to one of the 
doors," I'll leave you in Alison's hands and I'll see you tomorrow down 
the mine." 

Then walked head first into a wall, that should have been a door 
and was forced to feel around with his hands to find the exit which he 
promptly fell through.

Alison and her friends turned slowly and looked at Albert. A thin 
veneer of complete dislike filtered across the empty whiteness and 
enveloped Albert like a thick and gooey Irish stew.

"I suppose you need some new clothes," Alison said, looking him up 
and down.

"Yes, I suppose I do," replied Albert as friendly as he could.

Alison gave a signicant look to her entourage, as if Albert was a 
harlot amongst a sect of modern day Vestal Punk Virgins. Albert found 
this surprising, as up till then he had always looked upon himself as 
being a male and quite proud of it, thank you. He wondered if they might 
dress him up as a transvestite. 

Alison turned back to him and said causally.

"I hope you like black."

"It goes with my eyes," returned Albert, with his piercing blue 
eyes.

At which point she led them out of the day of the room into the 
night of the hall.

Albert straight away found himself tripping up incessantly in the 
dim murky hall-way, that seemed to be deliberately furnished with 
every possible object and objet dTart that could possibly put a dent in his 
shins. 

"Ow!" he cried as a crash of pottery resounded along the hall,"What 
was that?"

"A twelfth century Ping vase. I think their priceless," said Alison 
somewhere ahead of him in the dark," Daddy collects them."

"Isn't there a light switch of something? I'm not sure I can afford 
to go on walking."

"No sorry," piped Oslo," you see if we did that it would spoil the 
complete feeling of overwhelming darkness and isolation which in 
juxtaposition to the omnipresent light of the living room truly objectifies 
the tautological difference between good and evil."

"No, I don't see that's the whole problem," snapped back Albert, 
"How about a walking stick for the blind or is that too sane  for you."

"One must try to break away from such plebeian concerns and 
come to grips with the true echt of reality, "said Oslo," to release oneself I 
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" and never finished the sentence; having groined himself on 
a medieval grommet for castrated medieval monks.

Albert applauded silently.

Suddenly a door opened before them and light rushed out to greet 
them in the form of a teapot which smacked into the head of Oslo: 
knocking him out cold.

 In the doorway, silhouetted by a blaze of storm tossed hair, stood 
a withered old hag, with a large head and extraordinary temper.

"Got im!" she shrieked, cavorting in the doorway,"Whee! I never 
did like Oslo!"

She then looked over the new arrival with a predatory expression 
that reminded Albert of sharks in a feeding frenzy.

"Mother, how could you,"screamed Alison," why do you always 
have to pick on Oslo but never T?nsberg or Bergen? What is it you have 
against Oslo?"

T?nsberg and Bergen glanced around for ways of defecting to 
Russia.

"Cause his so dammed prissy that's why!" her mother screamed 
back." Who's he?Why hasn't he got any clothes on?" indicating Albert, 
vaguely waving another teapot in Albert's direction.

"His going to work for daddy down the mine. His name is Albert 
and his from another universe."

"So was Oslo."

"Hello," said Albert in a timid voice hoping to avert a fate similar to 
Oslo.

Alison's mother fixed Albert with a glittering eye.

"My name is Alice,"she said slowly and with great deliberation, "do 
you like chess?"

Albert pondered this for a moment before replying with what he 
hoped was the most diplomatic response.

"It's very mathematical."

Alison and her Scandinavian retinue shuddered.

"Do you like mathematics?" furthered Alice in a tone not unlike a 
piano wire as it reaches its breaking strength.

Again Albert, pursued in his mind the real meaning of the query 
and again he prompted a middling reply.

"It's very useful." 

"Useful? Useful for what?"

"Oh' I don't, know counting sheep when you go to sleep at night or 
paying bills," he attempted.

"That isn't mathematics you idiot!"snapped back Alice,"that's 
arithmetic. Mathematics is ideas about numbers and formal relationships 
like curves in spaces or probability. Counting sheep, baa!"

Even so, everybody relaxed and followed Alice into the room with 
Albert trailing in behind them, completely mystified by the whole 
encounter, while Oslo was left outside to fend for himself .

Inside the room, it was as if the whole universe had suddenly  
reached the peak of its menstrual cycle.

There was a cluttering display of memoribila,bri+c--brac, tea pots, 
playing cards and broken mirrors which lay strewn in every direction 
and possible position about the room like idolatrous pornographic holiday 
souvenirs. As Albert walked to the centre of the room, he found a large 
square table set with the remains of a decaying array of mouldy cakes 
and broken crockery about which in the chairs sat human size chess 
pieces with idiotic grins painted appropriately where their visages should 
have been, beaming insanely off into space as if the cinnamon cake was 
spiked with L.S.D.. Dozens of rats scuttled around the table picking up 
scraps of left over food tasting them, before violently vomiting it back up 
again and squeaking madly, running around in circles collapsing on their 
backs, curling up their tails and dying of a drug overdose, having found 
the cinnamon cake really was spiked with L.S.D..

"Interesting decor," chanced Albert, having only once before seen a 
disaster like it in the wake of a hurricane.

"You like it?" asked Alison in mild surprise.

"It's genuine Entropy," quickly followed Alice.

"Really, genuine Entropy, you don't say," he said having not the 
faintest idea what she was talking about.

"Specially imported from Chaos in Greece, you know," Alice 
continued on merrily, having got over any initial dislike or murderous 
intentions she might have originally harboured towards Albert.

Everybody seemed to relax and Albert took this to mean he was 
out of the matriarchal demilitarized zone. Till Alice decided to tell him 
her life story. She achieved this by grabbing him by the throat , forcing 
him onto the sofa and pinning him down to it with her knee.

"Are you sure you know nothing about Symbolic Logic?!" she yelled 
at him.

"Yes! Absolutely nothing - I failed kindergarten because of it. I'm 
allergic to symbols, they make me break out in rashes, please don't kill 
me!" spluttered Albert as he begged and lied convincingly.

"Very well," said Alice, as she removed her knee from his chest and 
replaced it with her buttocks; so that he was trapped beneath her on the 
sofa.

 Albert looked around the room and found to his surprise that all 
the Hamlet clones had settled themselves quite comfortably into the 
remaining furniture and had begun discussing such secular concepts as 
the meaning of existence and whether `tis nobler in the mind to suffer 
the slings and arrows of outrageous geriatrics.` Seemingly oblivious to the 
predicament that Albert was now undergoing: Albert had a suspicion that 
this was a normal behaviour for them. 

It also occured to him, before Alice had a chance to start again, that 
people have a tendency-when confronted with the indelicate issue of 
their seniors-to take an inordinate interest in such prosaic subjects as 
classical architecture and football averages. He wondered for a second if it 
was just possible that all these activities that people concern themselves 
with on the weekend, were just a way of escaping from the horror of 
their relations: then Alice poked him in the eye and began to tell him her 
life story. 

"My name is Alice Pleasance Liddell, does that mean anything to 
you?" she cocked a beady eye at him.

Albert tried thought for a moment but found thinking difficult with 
Alice's behind constricting his breathing.

"No," he finally managed.

"Good, have you ever heard of Lewis Carroll?"

"Why, yes of course, he wrote 'Alice In Wonderland', everybody 
knows I no that's not possible, you can't be I that was over a hundred 
years ago."

"That's what you think, anabolic steroids can do wonders you 
know,"she grabbed him by the ear and twisted it," I really am  the Alice 
In Wonderland."

"That's extraordinary," he said in genuine amazement and just a 
twinge of pain."You must be very proud to have had a book written about 
you, especially one as famous as 'Alice In Wonderland'."

"Proud! Proud!"she shrieked grabbing Albert by both his ears and 
shaking his head.

"Do you know what it's like to go through life with that sort of 
stigmata attached to you. Ever where you go , everything you try to do, 
you find people pointing you out saying "There's Alice, you know 'Alice in 
Wonderland'"and of course they come over and start asking me question 
about symbolic logic or crack jokes about mad hatters tea parties, do you 
know I hate tea! I absolutely despise the stuff!

"And if I ever tried to pick up a guy, the first thing he would say to 
me is -What was Lewis like in bed?-, that bastard! He used to photograph 
me in the nude you know, in the nude and I was only eight years old! 
How dare he!"

"Surely not, I mean, that's not possible! exclaimed Albert.

"That shows you just how good the Victorian propaganda machine 
was and I was only eight for god's sake! You know what he once wrote, go 
on I dare you, guess what he wrote!" smaking his face.

"I I"

"He wrote 'I am fond of children -except little boys-' meaning girls 
of course! There, now do you see what that raving, low-life, pedophiliac, 
gonorrheaic, impotent scumbag did to me? What right had he to stuff up 
my life with his stupid books, all I ever wanted to do, was get laid!"

"Ah," said Albert, who like the sun rising had no alternative, on 
nothing new.

"You know, for years I really thought I could walk through mirrors; 
you can't believe the amount of plastic surgery my parents had to fork up 
for. And logic, bloody logic, don't talk to me about tautologies. I had `em 
up to here," indicating her temple.

"I hate chess, I hate rabbits, I hate eggs, I hate mirrors. If fact after 
that bastard finished with me, there isn't a bloody thing that I don't 
hate!"

At this, she bounced up off Albert and tore round the room picking 
up things like mirrors and tea pots and smashing them to the ground; 
then jumping up and down on top of them to give them that final touch of 
obliteration.

As she was doing this, Alison crept over to Albert and motioned 
him to follow her out the door, which he did so with the others, with a 
speed which would have surprised a cheetah being chased by bush fire. 
As the door was closed they heard her final parting Carrollian curse. 

"Bloody Snarks!" 

They stumbled  away in the dark of the hall-way.

They soon made their way down the hall, down some long and 
winding stairs and into another room.

"How did she ever marry your father?" asked Albert as they 
reached the bottom of the flight and into a new room.

"It's a long story,"replied Alison." But to cut it short, he had the 
money, she the brains and she needed him to build a time machine, 
which she had invented."

"She invented a time machine! But what would she do with a time 
machine, for heavens sake?"

"She always wanted to go back and chop off Carroll's head," said 
Alison sadly. "But every time she traveled back, she got caught in a 
temporal paradox and found Time wouldn't let her have -an effect 
without a cause- as Carroll himself put it. So she's trapped in our future. 
Which is probably why she gets a bit frustrated at times."

"Frustrated, frustrated, is that what you call it!?"shot back Albert. 
"She needs to be institutionalized, she's a frustrated sociopathic 
psychopath with homicidal tendencies suffering from manic depression. 
She's a raving loony."

"She's also my mother." Alison said quietly.

"AhIsorryIer,"he stuttered." I didn't quite mean it that way."

"That's alright, most people seem to think the same way. She's 
really a nice person, deep down she has some nice attributes, it's just 
there a little too deep down for people to ever see them," Alison said 
biting her lip.

Inside the room, everybody scattered into groups of two or three 
and began discussing dialecticism of John Stuart Mill and the evolutionary 
advantages of being a red herring, all except for Smegma who was 
involved in a fascinating conversation with a pot plant, which managed to 
convince him that potatoes were a higher life form than humans.

"Don't they seem to mind your mother, I mean, she could have 
killed poor Oslo?" asked Albert.

"I suppose they do in their own way," replied Alison." Mother's a 
bit like hang gliding, once you're there there's nothing you can do about it 
so you might as well enjoy the scenery."

Albert suddenly felt he was caught up in one of those weirdly 
abstruse Ingmar Bergman movies; which analyse things like life and 
death, good and evil and how to confuse the living daylights out of its 
audience. He glanced around to see if there were any cameras present. He 
was relieved to find nothing more intrusive than a defunct Box Brownie 
with a sign on it saying - Bergman Was Blind! - signed Andy Warhol.

"Here, I'll get you some clothes,"said Alison and walked Albert over 
to a walk-in wardrobe, which as Albert peered into it seemed to stretch 
for acres.

"It's enormous!" he exclaimed but what he found even more 
surprising was the clothes that it contained. They were all either black - 
completely black or completely white.

"Don't you think a little variety might be, well interesting?" he 
quizzed Alison.

"Not at all," suddenly boomed T?nsberg behind them."Black and 
White like Day and Night. Makes perfect sense, when you don't think 
about it, that is."

Albert jumped, it was the first time any of the Hamlet clones had 
spoken to him directly: besides Smegma and Smegma didn't seem to 
count.

"But what's it supposed to mean?"

"It's the ultimate juxtaposition between mind and reality."

"Yes, but what's it supposed to mean?"

"It is the sublime dichotomy twixt being and nothingness."

"And what's that meant to signify?" Albert's voice starting to crack 
with strain.

"Who cares, I'm a work of art," and walked back to the others to 
discuss the ramifications of post-Proustian data retrieval systems.

Alison who by this point had come back out of the closet with an 
assortment of clothes thrown over her arm, she held up a shirt for Albert  
to view. 

It was so black, it gave Albert vertigo staring into it.

"It's very, er, dark "he managed, hoping not to offend Alison.

"Yes, isn't it," she said gaily." Here try it on, it goes well with the 
trousers."

Albert looked at the trousers and sure enough they were the same 
insidiously black inky murkiness as the shirt. Albert smiled and slipped 
them over his board shorts followed by the shirt and black shoes, when 
he had done so he felt as if he was wearing the night. Then realized that 
was how people were supposed to feel about the unknown, in the dark 
and without perception. 

Albert sighed -life had not been kind to him- indeed life seemed to 
go out of its way to make his existence an absolute misery.          







Chapter Thirteen

      Le nez de Cleop
tre : s'il eut  ete plus court, toute la face de la terre 
aura change.    

                Blaise Pascal



This time, the landing wasn't so soft. 

Thud, Smack and Ugh were the respective noises made by Erwin, 
Margret and Werner as they hit the deck. Then, in close pursuit, the head 
of the Jabberwocky plopped sickeningly down on top of them, to smile 
grotesquely off into nowhere, its long neck coiling like an oily rope down 
onto their bodies. While about them rained the green blood of the 
Jabberwocky, which had floated about them, in their fall through the 
universes, staining their skin and clothes with the undying pernicious 
intent of the Jabberwocky.

Naturally, it was to be expected that Margret had screamed 
unceasingly throughout the fall, what was surprising however: was the 
way Werner and Erwin had screamed unceasingly  as well.

 The time cube landed with unerring accuracy on Erwin's head then 
dropped like a baseball in a mitt, into the mouth of the hideous beast.

"Och!" said Erwin, rubbing his head painfully and then punched the 
beast on the nose with his fist, only realizing too late that the beast had a 
spark of life in it, as it swiveled its eyes towards him and flared its 
nostrils.

"Ai!" cried Erwin softly and froze to the spot.

Margret scrambled away from the beast, squirming out from the 
coils of the beast's neck and cringing against a convenient wall that just 
happened to be next to them and hiding her face with her hands.

Werner jumped up and looked at the beast before dismissing it.

"Don't worry, it's just nervous reactions, the thing is quite dead," he 
said, and for once he was right as the creature remained quite inert 
where it lay.

About them and curving off into the distance was a small tubular 
corridor of steel and plastic with the occasional sign in large orange 
lettering saying,

CAUTION
VACUUM HAZARD
Green This Way

They noticed this as they stood up. 

"It must be one of those vacuum cleaners they use for cleaning 
leafs off golf courses," Erwin said.

"What nonsense,"shot back Werner, delighted he could show off his 
intelligence again," if there's a vacuum then we must be in space and the 
green must be the type of uniform worn by one of the special corps that 
make up this space ships ranks. Golf courses! How ludicrous!" He finished 
in derision.

At that precise moment they all had to jump as an enourmous blue 
vacuum cleaner, hurtled along the corridor sucking up everything in its 
path. 

They dove over the top of it, and bounced along the great flacid air 
bag that trailed behind it,  bouncing like children on a trampoline before 
falling heavily onto the deck behind. 

"On the other hand it could be a golf course," said a somewhat 
humbled Werner as he stood up.

They found to their relief that the head of the Jabberwocky had 
disappeared, leaving behind the clean swept floor of the spaceships deck.

They walked along after the vacuum cleaner, following the 
machines electrical lead as it whipped along in the tunnel behind it. Then 
they ran when they realized the cleaner had eaten the time cube as well 
as the Jabberwocky . This quickly brought them up into an opening which 
led out onto an enormous open space which stretched as far as the eye 
could see.

What the eye could see was a golf course, complete with a painted 
blue sky, bunkers, tees and a terrified french man dancing around, giving 
vent to a torrent of French nouns and verbs, as he hacked away at the 
long dead head of the Jabberwocky with a number nine golf club.

"Je suis arriere-pensee? Non, nous avons chang'e tout 
cela!"Recevior un coup de bambou!", "Vaccine avec une aiguille de 
phono!Case en Moins!" et "Je suis sans souci, vous bordel de merde!"

"A' la francaise, voila tout!" he gave a final touche to the beast by 
belting it on the head, when he realized he had company. This final blow 
knocked the time cube out of the Jabberwocky's mouth, to lie covered 
with green spittle on the fairway.

"Bonjour, mon ami." he smiled pleasantly.

The three itinerant intergalactic interlopers stared nonplused  at 
the Frenchman. As usual they had not the faintest idea what was 
supposed to be going on.

"Bonjour, puis-je vous aider?" the Frenchman asked politely.

There was an interesting silence.

"Je non parl Fran
ais, parle vous Anglais, s'il vous plait?" Margret 
said demurely.

The Frenchman threw back his arms and went a jabberwocky-
green with nausea, at the abuse of his mother tongue and for a moment 
he thought it possible that he was talking to animated video games with a 
sense of humour.

"Allo, 'ow may I 'elp you?" he shouted at them in a hideously 
french accent, as if their inability to speak French was due to their ears 
being blocked up with mud or their brains existing in another dimension.

Werner was the first to recover and seeing the Frenchmans 
aversion to the English language decided to continue in it.

"Excuse me, my good man but I was wondering if you could tell us 
where we are? As we seem to have lost our way," he yelled back, in an 
articulation that would have done justice to the King of England 
proclaiming his acceptance of crown and the realm.

The Frenchman looked him up and down as if to say the English 
may have Cricket but the French invented the Croissant.

"This Monsieur,"with a characteristic  swagger  of  the  head,"  is 
Alain's Quantum Mechanical-Relativistic Golf Course and I am Alain."

Alain, they soon found was one of those extraordinarily gifted 
people who mask their extraordinary abilities by being complete idiots, 
and the more they got to know him the more they believed that a genius 
is somebody who has an infinite capacity in making life hell for 
everybody else.

Werner leant down, picked up the time cube and examined it, and 
seeing it was not damaged wiped it clean before pocketing it. 

All the while Alain fixed his actions on them with a quizzical 
expression.

"Iz zis your beazt?" Alain spat out, his eyes gleaming with 
excitement.

"Sort of," said Erwin ," it chased us zhere from Ifrom where we 
just came."

"O' la la! I had hoped it to be one of the Grebblies." Then looked at 
the three and smiled ," Ah, you do not know , I will tell you later what 
zhese terrible Grebblie are." 

They smiled back at him, at a loss as what to do next.

He smiled back, equally mystified as what to say or do with or to 
them.

"Nice golf course," said Werner looking around.

"Oui, is it not?" said Alain quickly back, apparently having forgiven 
them for lacking normal vocal cords.

"Yes," said Erwin.

"Nice grass, you have on the green," said Margret, not wanting to be 
left out.

They all looked at the grass and nodded their heads.

"Oui, it is nice grass, is it not?" said Alain, pleased to find something 
to talk about.

"Your green is veryIumIgreen," said Werner.

They all contemplated this intensely and then all nodded their 
heads in complete agreement.

"Yes."

"Oui."

"I see."

"Green, uh-huh."

They all stared at the ground again, then Alain suddenly found 
something to talk about.

"I will show you your rooms and perhaps afterwards we will play 
ze game of golf, Oui?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Why not?"

They said together, then all four of them paused as they wondered  
-Why not?-, but finding no reason they proceeded to load the 
Jabberwocky into the front of the golf buggy.

"It will make a bon  trophy at ze club house," said Alain clapping it 
on the nose.

After this the four of them clambered into Alain's golf buggy and 
he drove them back to his club house. As he did so, Erwin formed the 
distinct impression that the golf course was not quite what as it should 
have been. Principally on the evidence of his eyes: which said to him in 
one short sentence,

 -This place is strange, bucko- 

The sky, he saw, directly above them darkened as they rode in the 
buggy and the birds disappeared into pancakes which nosed dived into 
the ground. Erwin pointed this out to Alain, who explained it in such a 
bizarre fashion that Erwin doubted not only his veracity but his sanity as 
well.

"I hope you know what a Black 'ole is?"asked Alain.

"A Black what?"

"A Black 'ole!, a holle!" 

This brought a nod from Werner, a puzzled look from Erwin and a 
comment about the inside of Erwin's and Werner's heads from Margret.

"A Black 'ole is a big a star that gets zo big, zhat it pulls itzelf into 
nothing and it just disappears into nowhere!" his eyes springing open and 
his hands flying off the wheel to give his speech that special Gallic 
intonation. He hands then flew back to the wheel, so as to avoid running 
into a tree.

"Well," he continued," what I 'ave done 'ere, iz quite amazing. I 'ave 
put a golf course inzide a black 'ole!" 

He turned to Margret who sat next to him, in expectation of a 
compliment. He frowned on finding nothing more than a bored 
expression.

"It iz a most remarkable achievement, even if I must say zo 
myzelf," he said slightly vexed in a lower voice.

"But what on Earth for?" asked Werner leaning forward intently to 
hear Alain better.

"A-ha!" Alain piped up," because 'ere is a most remarkable place. 
We are inzide an intense gravitational field. You know, don't you know. 
Well I 'ave done iz put a golf course in a rocket ship and drive the w'ole 
lot at ze speed of light into a great big Black 'olle."

"Why drive it in at the speed of light , why not just drop it in like a 
cement souffle," said Erwin sarcastically.

"A-ha! Because zhe gravitational field iz zo intense," he said in a 
way that that reminded you of constipation," zhat ze black 'ole would tear 
apart zhe fairway. Now you zay, 'But what 'appens when you 'it ze 
botoom?' , Ah well thiz iz most interessant. A black 'ole 'az no bootom, it 
iz infinite.Je ne sais quoi. It iz a botoomlez 'ole. Voila! I have a golf course 
zhat is unique in zhe universe."

"But Why?" the three of them chorused.

"Because where else can you get a Black 'ole in one, of course, you 
silly people." He laughed as he braked to a halt outside the clubhouse."Du 
sublime au ridicule il n'y a qu'un pas, as Napoleon would have zaid."

"But what about the birds, why do they keep smacking into the 
ground like failed pancakes?" persisted Erwin.

"It is the black 'ole, it does zrange zings, you know, if you move to 
fazt everything squazes up like a pancake and becomes too heavy to fly, 
voila kami-kaze zeagulls."

Inside after he treating them to coffee, croissants and his version 
of conversation; he invited them to play a round of golf with him, once 
they had settled in their rooms. 

Which they did so reluctantly having no choice but to accommodate 
their host in the hope he would accommodate them later on. The rest of 
the guests seemed normal enough, though they consisted exclusively of 
trillionaries, rock stars and newspaper magnates; these being the only 
people with enough money to travel around the galaxy and drop into 
black holes for the odd game of golf. 

The fact that not Erwin, Werner or Margret had enough on them to 
even buy a Bondi Tram ticket, was conveniently overlooked by Alain, 
who simply assumed they were his normal type of guests, who not only 
had so much money that they not only didn't worry about the cost of 
traveling, but didn't worry about their destination either.

The rooms they were assigned seemed in elegance and comfort, to 
hover between the palace at Versailles and the film set from Star Wars: 
depending on what brand of tranquillizer you were on.

"It's beautiful," said Margret staring around the room. The delicate 
pink and white marbled floor was intricately inlaid with gold and silver 
upon which were causally thrown deep luxurious cashmere rugs in which 
your feet sank and promptly went to sleep in. Upon the walls an entire 
set of Louis the XIV clocks chimed harmoniously around the walls while 
in the centre of the room an exquisite crystal fountain made of fragile 
interwoven crystal leafs that chinkled softly as the pale blue water 
tinkled down them with an almost imperceptibly melody that reminded 
you of Mozart on a clear moonlit night while all around nightingales sang 
sad love songs. Behind them was a frieze from the Parthenon of riding 
horsemen, reworked in exquisite white marble which Margret had a 
suspicion was the original stone work.  Interspersed with the clocks and 
the Greek friezes was the delicate perfection of Jan Vermeer and 
Rembrandt with paintings of the ilk of <View of Delft> and <Artist in His 
Studio> and quite possibly the entire collection of Rembrandt self 
portraits. While at the end of the room, as if to give perfection to 
perfection, was the enormous fresco by Raphael, being the <School of 
Athens>, which according to a plaque in its left hand corner was the 
original from the Vatican.

"It's fascinating," said Werner staring around the room, for 
interspersed with the priceless works of art was every possible type of 
up-to-date piece of technology imaginable and computer wizardry that 
could be bought or made de novo. A computer console containing in its 
memory bank every book ever published, each entry crossed reference 
and annotated. A console giving read outs for every transaction on the 
stock markets at that moment. A terminal that gave access to every type 
of electronic communications available from laser fibre optics to the 
Applacian mule express. A stereo system of such high fidelity that its 
type was often used to give performances in place of real performers. A 
hyperspacial flight simulator, the interior of which glowed with the lights 
of the control panel, which sparkled as hundreds of tiny lights flickered 
on and off as strange hieroglyphics scrolled across a large screen in front 
of them, above which on the roof of the cabin a holograph floated 
displaying exploded shots of the galaxy. The controls themselves 
appeared to be odd shaped clear glass crystals, which grew and formed 
before their eyes then reversed their growth and disappeared back into 
the control panel manifold like confused anemone.

"It's gorgeous," said Margret.

"It's incredible," said Werner.

They looked at each other, smiling slightly, as a thin veneer of 
discomfort slipped between them.

"It is sublime."

"No, it's interesting."

"I believe it to be a great collection of art."

"I think it is an extraordinary resource centre of ideas."

"It houses some of the greatest works of art ever known to 
humanity."

"It has on tap, information from every conceivable source and 
current scientific publication."

Margret changed her attack.

"Surely you don't believe knowledge means anything without the 
ability to appreciate it in terms of mankind and art."

"Surely you don't think that the appreciation of art means anything 
other, than a learned response to an object."He paused and thought. "The 
Laws of nature exist everywhere but Art exists only in the minds of 
people."

"But Science is just as much an appreciation of the universe as is 
art or philosophy or religion for that matter. Art is science and science is 
art, it all depends on what aspects of the world you think you believe in," 
fairly shouted Margret.

"Yes , but IbutI

Then Werner, on finding he was losing the argument choose 
defamation as the better part of valour.

"What would you know, you're just a shop assistant at Gigafords, 
for Newtons sake!" Werner flared up.

"Well it shows how little you know because I got my P.h.D. in 
classical sculpture and thermo-nuclear physics," Margret lied.

"What! There isn't such a degree!"

"Yes there is, it was awarded specially for me, so there!" pouted 
Margret as she lied some more and began to find it quite enjoyable.

"You're lying!, there can't possibly be such a course of study. I 
mean what would you do, blow up the Venus de Milo!"

"Of course not, I blow up replicas of them, it's cheaper, which is just 
plain logic," she smiled at her own wit.

"Logic! Logic! What would you know about Logic! You're a woman!" 
he screamed.

"Ha! The truth comes out now does it. Well then, what do you know 
about art then, you narrow minded egotistical idiot savant!"

"Why you, atavistically mood prone hysterical breeding machine!"

"Aaaaaaa! I hope you go to heaven, so that when I get there I'll be 
able to murder you!"

"Ha! You'll never get to there, wart face, it's a completely erroneous 
model of the universe!"

Margret went supernova.

Meanwhile Erwin had stood back, keeping to himself with a look of 
pure diffidence on his face. As he did so he wondered at what the real or 
hidden meaning of insults was supposed to signify anyway. Whether they 
were simply a way of telling the next ape in the forest to get out of your 
way or you will drop a tree on them or if insults were a more complex 
phenomenon involving elaborate social control mechanisms which 
allowed one to control ones fellow species by dint of words rather than 
violence. 

As he leaned against the superb craftsmanship of the damask 
curtains depicting fabulous tales and beasts from the ancient past of the 
pleasure planet Halcyonnia, staring in his diffident manner at the 
diamond and sapphire chandeliers, he felt that the argument between the 
other two had reached the point where he could almost see the insults 
flying through the air, like sticks of furniture. 

At that instant he was knocked out cold, by a badly aimed 3rd.C.  
Grecian vase.

Werner picked up a Louis the XIV clock and heaved it back at 
Margret but she ducked and it smashed into one of the Rembrandt self 
portraits as a young wild artist. Rembrandt's face immediately became a 
blank space. 

Margret swore something about sacrilege and threw a holographic 
video camera at Werner who at that moment was hiding behind the 
exquisite crystal fountain made of fragile interwoven crystal leafs, so the 
camera tore a hole straight through it and turning it into a deranged 
Christmas tree so it no longer gave a melody that reminded you of Mozart 
but rather Muzac. 

The fountain immediately sprayed water up over Margret to splash 
the Raphael fresco with the most marvelous blue stain.

At this moment Werner, simply gave up trying to hit Margret and 
concentrated on taking out his frustrated anger on the furniture, albeit 
priceless art. He grabbed a rare twelfth century icon from Samos, threw it 
to the floor and jumped up and down on it, expressing some satisfaction 
on his face.

Margret seeing this picked up the micronic computer terminal and 
dropped the whole lot in the crystal fountain. It exploded in a geyser of 
blue white sparks and gushing steam, filling the room with an enveloping 
cloud of cloying mist that made them stumble around in white blindness.

This process of interior decorating with sledge hammers went on 
for several minutes with an energy that would have done justice to a 
horde of drug crazed cub scouts.

Eventually the two wearied, and stood facing each other across the 
ruin, their arms hanging loosely by their sides and their hair lank and 
dripping on their foreheads.

" 'Allo" said Alain quietly standing at the door watching them 
holding a golf club, having just at that moment slipped in to see if they 
were ready for a game of golf yet.

"I zee you are settling in quite well," he smiled reassuringly in a 
way that was disconcerting at the same time, the two smiled wanely 
back. 

" Zo you have come to grips with the Grebblies, already, I zee."

"Sorry, what?" asked Werner not sure how to take Alain's manner 
or his French accent.

"Zee Grebblies, you have come to grips with the Grebblies, Oui?"

In a flash of inspiration Margret said the right thing, an event in 
itself which was not to occur for another 235 reincarnations.

"Yes!"

"What?" asked Werner startled.

Alain walked over smiling, swinging the club as he did walked.

"Did you kill one? I hope zo, I have been trying to kill a Grebblies 
ever since I came here, dammed Grebblies!"

He span round and took a swing at nothing. 

Margret and Werner exchanged glances of complete bemusement.

"There you zee," continued Alain," when ever you look at them 
they disappear, just like that, and look what they have done to my 
beautiful room, Sacre Bleu, Grebblies headzs will roll for zis."

The two psychotic furniture removalists smiled vaguely at each 
other and said nothing.

"O la la, zee have attacked your friend," he pointed at Erwin with 
the number nine club, who at that moment lay groaning on the floor.

"What happened?" Erwin said as he held his head.

Quickly Werner and Margret said in concert.

"Zee Grebblies attacked you!"

"Grebblies?What Grebblies?"

"Don't worry, they've gone now, you fought very, very bravely," 
said Margret helping him up.

"What, who have gone, what's all this Grebblies nonsense?What are 
you talking about?"

"Oh no," said Margret putting her hands to her face in mock 
consternation," he is suffering from amnesia, his memory is quite gone."

"No it's not ,"said Erwin, swaying slightly as he did so, so that he 
needed to lean against the wall for support," I remember what happI"

Werner quickly stepped up to Erwin, picking up a Cellini salt and 
pepper shaker as he did so and dented it badly on Erwin's skull,  
knocking out Erwin.

"Don't worry," said Werner turning to Alain who stood opened 
mouthed a meter away,"Amnesia I Oldest cure in the book."

Then the three of them put Erwin to recover a couch, this being the 
only survivied stick of furniture, and went out to play a most unusual 
game of golf.

Werner and Margret, though they had never played golf before, 
found that to all intensive purposes that the golf course was a perfectly 
ordinary golf course having balls, grass, television cameras and huge 
sandpits full of quicksand that ate passing club members.

Seagulls flew across the painted sky, which upon close examination 
really did turn out to be painted and on probably the largest ceiling in 
the universe, it seemed to stretch from one edge of the horizon to the 
other as against which a continuous laser display of clouds careened 
across the vaulted  heaven.

Alain walked up to the first tee, put a ball down and then belted it 
for all it was worth. The three of them watched as it sailed cleanly 
through the air to land several hundred metres down the fairway and 
sink inexorably into a bunker.

"Ah well, cest la vie," said Alain looking to Werner and Margret," 
now you must have a go, it iz eazi, just hit ze balle."

Margret stepped up and went through the same routine as Alain 
had gone through but before the ball had landed she turned to Alain to 
ask him a question.

"Alain doII"

"Vite!" yelled Alain and threw himself at Margret, knocking her to 
the ground while the same golf ball she had just teed off spat past her 
head and landed a hundred metres behind them after passing through 
the windows of the club house and killing one of the waiters, this was 
hailed as a great party trick by all the club members and they yelled out 
for an encore.

"WhaI" screamed Margret pulling herself from the grasp of 
Alain,"Iwas that?"

"It was ze damn Grebblies!" swore Alain disengaging himself from 
Margret's grasp.

Werner, who had glanced at Margret when she had turned around 
to speak and before the ball had returned, could have sworn, that from 
the corner of his eye, he had seen in the mid flight of the ball a small 
yellow-green monster pop into existence, snatch the ball from its flight 
and pitch it straight back at them at Mach Two, before popping back out 
of existence, but Werner couldn't quite be sure as the whole thing 
happened so quickly.

"How in I"started Werner then stopped, because it seemed 
impossible.    Alain smiled.

"Are, now you know."

"Know?"said Margret completely lost,"know what?"

"There was something there, wasn't there?" said Werner.

"Oui, zhere was," said Alain with an air of mystery.

Werner gazed down the fairway watching the seagulls weave and 
dive in the false sunlight, every now and then flying into one of the high 
energy laser beams or H.E.L.'s used for the display of false clouds and 
being instantly vaporized.

"But what are they?"asked Werner, ignoring a sudden puff of 
smoke as another Jonathan Livingston Seagull met his maker.

"What are what ?"asked Margret, her attention flipping between 
the two of them.

"Are yes,"said Alain nodding his head sagely."There's all these's 
'idden varibles in ze green, cosmic sandtraps if you like, we call zem 
Grebblies for lack of a better name,"he gestured apologetically," zey 
tunnel around under ze spacetime continuum stealing ze golf balls for 
some strange reason and zen regurgitaating zem somewere else on ze 
green. It play's 'ell wit your golf, don't you know. But don't worry as long 
as you keep your eye on ze baw'l it's alright. Just keep obsevering ze 
baw'l all ze time and you 'ave not'ing to worry about." 

"Sandtraps, Grebblies, baw'ls, what on Earth are you talking about?' 
cried Margret."The baw'lIdamn it!Ithe ball just shot back at us out of the 
blue, it must have hit a tree or there was a freak gust of wind or 
anything, there's no such thing as a grebblie, damn it!"

"Yes,"said Werner glimpsing the truth behind Alain words," I think 
you're right, to us the Grebblies don't exist, they aren't there, but they're 
there anyway, the trouble is you can never observe them. As soon as you 
try to look at them they disappear, I think."

"Yes, zat iz it exactly!" cried Alain."Always I try to catch them but 
always ze get away."

At this he spun around and took a swing with his golf club at the 
thin air.

"Zee, I can never catch them, it iz most annoying," spat out Alain 
with Gallic disgust. 

Margret, at this gave up completely on the male half of the species 
and put a new ball on her tee. However Werner persisted with the topic, 
throwing another question at Alain.

"Why are they there then" he said," or not there, what ever the 
case maybe?"

"Zut!" cried Alain, putting Margret off her shot and making her 
muff her swing so that the head of the club smacked into the turf and 
threw a divot two metres into the air.

"It iz ze Black Ol zat doez it," continued Alain ,"it streatches ze 
spacetime continuum and when we are not looking ze little grebbliez slip 
in underneath from the Black Ole and, O la la, ze swipe ze baw'ls."

"Ze swipe ze bawl's," echoed Margret, then belted her ball as hard 
as she could but this time keeping her eye steadily on it, so that it sailed 
gracefully through the air to land right at the base of the flag and drop 
into its hole.

Werner and Alain found themsleves staring with open mouths at 
the distant flag, before staring open mouthed at Margret. 

Margret who wasn't sure about the whole thing, felt embarrassed 
and found herself prompted into asking a question.

"Is that right?"she hesitated."I mean did I hit it properlyIerI"

"You got a 'ole in one," said Alain quiet amazement.

"Ah yes,"Margret giggled, not sure how to take Alain's response.

"You 'ave played before, Oui?"

"No,"she said slowly," I just did what you told me to do."

"Sacre Bleu!" exclaimed Alain."A 'ole in one on her first bawl, what 
a golfer you will make."

"Really," she squealed," you think so, Oh goody!.

"Humph,"snorted Werner," beginners luck, that's all!"

"Oh yeah!," snapped back Margret,"well what's that supposed to 
mean, I wouldn't have thought you believed in something as airy fairy, as 
luck!"

 "On the contrary,"said Werner with a delicious smile, knowing he 
was on safe ground." Luck is as real as bricks and bedes, all you have to 
do is look at it from the right point of view."

"Really," said Margret her voice low with a curious intensity," well 
why don't you tell us about it thenIhmm"

Werner, at first thought to brush this off but found Alain looking 
expectantly at him and so felt compelled to answer.

"Probability, it's probability, that's all."

"What's that supposed to mean?" said Margret.

"Simple really, think of some things which are unlucky, like 
walking under a ladder or breaking a mirror or having a black cat cross 
your path. If any of those things happen to you then there's a good 
chance you may get hurt like having a bucket of paint fall on you or 
cutting a major artery or tripping over the cat and breaking your neck in 
the dark. It's all probability," Werner said with finality.

Alain pushed up his bottom lip in typical Gallic agreement.

"But what's that got to do with my hitting the ball in the hole," spat 
out Margret derisively,"I can't see any cats out there."

"It's still probability," said Werner with a smirk," your mind weighs 
up the chances of everything you do, like when you're running it judges 
each step and takes it accordingly or when you're talking, that tends to be 
most of the time I might add, it weighs up the probabilities of what you 
and other people are saying and decides what you're going to say 
next,which is usually pretty mindless I might also add."

"You can add all you like, you'll still be mindless."

"But when,"continued Werner unperturbed," you do something new 
or exotic to which you have no preconceived ideas about, then you 
haven't learned how to fail yet and so you're not expecting to do so, in 
other words it's your confidence that counts, so there."

Margret  sneered and Werner took this as a compliment and smiled 
back. So Margret bent and placed another ball on the tee, then stood up 
and smiled at Werner before again belting it for all she was worth.

The ball sailed serenely through the air, chasing away a seagull, to 
land next to the flag, bounced a couple of times and plopped down into 
the hole.

"AhI,"said Werner ," that's veryI, very interesting, II don't think 
it's supposed to do thatI um."

"On the contrary," smirked Margret," according to your theory 
that's exactly what supposed to happen!"

"It is!" said Werner in amazement," Why?"

"It's all probability, since my behaviour is based on  preconceived 
ideas and since the only preconceived idea that I have is to get a hole in 
one. Then surely, I must get holes in one whenever I hit the ball, simple 
really, don't you think. In fact -do you think at all?- now that's an 
interesting question."
"Wait,"said Alain,"look ze flag!"

They followed the gesture of his arm down to the flag and saw it 
was no longer vertical and completely up out of the ground but had 
sunken into the green and shaking wildly from side to side. Then 
suddenly it shot straight down into the hole disappearing entirely.

"What happened?" cried Werner.

"I do not know!" cried back Alain.

As they were watching, a seagull screamed out of the heaven like a 
pilotless fighter plane playing chicken with the Earth - and losing. For, the 
bird shot straight into the hole and exploded into a ball of feathers, which 
in turn were sucked down into the hole and vanished.

"Ah no! Now I know!" cried Alain, his hands flying to his mouth.

"Is it a grebblie?" screamed Margret.

"Non," said Alain.

"Is it the black hole?"screamed Werner.

"Non,"cried Alain falling back a step," it iz far worse, it is I ze 
vacuum cleaner ! It is out of control, run for your lives!"

At that moment, the earth beneath the green erupted into a 
churning brown-green mess of dirt and grass, which ripped and spewed 
through the air, spraying detritus and old golf balls in all directions. As 
from the bowels of the earth, rose up the great blue vacuum cleaner that 
Werner and the rest had met when they first landed. It whirring teeth 
spinning mud wildly about it giving it the appearance of some 
antediluvian monster coming back for pudding.

Werner and Margret stood stock still too stunned to heed Alain's 
cry to run and escape. 

A cry, which Alain, himself took quite seriously and had already 
left the golf course in his personal deep space escape pod and was now 
orbiting another star system, fourty light years away sipping a Super 
Nova Sunrise.

Instead the two of them watched as the beast dragged its great 
swollen putrid vacuum sac from out of the hole and onto the fairway like 
an obscene maggot which had spent its entire existence chewing on dead 
whales and the remains of King Kong. The hoover-become-Kraken swayed 
uneasily on its articulated tracks like a great mechanized mole snuffling 
the air, then paused and stilled its reverberation for a moment before 
giving vent to a primeval roar of delight and tore towards Margret and 
Werner splaying divots of turf in its wake.

"Run!" Werner cried and turned to flee, but Margret as she span 
around to run, twisted her ankle and fell on to the grass. 

"Bloody women!" yelled Werner and jumped back to pick up 
Margret  and throw her over his shoulder but as he did so, Margret's golf 
club caught between his legs and he fell head first on top of Margret.

She screamed.

"Help! Rape! Rapist! Help!" in a piercing scream that deafened 
Werner.

"What?!" cried Werner in surprise.

"Oh sorry IIJHelp Vacuum Cleaner!" she screamed.

The psychopathic vacuum cleaner roared on towards them.

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!!" they screamed and shut their 
eyes in fear.

They tensed themselves, waiting for the Hoover to suck them into 
oblivion.

They waited some more.

They opened their eyes, having got bored waiting to be sucked up 
and mashed into yesterday's breakfast.

"It's gone," said Margret.

"AhIyeah," said Werner,"it's gone."

"But where is it?" asked Margret.

"I don't I,"said Werner,"I think the Grebblies must have got it 
when we closed our eyes."

"Oh, come on, surely you don't believe that rubbish that Alain was 
going on about, do you?" 

They extricated themselves from each other and stood up to stare 
for a moment at the golf course.  It had changed, in fact it had changed a 
lot. It was now a set of tennis courts.

"What happened?" asked Margret.

"Maybe we jumped through time and space," returned Werner, 
though without conviction."No wait! I'm brilliant! I Look I've got an idea. 
I know this sounds stupid, but I want you to close your eyes."

"No way, buster! You're not getting me with that old trick. I've met 
your sort before down by the docks on a Saturday night, I know what 
you're up to."

"What!" boomed Werner," you cretin, it's the Grebblies they 
disappear whenever you try and observe them, I just want to see what 
will happen if we close our eyes, just like when the golf ball shot back at 
us." He paused."Besides what are you doing down the docks on a Saturday 
night?"

Margret blushed and shut her eyes in embrassed fury, Werner 
seeing this did likewise.

"Alright,"he said after a few minutes," let's open them again."

They did so and found to their surprise they were standing on an 
tiny island surrounded by a lake of grey mud and both stark naked.

"Animal!" screamed Margret and smacked Werner across the face.

"Wait," he said," I didn't do anything!"

"Liar!"Margret screamed and slapped him again.

"You don't understand, it was the Grebblies. They're there, it's just 
you can't see them."

"Ha!"yelled Margret," pull the other leg, it plays jingle bells."

Werner looked down at Margret's legs, then his eyes traveled up to 
stare at the rest of her, Werner  grinned. Margret kicked him in the groin.

Werner sank to the ground.

"Ugh," he groaned while Margret turned her back on him and 
stared into the distance across the rather uninteresting mud at the club 
house.

"Wait till Albert gets a hold of you,"she said without turning about," 
then you'll be sorry. Did I tell you he's a full forward in the football team. 
Why I bet, once I tell him what you've tried to do, he'll even come round 
with a few of the team and then you'll be sorry."

Werner squirmed around on a patch of the muddy island trying to 
get his breath back. Eventually he managed to stand up and stood looking 
at Margret from behind. Nothing was said by either of them for a few 
moments till suddenly Margret span round and snapped out.

"What are you staring at?!"

"Nothing, nothing at all," he said suddenly finding an interesting 
patch of  mud to stare at.

Margret stuck her hands on hands on her hips.

"Well, Mister Know-it-all, what do we do now,hm?"

Werner's eyes wavered uncertainly about for a moment, till he 
realized he couldn't stand Margret and he didn't give a damn as to what 
happened to her and her meat-head fiancee Albert.

Werner stared back at Margret.

Margret stared back at Werner.

Neither one of them was going to back down. They were going to 
stare each other to death.

A shadow passed over them as the imitation clouds slipped silently 
across the imitation sky. In a corner of Werner's mind, he registered that 
a very large object had just passed above them but the rest of his brain 
was too occoupied to notice that particular group of cells, being far too 
busy trying to keep his eyes focused at a point on Margret's nose.

"Close your eyes," he said very slowly and distinctly.

"No, you close yours," she said back just as emphatically.

"If you don't close your eyes, we'll be stuck till the mud frezzes 
over. Which I don't think is going to happen for a long, long time. So close 
you eyes."

"No!" Margret said curtly.

"Yes!" Werner said as he took a step forward," Look if you don't 
close your eyes, then the Grebblies won't be able to do something else 
like get rid of the mud and bring back the golf course. So close your eyes."

Margret took a corresponding step back into the mud.

"Er," she wavered as her foot sank into the mud," don't you think 
we should talk about this?"

"No, close your eyes!" 

As Werner said this, that group of cells in his brain that dealt with 
large objects flying about the sky, started to get quite frantic and began 
positively screaming at the rest of the brain to pay attention as to what 
they were on about. However the rest of the brain still couldn't get off the 
idea that it wanted to kill Margret, as it felt this remove a great deal of 
suffering from the world, especially Werner's.

Margret fell back into the mud and screamed.

"Eeeeeh!"

Werner leapt on top of Margret and they squirmed about in the 
mud for a few seconds, with Werner trying his best to cover Margret's 
eyes with his hands and Margret trying her best to take away his 
manhood.

Suddenly, Margret stopped resisting, lay back in the mud and 
smiled reassuringly. Werner paused and frowned, smiled like Margret for 
a moment before changing his mind and decided to keep on frowning 
anyway. He let go of one of Margret's wrists with one of his hands and 
tried to cover her eyes with it instead.

"Oh,"said Margret piquantly," don't I get to watch?"

"No, that's the whole point, you have to close your eyes."

"Oh Alright, "she said demurely and screamed,"Hoover!"

"No, it's Werner," Werner said distinctly," and close your eyes."

"NoI,"she managed, then fainted.

"Well, it's about time!" snorted Werner.

At just this precise moment, that little group of cells, which had 
been going stark raving mad trying to tell Werner's brain about the very, 
very, large object that was making the shadow, finally got through to that 
very important bunch of cells that sat at the top of his brain stem and 
coordinated all the other cells, and yelled at it,'look up, you blithering 
idiot!'.

Werner's head flicked up and he screamed.

"Hoover!!"

As the vacuum cleaner came screaming down out of the sky, mouth 
wide open, straight on top of them.

-KU-DONGK!-







Chapter Fourteen

           Hamlet is the tragedy of tackling a family problem too soon after 
college.

                                 Tom 
Masson.

          

Albert's body woke up screaming, as the different organs in his 
body madly sent messages to his brain telling him not to do anything 
drastic like twitch an eyebrow or breathe.

"Oh shit manIreality! Like wow!" telegraphed his temples, as the 
blood tom-tomed through his arteries, his liver began figuring out 
different ways it could tunnel out of his body; and what he thought to be 
pins and needles, were, in actual fact, hundreds of thousands of cells 
commiting ritual sucide, in wild rite of protoplasmic Hara-Kiri.

He groaned, it was one of those mornings when he wondered why 
he had bothered going to bed in the first place. Then groaned again and 
wondered to himself, how it was that going to sleep at night, was so much 
more fun than waking up the next day, since one action was simply the 
reverse of the other.

He lay on the couch, amidst the scattered remains of the previous 
nights party of bottles, balloons and squashed brioche, which the boys 
from Norway had thrown for him, having informally accepted him into 
their fraternity. He had found somewhat to his surprise that they were 
actually terrible company to be with. Especially after he had discovered 
they had a remarkable lack of ribald humour, so much so, that even the 
Neil's story about the transvestite chicken had failed to bring gales of 
laughter.

He stood up and walked around the room, crunching broken glass 
and twisted ideologies beneath his feet till he came to what he surmised 
was the breakfast table. Upon which lay what was probably the most 
inedible breakfast he had ever had the misfortune to preside upon, so 
that given a choice between tapioca and tripe he choose starvation.

He stared at himself in the mirror above the table.

"To be or not to be?"

This had been the question of the previous evening, that they had 
posed to each other, as they sat round in a circle drinking wine and eating 
parfaits, while outside the window the interminable Venetian weather 
coated the windows with tendrils of living water, which trickled slowly 
backwards and forwards across its surface like transparent seaweed in 
the eddy of the night's ocean current.

"The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by 
finding an 'objective correlative'; in other words, a set of objects, a 
situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular 
emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in 
sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked1," said 
Molde.

Albert agreed with him, then drank a litre of wine.

"Absolutely,"Albert said firmly," that's just what I've always 
thought, just what I would have said, no doubt about it," and then 
proceeded to drink another litre of wine.

"It's all to do with the psychology of the electron," said Oslo, who 
by time had recovered from the teapot on the head.

"The whI?" said Albert opened mouthed.

"No,"said Bergen quickly," it could be any particle, or energy 
fluctuation, it doesn't make any difference."

The others bobbed their heads in agreement.

"Could somebody pass the port, please," said Albert quietly.

Alison passed him a full decanter and smiled wanly at him, as if 
inviting him to enter the conversation, Albert declined and emptied the 
decanter.

"But how do you relate the emotional state of a human to that of an 
electron, surely the two things are worlds apart, how can there even be 
the slightest causal connection?" asked Molde. 

"Yeah man!" said Smegma in a unpredictably repulsive fashion that 
made Albert's skin crawl. 

Albert looked at Smegma and felt he reminded him of something 
one found in the soiled underwear of a leper colony.

"It's all to do with decisions," said Molde.

"Decisions?" said Albert.

"Decisions," said Molde.

"Decisions, ah right," said Albert and tried to smile.

"How does an electron decide where it is going to go or how does it 
know what it is going to do?"

Albert gave up trying to smile and pretended to be an innocent 
bystander.

The group, which surrounded the pile of half-empty dishes of 
tapioca and completely empty flagons of wine, paused in thought as if 
they were in communion with the greater mysteries of nature and the 
unending questioning doubt that was their lot, or more probably were too 
smashed to think.

In the dim, deep recesses of Albert's memory, somewhere between 
his first sexual experience and getting arrested for indecent exposure on 
a nudist camp, a synapse fired and triggered off a chain of other synapses 
which came together to form a memory which played hide and seek with 
all his other memories, so that a thought finally flashed on in his mind 
one hundredth of a second later.

"Hang on,"he cried,"things like electrons don't decide where there 
going, they just go there, that's what the laws of nature are all about, the 
laws of physics and maths get obeyed that's the whole point of science."

Kristiansand lent over, his lank black hair falling around his 
shoulders and tapped Albert on the knee.

"Yes , but who tells them?" he asked attentively.

"What?" said Albert in surprise.

"If you are an electron, floating around in space, what makes you 
go in one direction but not another."

"Because it just does!" Albert almost shouted, reeling back with 
either fear or drunken stupor.

"No,"said Oslo from across the circle," I don't think you've quite 
seen the light. If you were an electron floating around in space and you 
can't see anything, then how do you know which direction you're 
supposed to be going in?"

"BecauIbecIb?" stuttered Albert.

"Exactly," continued Oslo," you don't. Something has to tell you, to 
inform you of where you are, you have to interact with something, you 
have to touch the space around you to know where you are, you have to 
know where you are. In other words you have to have a psychology!"

"But that's crazy!" cried Albert, wide eyed.

"Yeah, hey man, schizophrenic electrons," said Smegma mournfully 
staring down at the floor having come to the conclusion that nobody was 
going to talk to him anymore.

Albert stared at Smegma and felt a vague urge to commit 
manslaughter, he felt sure it would be manslaughter as nobody would 
really miss Smegma.

Alison got up, walked over to a book-shelf and brought back a 
voluminous tome entitled 'Nietzsche Meets The Marx Brothers.' Opened it 
at a well thumbed page and began to read.

"How can a man take pleasure in nonsense? For whenever in the 
world there is laughter this is the case; one can say, indeed, that almost 
everywhere there is happiness there is pleasure in nonsense1."

She paused and looked around the group for their response, this 
varied from deep looks of thoughtful concentration from Oslo and Bergen; 
to Smegma scratching his crotch and finding something interesting; and to 
Albert desperately trying not to belch or throw up.

"Yes," said Molde looking at the ceiling with his chin up,"I see what 
you're saying I yes."

Albert stared open mouthed at Molde expecting him to continue. 
Molde continued to look at the ceiling. So Albert looked at the ceiling as if 
there really was something written on the ceiling, but quickly gave up 
when he found the room beginning to swim and stared at his hands 
instead. 

Suddenly, he felt like a fish in a goldfish bowl staring out on a 
grossly distorted world which swam and changed before his eyes as he 
changed his position in the goldfish bowl never really seeming to have 
any fixed identity.

"It's like being a fish in a goldfish bowl," muttered Smegma.

This time Albert felt a real and genuine need to take Smegma's life 
in his hands and accidently drop it off a cliff, but wasn't sure how this 
would go down as a party trick.

"But does it mean that electrons are conscious like you or me, is a 
rock conscious of when I stub my toe against it, does it feel anything?" 
asked Oslo running his finger around the buckles of his knee length black 
boots.

Albert's mouth fell open for a second, shut itself and then fell open 
again, like a goldfish breathing water.

"Just like a goldfish," muttered Smegma again.

This time, Albert's eyes started flicking around to see if their were 
any large guns handy.

Bergen ignored Smegma himself, but carried on from his comment.

"Is a goldfish conscious like you or I, or does it simply react like a 
rock or an electron?

Then paused, as he thought,

"and if so, is there any difference between you, I and the atoms in 
a goldfish?"

"I had a pet goldfish, once," said Smegma in a tone so depressing 
that Albert immediately wanted to shove his head in a goldfish bowl and 
see how long he could involuntary hold his breath.

"Maybe it's a different form of consciousness for a electron then for 
a goldfish, maybe a goldfish is a complex of consciousness's which reach 
down through its biological structure to the atoms and electrons to form a 
continuum with the Universe?" said T?nsberg in one of his rare 
statements that made any sense yet still managed to confuse the living 
goldfish out of Albert.

"His name was GeorgeIwell at least I think it was a he, I was never 
really sure, since I could never get him to say anything." 

Smegma said this in such a doleful tone that Albert finally 
snapped.

For suddenly, Albert whipped his arm up and pointed across the 
room at the opposite wall.

"Look Everyone! It's a Flying Nude Goldfish!" 

In surprise, everybody quickly turned and stared at the place he 
was pointing and while they were doing so, Albert grabbed an empty 
decanter and smashed it across the top of Smegma's head, knocking him 
out cold, so that he fell backwards into pillows and started dreaming 
about heavy weight alcoholic goldfish with a penchant for street fights.

"No, sorry,"said Albert quickly," just my imagination, nothing at all, 
don't worry about it, this is rather a nice port you have here."

Then proceeded to pour himself another glass.

Alison gave him a long hard look, after she saw Smegma lying 
backwards on the pillows surrounded by shards of glass, but said nothing 
nobody else bothered to offer any comments either, as obviously it was 
an act they had been wanting to do themselves for some time.

"What was that you were saying about fishing for electrons, just 
now, sounded terribly interesting you know," said Albert, before he 
tossed back what was probably his twentieth the glass of port.

After this, the party rapidly diminished in philosophic content as 
Albert told more and more outrageously funny jokes about chickens 
crossing the road and getting run over and the Hamlet clones began 
finding more and more reasons to leave and go home, to most probably, 
Albert thought, talk to their goldfish. 

Eventually Albert found himself alone with just Alison and the 
unconscious Smegma and his conscious electrons.

After Alison had seen the last guest out the front door, she came 
back into the room and sat down next to Albert and Smegma and idly 
flicked her way through the book.

Albert, who for several minutes, had done little more than dribble 
saliva down his chin onto his shirt, suddenly realized that all the Hamlets 
had left with the exception of Smegma and Alison. His eyes wandered 
listlessly about the room coming to rest on the semi-reclined figure of 
Alison then moved on to view with disgust the bodily remains of 
Smegma, Albert saw with amazement that Smegma was dribbling saliva 
down his chin onto his shirt. Subliminally, Albert wiped his chin with the 
back of his hand and found to his surprise that it too was covered in 
saliva. He hastily removed the rest of it using his shirt sleeve as a tissue, 
but found to his dismay that the black cloth from which it was made, 
wouldn't take the sticky mess, and so lay like a wet greasy snails trail 
along his arm, thereupon he hid his arm underneath a pillow and 
contemplated the ceiling with an air of fascination usually reserved for 
Buddhist monks and stunned mullet.

Alison, unwisely choose to attempt a conversation at this point.

"Excuse me, Albert,"she began," why do you want to work in 
Daddy's string mine, I mean there are a lot less dangerous ways of 
earning a living."

Albert finding himself faced with the terrible dilemma of having to 
give a reply, stared wildly at Alison for a moment then stuttered out 
what he hoped was an intelligent reply.

"Dangerous! What do you mean, Dangerous?!"

"Didn't Daddy tell you?" Alison said hesitantly.

"Tell me what?!" cried Albert in the most masculine voice he could 
muster considering his brain was swimming in alcohol and the saliva drip 
had started again on his chin.

Alison lent over, and with a handkerchief wiped clean his chin.

"AhmmIthank you, sorry, what didn't your Father tell me about 
the mine?"

"Oh it's nothing serious, I think,"then bit her lip," well I don't 
knowI"

"What? What?"

"It's just that the Strings are so terribly IIodd."

"They are?" said Albert incredulously."Strings?IOdd?"

"Yes, they get so wild at times," said Alison, her eyes shining with 
apprehension.

Any preconceived ideas that Albert had about those little bits of 
stuff he used to use to tie up birthday presents and piles of books , 
suddenly went out the metaphysical window along with that little island 
of sanity dealing with everyday things like bus stops and old teddy bears, 
which his mind had kept hidden away in his brain next to memories of 
violent gratuitous sex and step ladders.

"They get wild?" he yelled, slowly and carefully.

Alison stared evenly at Albert, as if, he thought, measuring him for 
a coffin and then before she could reply was interrupted by Smegma 
coming to and rising from the pillows to ask.

"What goldfish?"

At this point, Albert quite unceremoniously fell back into his bed 
of pillows and sank into a drunken stupor that lasted till the morning, 
when he found himself staring at himself in the mirror asking.

"To be or not to be?" and then wondered who was more real, 
himself or the image of himself in the mirror.

When suddenly, there appeared in the doorway the figure of 
Hamilton who gestured frenetically to Albert to follow him.

"Quick laddy, before Alice pops up out of the woodwork," he hissed.


Albert followed him down the black corridors, which in the light of 
the day were at least partially visible, till they came to a large cast iron 
door, encrusted with locks and bolts. Albert looked to Hamilton for 
explanation.

"It's to keep Alice out,"he whispered," she keeps taking joy rides 
back to the Nineteenth century with a large calibre shotgun and I", then 
shrugged his shoulders.

Albert finished the sentence for himself with one word.

"Carroll."

Hamilton nodded, and began undoing all the locks and bolts with 
the endless key chain he kept in his pocket. Within in few minutes he 
was able to creak open the door and pull it to one side. 

Behind the door Albert found quite surprisingly what appeared to 
be the interior of an elevator. 

"It's an elevator," Albert said slightly mystified.

"Yes," Hamilton said back,"it's an elevator. We use it for elevating 
things you know."

"AhII" said Albert in a daze."You elevate things, how nice." 

At this point Albert, realized he had one terrific hangover and that 
it was best if he said and did as little as possible to attract attention.

They stepped inside and Hamilton pushed the button labeled 
basement. 

Albert noted this time with a great deal of surprise that there were 
over two hundred floors beneath themselves and the basement floor.

"We're going down, we're going down into the ground,"Albert said 
with amazement, having already forgotten his former resolution to 
remain quiet.

"Yes, that's where mines usually are, underground you know," 
Hamilton said back wondering if Albert was even the same species as he 
was.

"Yes, I know that," snapped back Albert,"but we're in Venice, 
Venice is built on a lagoon, this must mean we're going underwater, I 
mean, we are in Venice aren't we?"

"Arr laddy, there you have me, I should have told you this before 
as we were coming down the hall but I moved Venice during the night."

"What!"Albert shrieked, as the lift began its controlled fall into the 
bowels of where Venice used to be.

"You can't move a whole city and even if you could, you certainly 
couldn't move a whole city in one night, "then finished timidly and 
peaking high,"can you?!"

"Oh you can you know, I do it every Monday and put it back the 
following Friday, just as good as gold, have to, it's the only way I can get 
at the string underneath it."

"But doesn't anybody notice, surely somebody must notice,"Albert 
said giggling," in fact the entire world must notice and what's so bloody 
important about this stupid string for Newtons sake?!" finally starting to 
lose his marbles with the strain.

"Steady on lad,"said Hamilton soothingly. "There's nothing 
impossible with what we do, on the contrary it's quite easy, the entire 
city has been put on pontoons and so every time we have to move the 
city we just float it out to sea, pump all the water out of the lagoon and go 
to work." 

"But why? I mean why on earth do you keep moving the city 
around, surely the entrance to the mine stays in the same place, dosen't 
it?"

"No, no it actually moves around quite a bit. It's to do with the 
String, time isn't constant down there. It pops and jumps around like 
nobody's business. So we keep having to look for the entrance to the mine 
every time we want to go down there. Not to worry, we've been doing it 
for years without any difficulty."

Hamilton paused.

"Mind you, we do have the occasional problem, like the time the 
city broke free from its moorings and floated down to Tunisia, we only 
just averted a war, that time."

"Tunisa I You nearly had a war!"Albert said  in amazement."How 
did you stop it?"

"We gave them Gibraltar, in exchange."

"Gibraltar? But Gibraltar is British, isn't it?"

"Yes, that's why we gave it to the Tunisians."

At this Albert decided to give up and stared numbly at the 
elevator doors in front of him. Unfortunately they decided to stare 
straight back at him, Albert found this behaviour very disconcerting and 
tried to look elsewhere but found that the entire elevator was covered 
with mirrors, so that wherever he looked he found himself staring 
numbly back at himself. He gave up and looked at Hamilton who smiled 
back in a manner that was even more disconcerting than the mirrors.

"I had the mirrors put in so as to make my people talk to each 
other more, it's good for company morale," said Hamilton in his placid 
friendly tone that was beginning to drive Albert over the far side of 
reality," and also they help contain any run away strings."

Albert saw he couldn't keep on staring at himself while Hamilton 
stared at him, staring at himself, so he wearily furthered the question on 
the strings. "Why are these strings so important?" in a tone of resignation.

"They are the key to the Universe," said Hamilton with great 
enthusiasm,"they tie everything together, without them nothing else 
could exist, they are the very essence of space, time, energy, matter and 
movement. They are what allows everything to interact and bind 
together in the entire cosmos, in one astronomical magical flying carpet. 
They are the fabric of the Universe."

"AhII," responded Albert finally seeing a causal link between 
himself, wall to wall carpeting and the rest of the damn Universe. 

Then followed with," You're saying a ball of string, which I can buy 
at the supermarket, holds the Universe togetherIIuh-huh."

"No, no, no!" Hamilton paused and looked into himself in his 
reflection, before beginning again in a torrent of grandiloquent Gaelic 
articulation.

"Their not ordinary strings! That's the whole point! They're the 
cosmic strings of energy and space! You know, like when you play the 
guitar the strings vibrate and music flows forth as the heavenly music of 
the spheres, well the same thing here, these strings are the great 
orchestra of the Universe and the conductor and the audience all strung 
up in one beautiful oscillating symphony of being and nothingness."

Albert became very, very silent and decided not to say any more 
and closed his eyes, hoping the great cosmic symphony of the Universe 
would just go away and leave him in peace.

A few minutes later they landed at the basement floor and the 
doors slid silently open.

Albert looked out into the space beyond the doors and found to his 
surprise, a spotlessly white laboratory complete with computers 
humming away and racks of test tubes covering the walls, not at all what 
Albert had expected a mine to be like, even if it was a string mine.

"This is the testing lab," said Hamilton leading Albert across the 
room and into the hall-way beyond," I'll show you the real guts of the 
place, down in the pit where we catch the wild strings."

Albert shuffled along in his wake, vainly trying to ignore the 
blinding headache, the ubiquitous white was giving his hangover.

"Wild strings, what do you mean by wild strings, I still don't 
understand what a string is, or what you call a string is supposed to be or 
do, can't you be a little more specific other than they're the binding force 
of the Universe, I mean what do they look like, for Newton's sake?"

Hamilton stopped when they reached the corridor and looked at 
Albert sympathetically, then handed him a pair of sunglasses.

"Is this for the strings, are they bright?" asked Albert 
apprehensively.

"No laddy, Alison told me that you would probably have one 
terrific hangover today."

"AhIthank you."

"Don't worry about the string, you'll learn about it soon enough."

Immediately Albert began to worry about the string and wondered 
if he should take out any accident insurance or if he would be paid any 
danger money.

They kept on walking for several minutes till they stopped at a 
small table covered with small square white boxes that lay in ordered 
abandon upon its surface. To Albert they looked suspiciously like the 
Spacetime cube he had originally traveled in, he glanced at Hamilton for 
confirmation.

"These laddy, are some of my timing machines,"said Hamilton in a 
sonorous but gay tone that reminded Albert of old decaying Celtic 
temples with lots of little leprechauns running around playing truant.

"Don't you mean time machines," asked Albert, in a vacant way 
that reminded Hamilton of large empty spaces that contained very little 
and certainly not any intelligence.

"Not at all," returned Hamilton."The Spacetime machines are just 
down the hall. No these are what we use to time eggs with."

"OhI,"said Albert ,"they look just like spacetime machines."

"They do?" said Hamilton in some surprise and stared again at the 
cubes,"maybe that's why I can never get a proper boiled egg around this 
place."

Then picked one up and gave it to Albert.

"Here you'll need it when you're measuring out the string," 
Hamilton said to Albert.

"Yes, the string." said Albert back to Hamilton, wondering if their 
was any chance of talking his way out of this, by telling Hamilton he had 
suffered a terrible trauma as a child by seeing his entire family choke 
almost to death, when they had inadvertently eaten three kilos of fine 
grade cotton, having mistakenly put the wrong packet in the pasta that 
night. However Albert realized, that somehow it just wouldn't make any 
difference anyway, and kept his mouth shut.

They kept walking down the hall till they came to what Albert 
thought at first glance to be fifteen identical piles of junk in a row and 
said so to Hamilton.

"Junk? Junk?"said Hamilton, raising his eyebrows up to his 
forehead to hide his thinning hair line." Laddy, these are my spacetime 
machines."

Albert stared reprovingly once more at the former piles of junk. 
What before had seemed to be the reject stuff from a garage sale for the 
Adams family, now seemed to take on a sort of order. 

In the centre of each pile was a well padded seat, the sort you'd 
find in a Go-Cart for a five year old, about which the frames of several 
washing machines had been twisted and buckled to form a capsule of 
sorts which had attached to and built into the body of, was a seeming 
endless array of electrical wiring and computer chips which flashed on 
and off intermittently as if to give some functional appearance to the 
whole contraption by flashing on and off and looking technical. Attached 
to what Albert assumed were the sides, were short stubby wings with 
what appeared to be small jet engines slung beneath.

Albert looked at Hamilton for an explanation.

"Step inside Laddy, I'll show you how they work."

Albert did so and found as he settled into the seat that the  interior 
glowed with the lights of a shimmering control panel,which sparkled as 
hundreds of tiny lights flickered on and off and strange hieroglyphics 
scrolled across a small screen in front of them, as above on the roof of the 
cabin a holograph floated displaying exploded shots of the galaxy. The 
controls themselves appeared to be odd shaped clear glass crystals, which 
grew and formed before Albert's eyes then reversed their growth to 
disappear back into the control panel manifold like confused anemone.

Hamilton leaned into the cabin and started pushing buttons while 
Albert sat back amazed at the complexity of the cabin's interior.

"Supposing you wanted to jump from here to Eternity," said 
Hamilton.

"Is there such a place, I thought -From Here To Eternity- was a 
movie," asked Albert somewhat puzzled.

"Oh," laughed Hamilton," it is, but it was filmed on this little island 
out in the Pacific, and the locals liked the movie so much they renamed 
their island after the movie," and laughed again.

"I see," said Albert, wishing he had never asked.

"Anyway," continued Hamilton," you simply adjust the spacical 
cordinates like this."

Here Hamilton pushed several of the glass rods with his fingers and 
twisted a dial. As he did so, the rods reacted by darting back and then 
rippling forward to lovingly caress the sides of Hamilton's hand.

"This is just like my spacetime machine," said Albert with some 
appreciation."Supposing I wanted to catch a cat?"

Hamilton looked at him with some amusement.

"You want to catch a cat?" he said sardonically.

"Yes, that's why I'm here, I have to catch a cat, a strange sort of a 
cat, one that jumps between Universes."

Hamilton nodded his head appreciatively.

"Well I don't know about your particular cat, but it's certainly 
possible to track something as big as a cat that jumps from Universe to 
Universe and then home in on it. That's what I normally use sedation for 
when we're hunting strings."

Albert looked at Hamilton warily when he said this.

"In fact,"continued Hamilton," that's how I found out about you, to 
tell you the truth, you were a blimp on the spacetime continuum."

Albert felt his mind physically trying to understand what it meant 
to be a blimp on the spacetime continuum and felt it made as much sense 
as a Rubik cube that was all edges and no sides. 

Albert then found his mind trying to understand what a Rubik 
cube like that, would look like, till a few hundredths of a second later he 
found his mind whimpering like a beaten hamster in a corner of his mind, 
asking him not to subject it to such tortures.

"You see these controls here,"said Hamilton indicating a panel of 
living buttons," well these deal with gross anomalies in the spacetime 
continuum, if we set these to detect an object which is about the size of a 
cat which materializes somewhere in the known and the unknown then 
the machine homes in on it like a ferret on an old pair of jock straps."

Albert stared at Hamilton, having not the faintest idea what he was 
talking about, which was quite natural as it was the sort of comment that 
even Freud, spinning out on cocaine, would have baulked at.

"Yes," he said, then smiled pleasantly as there didn't seem to be 
anything else he could offer."That's how my spacetime machine works."

"Come on laddy," said Hamilton, helping Albert out of the cabin," 
we're not far from the site of the string itself, there I'll show you 
something really interesting."

They continued on down the corridor to pass through into the 
actual mine itself with its stone walls and hundreds of yellow and green 
budgerigars which flitted around their heads singing incessantly.

"Why have you got so many budgerigars down here, what do you 
use them for?" asked Albert, ducking his head as a flock buzzed over his 
head.

"We used to use them to see if there was any gas leaks down here 
and some of them escaped to form these wild flocks that you see," replied 
Hamilton.

"You're kidding, there must be thousands of them down here, what 
do they live on? Don't tell, let me guess, it's string isn't it" said Albert 
triumphantly.

"No,"replied Hamilton, smirking," cut lunches."

"What?"yelped Albert, as a bird buzzed his face,"Cut lunches?"

Hamilton demonstrated by taking a cheese and bacon sandwich 
from his pocket and unwrapping the plastic from it. 

Instantly, his hand was covered with hundreds of swarming 
buddgies, which shrieked and whistled for a minute then rose up from 
his hand like a swarm of angry buddgies and raced off down the tunnel 
to attack somebody else with the avian equivalent of the storming of the 
Normandy beaches on D-Day. 

Albert stared at Hamilton's hand, in place of the sandwich was now 
an empty space, a limp square of plastic and a few spots of blood on 
Hamilton's hand, not even a crumb had fallen to the ground.

"That's incredible," said Albert with an air of awe suitable for an 
invasion of killer budgerigars."Why don't you get rid of them?"

"We tried, we used cats," said Hamilton smiling ridiculously.

Albert felt his heart sank at the mention of cats.

"What happened."

"They disappeared."

"You mean, the cats?"asked Albert fearfully," how, what happened 
to them?"

"The birds I they ate them."

"The birds ate the cats!, you're kidding, those are some birds 
you've got there," with a new appreciation of his mother's little pet 
buddgies.

They walked on into the endless tunnels, which seemed to break 
off like tree branches from each other, becoming smaller and smaller as 
Albert and Hamilton made their way along them. Till eventually they 
heard in the distance, the sound of large machinery whining and 
thudding in the gloom of the tunnel.

"Ah,"began Hamilton ,"that's the mine face up ahead, all will be 
revealed." he said with a flourish of his hands.

In the distance of the tunnel, Albert could make out the whirling 
lights of the machinery and in the reflected light, the movement of the 
people operating it, thin waspish creatures that wove into the rock and 
machinery, like filaments of reality.

They soon came to the rock face.

"Heloooooo!" cried Hamilton, his voice echoing down towards  the 
surreal figures which stalked the underground cavern.

Albert saw to his surprise that they were in an enormous space, 
quite unlike the tunnels they had taken to get there, filled with great 
blundering machines that lived and breathed their troglodytian lives, 
trapped away from the earths surface like huge shuddering fossilized 
dinosaurs having broken free from their stony entombment.

"Gut morning Herr Hamilton, how are you today?" said a voice 
popping up next to them, out of the rock.

Albert and Hamilton span round to stare at the wall at their side.

"There's nothing there!" said Albert, quite surprised.

"Herr Plank, where are you?" asked Hamilton equally surprised.

"I'm in the rock itself, can't you see me?" said a voice from the 
wall.

Albert and Hamilton stared long and hard at the rock face and 
found to their amazement the outline of a face, seemingly carved into the 
rock itself, upon the nose of which balanced, a pair of glasses without any 
horns on their sides being held on by sticky tape.

Albert gasped with shock.

"You're part of the rock!" he said,"What II mean whenII mean 
why, erIwhere, IwhoIIoh, I don't know what I mean."

Hamilton leaned closer to the face in the rock and stared intently at 
it.

"How?" he asked simply.

"It was the String," said the face quickly.

Albert felt a sinking feeling when he heard this.

"We hit a big one,"continued Planck in a stony voice, his lips barely 
moving at all," and it got out of controlI it took everything we had to 
bring it under control and even then we took a terrible battering, it was 
like a cyclonic storm down here, whole chunks of time were thrown 
across the cavern and bounced off the walls to reverberate along the 
corridors of spacetime, that's what happened to me, I got caught in the 
wash of a temporal improbability and was frozen in time, within the rock 
itself."

"Are you alright, I mean, will you live?" asked Albert his voice 
rising with apprehension.

"Oh yes," said Planck," this sort of thing happens all the time, don't 
worry about it, sooner or later time catches up again and I'll be out of 
here, though in this case it make take some time, of course."

"How long?" asked Hamilton.

"OhIfew billion years, I suppose, say I'm wondering if you could 
set up a couple of televisions down here, I getting a bit bored staring at 
the same piece of rock all the time. Make sure you don't show any porno 
movies, it's hell getting a hard on in here."

"Did you capture the string," asked Albert quickly changing the 
subject.

"You'll have to talk to Green, he's in charge now, I'm just part of the 
scenery now," said Planck sarcastically.

"AhIyes,"said Hamilton," we'll do that."

Hamilton and Albert walked away, occasionally glancing back 
guiltily to where Planck stood as geological wallpaper.

They stepped across to the actual mine face itself. 

The noise was tremendous, as huge animated boulders of rock 
were ripped from the bed-rock and floated eerily through the air to 
smash thunderously in exactly the same position across the empty space 
into the wall at the rear of the great cavern, so that the rock never moved 
further than the width of the cavern thus doing away with the need to 
take the rock away using conveyor belts or little trains. 

While all around the flying rock, great clanking giants of machines, 
painted in the most awful colours of bright orange and sickly yellow, 
whined and bellowed their way about, seeming on first appearances, to 
do nothing more than clump around, like autistic dinosaurs playing 
hopscotch, while waiting for a bus. 

However, Albert saw on his second glance that inside each of the 
mechanized monsters within the confines of a tiny glass canopy, sat a 
person, who frantically pulled levers and pushed foot pedals, which 
appeared to determine the direction with which the boulders floated 
through the air to impact thunderously into the opposing wall. 

One of the machines slowly made its way over to them, and like an 
elephant bending its knee to let down its rider, the machine stopped 
before them and crouched its forelegs until the head of the machine with 
its rider came level with Albert and Hamilton.

"Hello Hamilton," said a cherry young man of about thirty, from 
within the cabin."I'll be with you in a sec," and then turned off the 
machine and broached the canopy.

"Good morning Green, I see you and Planck had a little trouble 
yesterday," said Hamilton.

Green laughed.

"A little, well a bit more than that I would say, especially since 
Planck is going to be as stiff as a board for the next few thousands years," 
then laughed again at his pun, something which Albert found somewhat 
callous in the circumstances. Green caught the expression on Albert and 
felt compelled to explain.

"You must be new here," he shouted," it's the string, it's like gold, 
we all get a touch of the Midas fever working around here, once you 
actually capture the stuff you can do just about anything you like with it, 
it's pure magic, we're just on the edge of a big strike, so everythings 
really crazy just now."

"What does it look like?" Albert yelled back, finally finding his 
curiosity to be pricked into activity.

"WellI" began Green but never finished as suddenly behind them 
the rock wall vanished completely and as Albert watched he saw to his 
amazement a seemingly empty hole form in its place.

"You'll soon see for yourself!"

Instantly, Green leapt back into his machine and geared it up again, 
pulling down the canopy as he did so and then guiding it over to the 
entrance of the newly made hole.

Hamilton grabbed Albert by the arm and pulled him away to one 
side of the cave from where they stood and watched as the machines 
laboured over to the hole and waited with Green, in front of the 
emptiness.

"What's going to happen?" whispered Albert in the terrifying 
silence that had followed the the sudden appearance of the hole.

"Shush laddy, just wait and see," ordered Hamilton as they 
crouched beneath an overhang in the rock wall.

For what seemed an eternity, they waited in the shadows of the 
cave, Albert watched through the strbing lights, the still figures of 
quiescent machines as if they stood chained to the cave floor by the 
tension of the moment.

Albert felt a sense of unreality come across his being as if he was 
the only person in the Universe who was sane and everybody else was 
either mad or dead.

"Can you feel it laddy?"asked Hamilton quietly.

"What, what is it?" shot back Albert.

"It's the string, it's getting ready to jump, the time around us is 
shifting and moving of its own accord, it's just like waves in the sea 
cutting across each other and moving on, the different time frames that 
make-up the Universe are breaking free from each other on the 
macroscopic level, soon whole objects the size of car parks will start 
moving around like super fluids, they'll exist as single particles, imagine 
it, something the size of mount Everest will be able to make a quantum 
jump to anywhere else in the Universe, all we have to do is give it a kick 
in the right direction, anything can happen now."

Suddenly Albert understood what Hamilton was talking about as 
from out of the darkness, arose the light of the infinite.

Albert blinked and blinked again, as the great boiling profusion of 
the Universe broke into their existence.

"What is it? squinted Albert as the screaming violence of the 
unknown came tearing into the cavern.

"It's a Universe in miniature," Hamilton screamed above the 
maelstrom of noise,"or at least all the possible states that a Universe may 
exist in."

Albert saw to his amazement, what appeared to be everything and 
nothing at the same time, as the figures of galaxies, clouds and deck 
chairs whirled around in the chaotic profusion of the entrance, as every 
single state of matter and energy came into existence and chased itself 
over and over the swirling turmoil of the hole. 

Teddy bears and bumble bees, spectacles and ancient trees, Persian 
rugs and roaring stars, apple flutes and Holden cars, nude blue sunburnt 
women, yellow and white shut umbrellas, retort stands to Egyptian 
fellahs, Shakespeare's nose, pink teardrops froze, great great big things, 
with nine sets of wings, which all flap together, across green fields of 
leather, Siberian yaks, academic quacks, dolphins diving, telephones 
arriving, around and around, it whirled and whirled, seconds slowed and 
atoms twirled, deeper and deeper in the harts of time, even the words 
began to rhyme.

"It'sIit'sIit'sIit'sIBIG," screamed Albert, finding nothing with 
which he could compare everything to.

"Duck!," yelled Hamilton, and pulled Albert to the ground, just 
managing to avoid a great white duck which buzzed out of the infinite to 
smack into the wall behind them in a hail of feathers and blood. Albert 
had noticed with amazement, as the bird passed above them, that the 
bird had had slung beneath its wings a whole array of bombs and 
machine guns just like a World War Two fighter plane.

"That shouldn't have happened!" yelled Hamilton.

"What?!" yelled Albert "What do you mean it shouldn't have 
happened?!"

"The Time Drivers!," yelled back Hamilton, indicating the 
machines,"they're supposed to contain the energy, but there's something 
wrong with this damn Universe! I think we had better get out of here."

At this, Hamilton span round and took off down the corridor 
leaving Albert to stare in sick fascination at the misbehaving Universe for 
a few moments before he too ran after Hamilton, as he found himself 
being chased by a flock of a hundred small pink pigs the size of footballs 
which merrily pelted through the space like little pink oinking flying 
saucers.

Albert, as he ran along the tunnel, found himself wondering why 
there were so many animals in this Universe and whether this was a 
general condition for all the Universes, but especially why there were so 
many pigs in this one.

Behind him, at the base of the hole in time, the Time Drivers 
rocked back and forward uneasily on their legs, unsure of their fate, as 
they were buffeted by the flying animalia and art dco kitchen ware.

Inside his cabin, its glass canopy already smashed by a Queen 
Victoria silver jubilee teapot, Green found himself yelling through his 
microphone to the other drivers.

"Yang! Mills!" he screamed as he swiveled around in his chair to 
look over his shoulder." Can you hold the supersymmetry?"

There was no reply, bar the siren's dirge of the Universe falling 
apart.

"Schwarz?IBrink?Ican anybody hear me?" he yelled again while at 
the same time endeavouring to bring his machine around to take himself 
out of the firing line of flying cutlery but failed to do this soon enough as 
something large, black and greasy splotched into his face. 

"Arrghhh Nematodes!" he gasped, for suddenly it was hailing the 
entire micro biological kingdom onto him, as every type of worm, liver 
fluke, slug, intestinal parasite, leech and even the occasional octopus 
squelched down on him to slime him with intestinal juices and attempted 
to digest him on the spot.


Meanwhile, Albert was finding how easy it was to run an Olympic 
marathon and sprint the hundred metres at the same time, as he tore off 
up the tunnel chased by a whole galaxy of animalia.

"Whoooo!" he screamed as a sword fish narrowly passed by his 
head and thudded into one of the tunnels supporting beams, to writhe 
convincingly in pain.

This was followed by what could best be described as a cross 
between a large door frame and a sperm whale suffering from anorexia, 
which managed to swallow him so quickly and then pass him straight 
through, that he failed to realize that he had just passed through the belly 
of a whale until several seconds after it had gone by. 

Albert stopped and watched the ungainly creature lumber away in 
front of him, the rectangular outline of the body only just managing to fit 
within the tunnel. Then Albert took off again as another sword fish 
smacked into one of the buttresses, this time sawing it in half and bring 
down part of the ceiling.

A few moments laterk, a low rumbling started up behind him that 
sounded suspiciously like a Concord coming in to land, Albert glanced 
around again and found to his great surprise, it was a column of a dozen 
filing cabinets careening along in single file with papers flying from their 
drawers.

"Halt," the leader yelled as it drew up level behind Albert, 
unfortunately the other members of the squad were moving so fast that 
they instantly slammed into the one in front of them like dominos to 
knock down the squad leader who fell unceremoniously on top of Albert 
pinning him to the ground.

The  Filing squad leader then proceeded to look down at Albert as 
if he was something that should have been filed away and lost in the 
paperwork, years ago.

Albert forgot his anxiety of the moment and stared with 
amazement up at the face that stared back at him from the top draw of 
the animated filing cabinet.

"What's you're name?" the leader barked a question at him.

"AlbertIumISir," said Albert, for reasons he couldn't quite explain 
afterwards.

"What Company do you belong to?" barked the Filing Cabinet again.

"I don't know?" asked Albert, still not sure how to take the 
situation.

"File in!" ordered the Filing Cabinet and remained lying on top of 
Albert.

"YesISir,"said Albert," umIHow?"

"What did you say?!" said the Cabinet, as an angry expression 
formed on the top draw.

"Nothing, nothing at allISir." 

Albert managed as best as he could to lift the Filing Cabinet off 
himself and stood back to see what would happen next.

The Chief Filing Cabinet now lay face down on the ground, quite 
incapable of saying anything, let alone to order Albert to pick him up.

The other Filing Cabinets looked at Albert as if for advise, Albert 
declined to give any and ran away down the tunnel, making a firm 
resolution never to slam the door of his filings cabinets, ever again.

He ran a few dozen metres before a felt a great hairy paw seized 
him by the shoulder stop him and spin him around. Albert stared in 
amazement, as there before him was an eight foot teddy bear, with no 
arms and wearing Rayban sunglasses.

"You!" boomed the teddy bear," remember me?!"

For a second Albert didn't, then a childhood memory came to him 
and he exclaimed with a cry of delight.

"I don't believe itIit's Monty, my old teddy bear."

"Good!" yelled the bear, before headbutting Albert so hard on his 
head it knocked flying on to his back. 

"That, you bastard, is for ripping my arms off when you were five!"

Monty turned around and stomped off back down the tunnel 
towards the String. Albert sat up and watched Monty walk back past the 
filing cabinets, then jumped up and started running again; as he saw his 
pet rubber duck minus its head come blundering its way up the tunnel.

Suddenly, the floor beneath Albert began to move faster 
backwards than he was moving forwards and the tunnel walls started to 
flow backwards along the tunnel itself, so that Albert soon found that he 
was racing along the tunnel at a fantastic speed, he glanced over his 
shoulder and saw to his terror that he was flying back towards the hole 
in space, and that very soon he would be sucked into it like a grotty little 
piece of soap down a bath tub plug hole.

Albert immediately started running faster along the rapidly 
diminishing tunnel and saw to his amazement and horror that the 
entrance to the tunnel was now in sight and rushing towards him like a 
run away train. 

At the elevator door was Hamilton, hanging on with both his hands, 
to the door striving not to be sucked down the hole.

Albert ducked as the pigs passed him on a return journey down 
the tunnel.

"HAMILTON!" screamed Albert," WHAT DO I DO?"

"THE TIME MACHINEILADIJUMP IN THE TIME MACHINE!" 
screamed back Hamilton.

Albert now clawing his way along the floor of the tunnel, saw 
lumbering towards him, the strange shape of the one of Hamilton's Time 
Machine's, its two wings already torn off and the machine itself being 
battered and smashed as it rolled over and over along the floor.

Albert threw out his hand to grab it but missed, so that it careened 
on past him like a moody electronic water buffalo.

"GO AFTER IT!" screamed Hamilton now in side the elevator doors 
and pulling them closed."JUMP IN IT! FOR NEWTONS SAKE!"

Albert gave up clinging to the ground and threw himself into the 
air but as he did so, he saw he was actually on the edge of the Time Hole 
itself and in the next instant fell into the nothingness  beyond.

"ARHHHHH!"


There was nothing but a great empty silence, as the universe held 
its breath and counted to ten.

Albert held his too, in the vacuum that enveloped him and felt the 
tremendous outward pressure between his body and the vacuum pushing 
the sweat through every pore in his skin into the empty space beyond. 
His ears screamed in agony at the difference in pressure between his cells 
and the great emptyness around it, before popping like overloaded light 
bulbs and ringing themselves into silence. His diaphram swelled up 
painfully as his adams apple bulged visibly under the negative pressure.

Albert knew he had not long to live.

As he floated through the emptyness, he saw in the distance, 
beyond the myriad of animals and flying objet d'art, a great white 
shimmering star that wasn't quite a star since it bore a remarkable 
resemblance to a childs skipping rope stretched out through space with 
two handles at its ends humming and whipping its way through the inky 
blackness.

This, Albert realized, was the String and stared with wide eyed 
fascination, as it oscillated and rippled with waves of pure energy 
running along its length, occasionally sending off great sparks of white 
hot plasma  and flame searing into the space around it. These flames 
seemed to burn into the very space itself, setting it afire with the 
incandesecence of the infinte, as this happened the objects like fish and 
the filing cabinets were cremated and burnt into nothing.

Yet, as Albert watched, he saw with even greater amazement, 
objects just as bizarre, just as improbable exploding into existence from 
the space near the wild rippling String and then being tossed off into the 
space only to fly for a few thousand metres before falling back into the 
impossibility from which they came from.

It was at just this moment,that Albert realized that the String and 
all its oscillations generated all the Universes and all that they contained.


Then suddenly, without warning or even a lighthouse, and when 
Albert had completely given up any hope of seeing Margret or Neil's 
electronic chickens ever again, he collided head first with Hamilton's now 
almost completely wrecked Time Machine to land upside down in the 
capsule's leather seat.

"Ouch!" he simply said, as he slid down the seat onto his shoulders 
and his knees fell forward to switch on the machine. 

The Universe went clunk and disappeared for ever, as Venice was 
sucked down the great cosmic drain pipe.







Chapter Fifteen

You have got the impression that comtempory physics is based on 
concepts somewhat analogous to the smile of the absent cat.

           Albert Einstein

The Cat, quietly lapped water from the stream, which flowed 
amongst the sodden black roots of the trees, at the bottom of the verdant 
tropical rainforest. 

Above it, the air beated and hummed with the calls of birds and 
insects which lived and died their taunt fast lives of incredible violence in 
the wet leafy canopy of the forest.  Incredibly violent lives that is, if you 
are a small green or black beetle scuttling around the branches trying to 
avoid getting peaked into a thousand pieces by relatively large orange 
psychotic sparrows who in turn were buzzing around trying their best not 
to run into tree trunks at ninety miles an hour, or get fanged by large 
green pythons with the most amazingly detailed diamond patterns on 
their skin, who spent most of their lives lying along the tree branches 
staring glassy eyed at the crowded rainforest, thinking serene thoughts 
like,

 -Hey Man, Leaves!-

The atmosphere was drenched with the cool dank sweat of the 
trees which poured forth strange high school chemistry-book gases like 
oxygen and water molecules into the already drenched air. While long 
green wet hanging things, called mosses, decorated the smooth twisting 
branches of the forest oaks, giving the trees the simulacra of being 
something dripping wet with mosses hanging off them, whatever this 
something was supposed to be, I'll leave up to your own imagination, as I 
can't for the life of me think of it.

The Cat stopped its lapping and stared at its own reflection in the 
flowing water, the rippling surface of the fluid element bulging slightly, 
as it traveled across the tree roots and little pebbles that formed the bed 
of the stream. The slits of the Cat's eyes narrowed as they viewed their 
reflection, then widened again when the Cat recognized the mirror as 
itself.

The Cat gave, that most invisible of all things, the smile of a cat, 
then  crouched suddenly down and flicked its head up, as a bird flew into 
a tree just above the Cat then clattered off again in a flurry of feathers, 
on seeing the Cat waiting tensely in the shadows.

After a moment, the Cat returned to gazing at itself narcissistically 
in the dark flowing vein of the dripping forest.

It saw with some surprise, that its ears were missing.

-Oh no,-the Cat thought- here we go again, last time it was my tail 
and this time it's the ears, whatever next is going to blow out-

As it thought this, it glanced down to see with even greater 
surprise that its feet had vanished as well.

-This is serious, maybe I should see a vet-

Normally, the Cat had found, that when it jumped about from place 
to place it was always suddenly, one instant it was there the next it 
wasn't, but lately it was begining to find itself  more and more fluid than 
its shadow and just as palpable as the wind, as this slow creeping 
physical indecisiveness took over its form.

Returning to its image the Cat found that most of its head had now 
vanished as well, leaving just its eyes and its mouth floating around in 
space not doing very much, other than confusing the living catnip out of 
the Cat.

"What the catnip!" the Cat tried to miaow, before its mouth in turn 
dwindled away into nothingness, leaving the eyes to express an immense 
amount of concern at the Cat's lack of being. Then the eyes too, narrowed 
and kept on narrowing till there was nothing left at all.

The Cat, then found to its amazement that it still existed. Or at least 
something existed, whether or not that thing could be could called the Cat 
was another problem entirely.

The Cat thought.

Then realized that that  was all that was left of the Cat, just its 
thoughts and nothing more.

A strange set of memories that floated in nowhere, somehow 
contriving to remain together and form a coherent pattern of what the 
world was like, or at least the world would be like, if only the Cat could 
get back into it.

At this point the Cat's thoughts began to take on a reality that was 
all their own, twisting and floating around in the nonness of the Cat's 
mind, forming ideas that were distinctly impossible, yet managed to go on 
existing anyway because there was none of that nasty reality stuff to tell 
them they couldn't.

It then decided to define nonness as that which had nothing but 
thought, large green lamposts and a lot of typographical errors in a bad 
way.

The Cat realized, it  was losing its mind, literally. 

As odd collections of memories floated off into the nonness and 
disappeared into their own little universes of being. Leaving the Cat's 
mind with vague recollections of kittenhood experiences that some how 
had been lodged in the higher functioning of the Cat's brain, like chasing 
butterflies and rolled up socks across thick Persian carpets, lazy 
afternoons in the Autumn sun watching the birds knock the leaves from 
the branches and those wonderful times with the children of being 
continually picked up, patted and cosseted: before being stuck in the 
microwave. 

But these too, eventually ceased, if such things as time or 
eventuallies had any meaning in this bounded state of self-nonness, to 
leave just that tiny part of the Cat's universe that was the Cat's 
consciousness, that meant nothing at all without the rest of its being.

In the end, it found itself considering itself considering itself 
consideringI








Chapter Sixteen

Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities.

        Aristotle



The black hole had been floating around in the middle of nowhere, 
doing nothing in particular for several billion aeons, this was such an 
awfully long period of time, that the black hole was quite surprised to 
find one day it was actually a eighteen hole golf course.

This was all the more surprising since black holes weren't 
supposed to play golf. More to the point black holes weren't supposed to 
do anything, black holes weren't even allowed to exist in the real world 
let alone inside a singularity. It was simply impossible for a nothing  
-which was what the black hole was- to have things like length, mass, 
spin or golf clubs houses which sold mouldy cheese and ham sandwiches 
that nobody ever seemed to buy, but which sat behind the counter for 
what seem an eternity. 

Indeed all considered, everything about this black hole was an 
impossibility, even the fact that black holes were  an impossibility. As far 
as the black hole knew, all it was allowed to do was suck up planets, star 
systems and the occasional species of super intelligent life form, out of 
the surrounding galaxy and drop the entire lot into a vague sort of 
nothingness, which was the end result of the black hole's own 
gravitational collapse. 

Strangely, the black hole had noted, that the very last words of 
every super intelligent lifeform were invariably a plaintive, 

"Why us?"

As the planet and all its inhabitants promptly vanished into the 
cosmological equivalent of a wastepaper bin.

So when the aeon came -aeons being a measure of time for black 
holes- when this particular one found to its amazement it was actually a 
golf course, it decided to do something about it and in the best way it 
knew how, which was by overturning the laws of Nature and doing 
something slightly impossible.

First, it tried turning itself inside out, standing on top of its head 
and  whistling backwards in Swahili. this however failed when it found it 
knew how to whistle and hence this could not be considered as an 
impossibility.

Next, it tried being a very, very, very large pillow and smothering 
itself, but this too turned out to be quite possible, as the nothingness 
imploded into balls of feathers which floated around nospace, having 
pillow fights with itself.

Then came its bout of hypergeometrical deep space flu, where for a 
few aeons the black hole kept sneezing itself in and out of existence.  
Unfortunately, things popping in and out of existence was an event the 
universe was quite accustomed too, so this too went out the meta-
physical window as one of those impossible things that aren't really 
impossible. 

Apparently, being impossible was a lot harder than the black hole 
had previously imagined.

Finally, it decided on becoming a tropical rainforest. This, the black 
hole discovered with considerable amazement and for a completely 
inexplicable reason was completely and utterly impossible .

Apparently, the completely inexplicable reason was that it was 
simply not possible for something as complex as a totally integrated 
holistic interrelated infrastructure biological gestalt as a tropical 
rainforest to come spontaneously  into being out of nothing,  and 
especially on Tuesdays.

In fact, the black hole discovered, once it had done it sums, it was 
completely and utterly impossible for a rainforests to exist anyway, even 
if given several billion years of evolution under ideal conditions inside a 
computer controlled hot house, with lots of little gnomes running around 
keeping down the humans. 

Indeed there was something distinctly bizarre about the fact that 
there were so many of them in existence. They was just like hamburger 
chains, nobody ever admits to going into one of them, so how is it possible 
that they keep on flourishing. 

Which made the black hole wonder, how in-the-finity, was it 
possible for something mundanely im-possible as a tropical rainforest to 
exist when it    
 - the black hole - wasn't.

Margret and Werner after making their way out of the intestine of 
the shattered Vacuum cleaner, found themselves standing in the heart of 
an emerald forest.

"Where are we?" said Margret softly, as she peered about herself 
into the depths of the rainforest's ever present twilight.

"It's a rainforest of course," said Werner definitely, lifting his hand 
to catch a drip of water that  fell from the canopy above them."That's 
why it is raining."

"I know that, you idiot,"snapped out Margret." I wasn't born 
yesterday. I mean what happened to the golf course." 
"Simple! It was those Grebblies again, they must have created this 
while we were inside in the Vacuum cleaner."

Margret sighed and stared depressingly at Werner as if he was a 
poor apes substitute for a tree stump.

"If you mention Grebblies just one more time, I going to do some 
really wonderful things to various parts of your anatomyIlike tear them 
off. There's no such thing as a Grebblie, it just ," she shrugged her 
shoulders," it justIstrange that's all."

"Look, there are Grebblies you cretin!"yelled Werner in the 
deadening hush of the forest," but whenever you try to look at them they 
disappear, what is so hard, by Newton, in accepting this?"

Margret folded her arms in front of her defensively and as she did 
so remembered she had nothing on, gave a little squeal of alarm and 
quickly jumped behind a large fern.

Werner smirked with satisfaction and then stepped behind an even 
larger fern.

The two of them stared angrily at each other over the tops of the 
ferns for a while, till Margret thought of something else she could throw 
at Werner.

"Well, why do these Grebblie things only come out when you don't 
look at them, why are they there in the first place."

Werner thought for a moment, as he began twisting a vine and its 
leaf into a set of arboreal underwear.

"It's the black hole, I suppose, the Grebblies must exist all the time, 
well I should say all the space but never mind, where was IIlook the 
reason why these Grebblies are here and nowhere else is because the 
black hole twists and stretches the spacetime continuum.  It's like having 
a little ladder in your stockings,the only time you can actually see the 
ladder is when you stretch the stocking. These Grebblies are exactly the 
same, they're everywhere, all the time but the only place on or in the 
universe where you can see, what  they do is here inside this black hole."

At this he stood out from behind the fern wearing a fig leaf but 
found to his annoyance that Margret was wearing a rather nice two piece 
fig leaf bikini with matching orchids.

"It suits you,"sniggered Margret," all you need now is a club and a 
tree to swing from, where's the rest of the tribe or did you get left behind 
the evolutionary mud pile."

Werner returned with nothing more than a disdainful, "Humph!" 
and began walking off through the undergrowth.

Margret watched for a moment, then gaily skipped after him 
singing as she did so, completely deflating any sense of superiority he 
had tried to instil in her by his walking away.

As they made their way through the forest they heard in the 
canopy above them the wild hooting of monkeys, which gamboled and 
played amongst the tops of the branches.

"Oh listen," cried Margret," it's your family," then tittered.

Werner whirled on Margret and shouted,

"Shut up!"

As he did so, the mad hooting of the monkeys ceased and a distinct 
crashing and tumbling through the foliage above took its place. So that 
Werner and Margret stopped their walking and looked up through the 
leaves and branches to divine the meaning of it all.

In the short pause of silence that followed this the two looked 
uncertainly at each other.

Then suddenly, the trees erupted in a crazed explosion of brown 
fur and shrieking gibbons.

"Great Newton! ,"cried Werner," it's William's relations!"

"What?" asked Margret slightly puzzled at this chance statement.

But before Werner was able to reply they found themselves 
surrounded by a large troop of small brown gibbons who hooted and 
snarled furiously at them from every direction.

"What do they want?" shrieked Margret jumping into Werner arms.

"Probably their mother," he said and tried pushing Margret 
towards them.

"No, don't,"Margret squealed and jumped back into his arms and 
wrapped her legs around his torso and her arms around his head." They 
might bite," and virtually smothered Werner with fear.

Werner found himself in a ridiculous situation, the two of them 
were about to be torn apart by a horde of ancestors and all he see was 
the clump of leafs that decorated Margret's bosom.

Suddenly the hooting stopped, as the gibbons became fascinated by 
the sight of two humans blundering around in the forest, running into 
trees and tripping up on roots, as one of the humans tried his best to pull 
the other human off of him.

"Let go of me, damn you!" came a muffled yell from Werner, as his 
arms windmilled about him trying to avoid another tree,

"Nooooo!"lowed Margret, her eyes looking wildly about her 
watching the gibbons stare at them opened mouthed with astonishment.

Then Werner tripped over another of the interminable tree roots 
you always find in rainforests and the pair fell heavily to the dank earth. 
At this Werner was finally able to extricate himself from Margret cloying 
grasp and sent her sprawling into a wait-a-bit vine.

"Aie!,"cried Margret as the little thorns that grew on the vine dug 
into her skin and held her in its grasp." Wait a bit," she piped as she tried 
to pick herself out of the thorns." I'm stuckIwait!"

Werner simply smiled and walked off into the undergrowth.

Interestingly enough, the wait-a-bit thorn was originally the 
reason for the evolution of human speech, language and a little 
internecine warfare. Since way back in the good old days of our ancestor, 
the Homo Cretinous, the family tribe would often stumble through the 
undergrowth on their way home from a lodge meeting and become stuck 
on the ubiquitous wait-a-bit thorn and hoot with indignation at getting 
caught again by the Neanderthal equivalent of the traffic cop.

After a few hundred thousand years a special cry developed 
amongst this supposed higher life form when confronted with this life 
threatening situation of being stuck in the weeds.

The first sequence of events and primitive grunting went 
something like this.

"Ugh," the first ape declared at finding itself stuck once more in the 
wait-a-bit thorn.

"Ugh?" declared the second ape back at the first and began walking 
off through the undergrowth.

"Ugh!" the first ape yelled out to bring back the second. 

The second however ignored this and kept on walking.

At this, the first ape was given no choice but to evolve intelligent 
speech.

"Wait a bit!" it yelled.

To this the second whirled around and yelled,

"What is it this time!?"

"I'm stuck on this stupid thorn again."

"Well, hurry up we haven't got a million years you know!"

Then the two stared at each other in amazement when they 
suddenly realized that for the first time in the evolution of their species 
somebody had finally gotten round to having a conversation.

"What did you say?"

"UghIwasn't it?"

"No, after the Ugh."

"umIUghII think." 

The two of them paused, as the shadow of an idea flickered across 
their consciousness, something along the lines of -I think, therefore I 
Ugh-, but it lacked something so they ignored it.

"No after the other Ugh, you ape!"

"Who are you calling an ape, flat nose!"

"Flat nose! Go climb a tree, gorilla features!"

"Ugh!"

"Ugh!"

This rapidly degenerated into physical violence and the two sub 
humans managed to have the first total war on the planet and kill each 
other off. 

Hence the first brief experiment in language failed due to a 
complete lack of communication. 

Naturally this meant the evolution of speech had to wait for 
another hundred thousand years, when the species had evolved enough, 
to stand around on two legs and have wine and cheese evenings, while 
watching the coconuts drop out of the trees.

Werner stomped merrily off through the bushes.

He felt good. He hadn't felt this good for a long while. In fact 
Werner felt so good that he tried swaggering for a little while. He did this 
by rolling his shoulders form side to side as he walked along the path like 
a sailor in a big sea and gaily whistling. Unfortunately he swaggered a 
little more at the next step more than he ought to have and fell sidewards 
on top of a soggy elephant cannon ball or dropping.

"Ugh!" he said, and then wondered why the sound 'Ugh' brought a 
peculiar sensation of dej vu.

He picked himself up from the squashed cannon ball and brushed 
down his suit of Pierre Cardin foliage, but found to his disgust that he was 
covered with a nasty green detritus that had smeared him from elbow to 
knee.

"Ugh!" he exclaimed again and felt that same peculiar sensation of 
dej vu he had felt before. However he ignored this and stumbled his 
way across to a small stream to wash off the remaining muck.

At the stream, he found a cool fresh running flow, that shocked his 
skin with its cold. He stepped into the water up to his knees and began to 
wash away the muck that wallpapered his hips. As he did so he leant 
with one arm against a tree trunk that grew conveniently on the bank of 
the brook.

For about a minute the tree idly watched, as the intruder washed 
itself in the water. It stared blankly at the two legged pink object that 
performed strange ablutions in the water, polluting the uptil then 
tranquil, crystal brook with green muck. The tree, then considered the 
various psychological reasons for the pink object's complete disregard of 
its own personal space and whether a polite cough would suffice in 
driving it away, but in the end the tree decided a little physical violence 
was just the right thing to start off the morning, and in a fit of irritation 
wrapped its trunk around Werner's waist and flung him dismissively into 
the air, to land twenty metres away on the top of a blooming purple 
Jacaranda tree.

"Whoaa!" yelled Werner as he somersaulted above the trees and 
caught site of the rather large elephant that had just practiced judo on 
him in a moment of  Freudian discontent. 

Werner smacked into the tree top and cracked his jaw on one of its 
branches before falling through the thatched roof of a large second story 
tree house and ploughed into the top of a large metal box that went 
'ping!' before he finally crashed unceremoniously onto the floor.

"Ugh!" he said as he lay on his stomach and the metal box fell on 
top of him. He pondered as he lay there why he kept feeling an almost 
imperceptible sense of dej vu. It was beginning to annoy him with its 
constant nagging.

He stood up and took in his surroundings. It was the interior of a 
large bamboo tree house with an awful lot of computers and black boxes 
going 'ping' on its walls.

"A-ha," said Werner in a clever forceful tone in case anybody was 
looking, to give the impression that that here  was one really smart guy 
who knew exactly what was going on and that nobody had better mess 
with him or they could be in big trouble.

Unfortunately, nobody was looking and Werner decided to give 
voice to what he was really feeling.

"What the I !"


Margret finally freed herself and rescued her bra of leafs from the 
annoying little thorns. She stood up and ran after Werner, away from the 
prying eyes of the gibbons, doing her best to trip her ankles on every 
tree root that managed to come her way.

"Bother," she said eventually, after falling over her tenth jungle 
vine,"I hope he gets eaten."

Then looked fearfully around to see if anything might be about to 
eat her instead, as she had the creeping sensation that somebody was 
watching her from the foliage. However she dismissed this as there was 
no point in her screaming, since were no men around to rescue her even 
if there was something dangerous lurking in the wild hibiscus. So she 
kept on walking through the forest and tripping over tree roots.

"Oh!" she cried petulantly as she tumbled down again. 

"Bother - all rainforests!" then sat down on the spot and decided to 
become indignant.

"Bother, bother and double bother," she said aloud," and bother 
again. That's what I say" she said in her most indignant tone of voice and 
stared angrily at the vegetation before her. Then grabbed a little twig and 
thrashed a small bush just to make her self feel better.

Suddenly she realized she was back at the wait-a-bit which had 
originally separated her from Werner.

"Triple Bother!" she said aloud and stamped off through the vines 
and leafs to find somewhere else she could be indignant, just in case 
Werner came back and thought she was too hapless to move from the 
spot. 

As she did so, she again ignored the fact that quite possibly there 
was a 'somebodything' watching her behind a large fern.

She did this for several more minutes till she tripped over another 
tree root and fell into the very same wait-a-bit - again! 

"Bother it all!" and stormed off again, after she had freed herself.

This process of walking away, tripping over and finding herself 
back in the same spot went on a for sufficiently long period of time for 
Margret to  wondered if it was possible if the 'spot' was following her 
around. Since no matter what direction she headed off in she always 
arrived back at the same place. 

As she was wondering, a conversation came to her which she had 
once had with her best friend Elizabeth, when Elizabeth couldn't find her 
cars keys in her handbag for the tenth time.

"I suppose it's a bit like a black hole, isn't it?" quipped Elizabeth.

Margret peered anxiously into Elizabeth's handbag.

"Oh really," trying to sound intelligent."Do you get them often?"

"No silly,"laughed Elizabeth," but it's just like a black hole, it 
swallows things up, and once they get inside then no matter what 
direction they go in they always arrive back at where they started from."

Upon thinking about, this Margret suddenly realized that she really 
was in a black hole and that was probably the reason why the only 
direction was in.

Margret decided to become very  annoyed with this patch of the 
rainforest. 

"Bother this black hole and bother him too!"

As she said this she heard the unmistakable crack of a twig in the 
forest behind her. She span around on the spot to try and catch a glimpse 
of whomever the 'somebodything' sensation was.

The branch of a fern fell back into place.

"Who's there!What do you want?" screamed Margret, picking up 
another small twig and taking a step backwards.

There was another quiet rustle in the undergrowth and then out 
stepped a tall blond man with gentle blue eyes wearing a leather jock 
strap, an enormous knife and an idiotic grin.

"Me Tarzan, who in Hubble's Constant are you?!" asked the 
sophisticated primitive.

Margret smiled disconcertingly at her new found consort.

Erwin woke up, rolled off the couch, and walked out onto the patio 
of the rooms to stare into the distance, somewhat mystified at the fact 
that he was now living in the middle of a tropical rainforest.

-Rats,-he thought,- I've woken up in the middle of a tropical 
rainforest-

He stuck his hands in his white lab coat and furrowed his brow in 
consternation.

"Why was it lately, that every time I wake up in the morning, 
something totally bizarre happens to me.IThis is starting to get 
annoying."

-But still-, he pondered, -at least there are no hamsters here-

At that moment, there was a squeal of breaks and a golf buggy 
drew up beside Erwin, in which sat a curious little man who peered 
curiously at Erwin.

"It's those Grebblies again, isn't it?" he asked forcefully.

Erwin looked fretful for a second then spoke.

"Do you know somebody called Alain?"

"Yes, his supposed to be the manager of this place, isn't he?"

"Yes," said Erwin dismayed that he hadn't dreamed it all," I was 
afraid of that.

"I don't suppose," he continued," you know anybody called Werner 
or Margret by any chance, I think I've lost them."

The man on the golf buggy looked him up and down.

"No, why should I have?" he asked nasally.

"Nothing, just a shot in the dark," said Erwin, and they went back to 
staring at the golf course become endangered rainforest.

"Lost them, you say," prompted the man staring at the trees on the 
horizon," nasty business that, disappearing people, should watch your 
back hand more," then rode off in his golf buggy.

Erwin stared hard at a tree in the distance and wondered what his 
tennis had to do with missing people. As he did so he saw with some 
puzzlement a man dressed in a one piece vine suit fly through the air and 
land somewhat uncomfortably on the top of a large purple flowering tree. 
Erwin felt with just a shade of suspicion that this man was actually 
Werner. An instant later, he felt convinced of it when he saw Margret in 
the arms of a large blond man swinging from tree to tree on the end of a 
long jungle creeper. 

Erwin smiled, and thought to himself, -ErwinIit's going to be one of 
those mornings again, isn't it- 

Then turned around and went back to his couch.



The door of the tree banged open, as Margret and Tarzan waltzed 
in the room. Only to stop in their tracks to stare open mouthed with 
astonishment at the sight of Werner's almost naked behind projecting out 
from the dismantled cabinet of one of those computers that go 'ping!' 
every time somebody goes near them. Which is what this one would 
having been doing  if it wasn't full of Werners.

"What are you doing!" yelled Tarzan, before storming across the 
room and banging his fist on the side of the cabinet.

"Aiee!" screamed Werner in alarm, as his head connected with the 
inside of the box as he quickly pulled his head out."Don't do that!"

The two men stood before each other and tried to stare the other 
down. Tarzan, Werner found, seemed to have a slight advantage over 
him, as he towered three feet above him. But Werner turned this to his 
advantage by imagining Tarzan to be a large tree. Tarzan frowned, 
slightly annoyed at the fact that Werner didn't seem in the least bit 
intimidated but on the contrary appeared to be regarding him as if he 
was an overgrown hedge.

"ErI" he began thrown off his initial temper," what are you doing 
to my computer?"

Instantly, Werner got back his old marvellously egoistical and 
hyperbolic self.

"Look, I'm sorry for taking your computer apart, but I think I 
ought to point out to you that these aren't really computers any more. In 
fact, they're more like vegetable gardens I in fact!" 

Then picked up one of the dismantled computer panels and held it 
up for the other too to see. Upon its surface were arranged row after row 
of tiny vegetables and fruits, all connected together with stringy bits of 
vine and grass as well as being welded onto the board with great clumps 
of mud.

"ErIwhat?" the man of the jungle attempted, trying to figure out 
why Werner had left 'in fact' on the end of his sentence.

"Your computers, something strange I no something impossible has 
happened to them. So totally impossible, so incredibly bizarre as to defy 
all known laws of modern science, logic and Ripleys - Believe It Or Not!  
To wit, these are no longer computers at all, rather I would say, they are 
more like an electrified fruit salad, in fact!"

Tarzan shook his head in annoyance,partly at the absurdity of the 
statement but mostly because Werner kept saying 'in fact' all the time.

"What are you talking about?" as he took the bank of components 
out of Werner's hand and stared at it in mystification. Then picked one of 
the tiny apples off the board and took a tiny nibble of it. 

"It's a carrot!" he said with some astonishment then gazed around 
the room, at the rest of the computers. Which somehow managed to hum 
in a way that was vaguely reminiscent of an English country garden, 
before gazing at the hole in the thatched ceiling. He then exclaimed, "Well 
I'll be a monkey's uncle!"

"Quite possibly, in fact," said Werner quickly, never taking his eyes 
off the man of the jungle.

"Are you saying these are no longer computers?" asked Tarzan in a 
shocked tone.

"You got it! Me  old,  old , old cousin!"said Werner with a sneer," 
What we have here are I Vegeputers!"

"Extraordinary, they were real computers half an hour ago. Mind 
you, half  an hour ago, I wasn't dressed like a chimpanzee and swinging 
around in the trees like my great uncle Eramus, was I."

Margret who this entire time had been expecting Tarzan to tear 
Werner limb from limb, tripped across the floor and poked her Tarzan in 
the ribs.

"Kill him," she said blandly," it'll make you feel better."

"What!," said Tarzan aghast ," Why?"

Margret stared for a moment at Werner, then frowned when she 
couldn't think of a sufficient reason.

"Just a thought, never mind," she smiled prettily, then picked up a 
frond of palm leaves and started dusting the room, while the two men 
stared at her in amazement.

"I take she doesn't like you," said Tarzan turning back to Werner.

"Hey, there are worst things in life, not many I must admit, but I'm 
sure there are a few," he then cocked his head to one side and threw a 
question back at this man of the jungle,"Say, what's your name by the 
way?"

"Tarzan Neanderthal Darwin," said Tarzan without the slightest 
trace of emotion as he gazed in an interested fashion at his guests.

Werner and Margret stared at him for a moment, letting this sink 
into their dank fertile minds.

"That's a rather unusual name you have there, any particular 
reason why your parents chose it, by any chance?" prompted Werner.

"But of course," said Tarzan expansively," I'm the great, great, 
great, great grandson of the Charles Darwin, the anthropologist."

"You're kidding!," squealed Margret, bouncing across the room and 
grabbing Tarzan by the arm," you're one of the Darwins, Wow!," looking 
him up and down, finding life in the jungle book to be more and more 
interesting than she could have possibly thought,"and you're carrying on 
the family business, yes?"

"No, not at all, actually I'm an astronomer, or at least I was until 
half and hour ago. I'm meant to be observing this black hole then all of a 
sudden I'm walking around in a monkey suit and swinging from trees. 
It's all a bit odd, really."

"OhIanother scientist," said Margret, slightly disappointed," seen 
any stars lately?"

At that moment, a great whining sound erupted in the jungle 
beneath them, sending jarring reverberations throughout the tree house, 
as what sounded to be a chain-saw sinking it teeth into the trunk of the 
tree. The three of them stood shocked for a instant then rushed out the 
door, on to the veranda to stare in disbelief at the sight that befell them 
at the base of the tree.

For there, in the shadowy depths of the rainforest, were what 
appeared to be thousands of tiny men, no more than three feet high, in 
green jackets and blue hats running around waving gardening 
implements like shovels and flower pots, seeming for all the world like an 
invading army of killer gnomes.

At the very base of the tree trunk, half a dozen of these gnomes 
were latched onto the handle of an enormous chain saw, which at that 
moment was tearing its way into the heart of the tree. The vibration of 
the saw was so great that every few seconds on of the gnomes would flick 
off the end of the handle and fly through the air, singing 'Wheee!',  to 
land in the arms of his compatriots, only to have his place immediately 
taken by one of the other gnomes.

"It's an attack!" screamed Margret.

"It's an invasion!" yelled Werner.

"It's the gardeners." said Tarzan dourly.

"What do we do?" screamed Margret.

"Swing!"Tarzan  yelled.

"What?" said Margret and Werner in unison.

"Swing on a vine to the next tree, of course" he yelled and grabbed 
a vine that was conveniently parked on the edge of the veranda. He 
paused waiting for the two to do likewise." My great grand Charles used 
to do it all the time in the ancestral house, it's fun." 

Margret who had already been introduced to the jungle equilent of 
a four lane highway joined unhesitatingly, and Werner just to show that 
anything she could he could do ten thousand times better and with 
considerable more elan. They grabbed two more hanging vines and stood 
beside Tarzan on the edge.

"Ready?" Tarzan, asked with a smile.

"No, but lets do it anyway," cried Werner and all three flew off, into 
the arboreal no-mans land, between the trees.

"Geronimooooo!!" they chorused.

Unfortunately, the three vines upon which they had chosen to 
place their trust were all connected to the same branch, which under the 
combined weight of the intrepid trio I broke.

"Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii!" they screamed as they ploughed their 
way through the branches in the crowd of gnomes below. 

"Ugh!" the three cried, as they squashed half a dozen gnomes 
beneath them and crashed into the broken scree of a makeshift flower 
bed. 

Werner, as he lay in shock amid the wreck, wondered why the 
word 'Ugh' kept bringing such a strange sense of awareness to him, and 
became so involved in this idea that he completely failed to notice one of 
the larger gnomes walk up onto his chest and stick a set of shears before 
his face and say,

"Gotcha!"

They found themselves at the mercy of a tribe of the dreaded 
Arcturan gnomes. Who upon bringing them to their camp, tied them to 
three very large Maypoles and proceeded to chant war-songs and do 
Morris dances around them. Eventually this ceased and the king of the 
gnomes came before them.

"I am the great Phil, king of the Gnomes," he said sonorously,"who 
I are you?"

Immediately Margret broke out into a stream of  babbling,

"Look these two, I don't know them , I was kidnapped by the little 
one, er I sorry the big one over there,  I'm not supposed to be here , I'm 
meant to be a shop assistant in Gigafords and I"

She never finished, as a scream of indignation rose up from the 
gnomes, as they ranted and tore their hair, threw flower pots into the air 
and planted nettles.

Eventually the king, lifted his arms and called for quiet.

"Did you say I Gigafords?!" he thundered at Margret, pointing his 
shears at her.

"ErIno," she lied quickly"what I really I ,"

"Enough!," roared the king, he turned around and spoke to his 
people."These are the murderers that slaughtered our brothers in the 
great massacre of Gigafords."

An "Ohh" rose up from the crowd.

"These are the long limbs, who crushed a thousand flower pots!" 

"Ahhh," raced around the mightily small warriors.

"How long have we waited for our revenge?"

"Too long! Too long!" came back the reply.

"What shall we do with these crushers of flowers?"

"Plant them! Plant them!" thundered the gnomes.

Again the king lifted up his arms for silence. The roar of the 
gnomes fell to the whispering of leaves and then ceased altogether.

"It is written!"he said with as much majesty as the three foot 
relation of a faerie can have when wearing bells on its hat and toes. "In 
the Great Gardening Manual of Kew Gardens, that all killers of gnomes 
shall meet their death in the murky compost heap with the terrible I 
'Flower Pot Men'."

A terrible hush descended upon the plot of gnomes, {author's note : 
a 'plot' is an assembly of gnomes}.

"Arrgh!" screamed Tarzan at the top of his lungs.

"What, what is it," screamed back Margret  and Werner.

"ErII don't know, but it sounds pretty bad doesn't it?" said Tarzan 
quietly.

At this they were dragged from their post and pinioned to three 
wheel barrows before being wheeled for what seemed for miles through 
the green teeming rainforest. After they had not gone to far, Werner 
yelled his contempt at Margret.

"You idiot!" then got belted on the head with a large clay flower 
pot.

For the rest of the journey, none of them said anything other than 
to ask for umbrellas and cups of tea, all of which were indignantly 
refused.

They came to the edge of the forest and found themselves at the 
height of a great pit, from which rose the stench of thousand different 
pongs and smells, which choked the new comers with the foulness of 
decays perfume.

Phil, the gnome king spoke aloud,

"Here into the Pit of No Return we consign these foul and callous 
abuses of Gnomekind!" then with a flourish of his hand they were lifted 
up and consigned to the deep.

"Whooa!"the three screamed as they tumbled down the slope, 
bunttering and bongiling upon the scree till they reached the bottom.

"Ugh," cried Werner as his head collided with the rotting remains of 
a three week cabbage. Once again there came the fleeting shadow of some 
meaning in his uttering 'Ugh' and once again he found himself in terrible 
danger. 

Werner rolled onto his back, finding his hands still bound behind 
his back, peered uncertainly about himself in the dark. Margret, he 
noticed with some distaste was still alive and what was worse had 
managed to free herself in her tumble down the slope. 

-Pity,-he thought-One less Margret in the world might have been 
an improvement-

Suddenly, there arose a thin keening sound in the murkiness 
before them, that sent a thrill of sheer terror through every cell in 
Werner's body. 

He froze in terror, the hair on his head, standing up like a spun 
dried Koala.

"What in Newton," he whispered, as there came again the strange 
terrible cry from deep within the compost.

"WeedIlittle Weed." 

"Bill and Ben."

"Bill and Ben."


Suddenly, somewhere between here, nowhere and infinity, the 
black hole got a really brilliant idea, as ideas go that is. It decided it was 
bored existing as a tropical rainforest, which it noted rather annoyingly 
involved getting rained on a lot and having a hundreds of militant 
gnomes run around planting potatoes in its soil. So it decided to become 
something even more impossible, than the completely impossible it 
presently was. It was going to be an idea all of itself, but not just any old 
type of idea, on the contrary, it was going to be a very special kind of 
mental phenomena, in fact not an idea at all rather a vague misty 
impression of an idea, really more a sense of dej vu than an idea. 

-Yes,-thought the black hole with satisfaction- I going to be  a  dej 
vu-

It paused in the eternity, as it also realized, that this was probably 
taking the non-existence impossibility thing a wee bit too far, but after an 
instant's reflection it found that this did not detract from the intrinsic 
niceness  of it all, and so went ahead with it anyway.



"Ugh!"


    The Ugh  floated around in the middle of nowhere and felt 
somewhat lost.


"Damn," thought Werner," I'm dead!"


               "No you're not!," came the thoughts of Margret 
,"you're in my  head! Get out!"

"Great! I die and whose the first person I think, it's you!"

"Nonsense, you're both in my head," thought Tarzan," I the one who's 
dreaming all this."

"Say do you two get the feeling we've been here before, a weird feeling of  
dej vu, like of being here forever and ever?"

"Yes, Now that you come to mention it, yes it fact it's overwhelming."

    "It's like being trapped inside a television while it's 
on, isn't?"

Er I not in the least. More like a game of endless  cricket?"

"You think so? Gee, I don't know. I would have thought I"

        "Newton, this is a weird dream."
"Erwin is that you?Is this your dream?"
    
"Well of course it's my dream, whose else could it be?"

"Miaow."

            "What was that?!"

    "I think it was a cat.""Arghh! There's a cat in my dream!!"

"Alright, Who forgot to put the cat out, last night?"

            "We don't have a cat, you idiot!"


    "Would somebody turn the lights on, please."

impossible a. not possible, that cannot be done or exist, (such a thing is 
impossible; it is impossible to alter them ); (loosely) not easy, not 
convenient, not easily believable;(colloq) outrageous, intolerable, (an 
impossible hat, person ); hence or cogn.~ibilty n.,~ibly adv.[ME f. OF, or f. L 
im2 (possiblis POSSIBLE)]

"Hey did you sense, that?"
                "What was it?"

"I think, and I   mean think, it  could have been the Oxford Dictionary."

                ewigkeit.

"You're kidding, sense when did it get a chance to think?"


The black hole started to get fed up as well confused by all its 
thoughts, speculations and mindless quibbling that now seemed to make 
up its universe. Besides it had the vague feeling it had done it all before 
somewhere along the line, but it couldn't remember where. So it decided 
to become a golf course again and did so in a way that it felt sure was 
bound to get it noticed - It exploded.

There was a hush.

Then the sky fell open above them, as they lay at the bottom of the 
universe, staring up out through the teeming profusion of the cosmos, as 
it exploded into a million shimmering stars which raced out from the 
great glowing orb of turmoil into the depths of space. The scattered stars 
of the black hole burst up out of the endless darkness of nothingness and 
to fling themselves across the universe: as might a pittance of seeds from 
the hand of the infinite.

Werner and Margret, lay on their backs upon the golf course and 
watched with stunned awe the explosion of the black hole, which in the 
dying instant of its eternity had flung the golf course out into space like 
as a speck of dust from the skin of a bursting balloon. In so doing, tearing 
away the great shield that covered the course and leaving only the thin 
field of artificial force that held the atmosphere in. The Course itself had 
been smashed and battered by the tempest of the stars raging. 

For an age they said nothing beyond an occasional groan or stifled 
scream.

"I think it is time we left," whispered Werner, as he stood to view 
the wreckage  of the golf course about them.

"Yes," muttered Margret,"anything but golf." 

As they turned and trudged their way back to what was left of the 
club house to find Erwin.


"Erwin, wake up Erwin," said Werner shaking Erwin by the 
shoulders.

"WhaI?" slurred an Erwin, who amazingly had managed to sleep 
through the death throes of the changeling singularity.

"Come on Erwin, we're going, get up for heavens sake," said 
Margret, as she helped Werner drag Erwin off the couch and across the 
room to the waiting spacetime cube. 

Erwin looked back wistfully at the now empty couch as they 
stumbled up the crystal ramp into the future.

"I've just had the weirdest dream," he said plaintively, attempting 
to put one foot in front of the other," I was floating around in the middle 
of nowhere, or at least I think I was, and you were there too, sort of, but 
not really, and that's all there was." 

"What a funny dream," said Margret in a tone that Erwin felt sure 
meant something but he wasn't quite sure what," Have you ever had this 
dream before?" she rose an eyebrow.

"That was the weird part," Erwin said in a distant voice," it wasn't a 
dream of something, as so much of thinking of a dream that I hadn't been 
in." He stared at Werner and Margret standing next to him in jungle 
vines.         

 " Why are you dressed like that?"

 "Erwin," said Werner with tiredness that spoke of a lot of suffering 
and absolutely no fun," one day , just maybe one day I will tell you, but 
for the moment I forget it!"

"Oh," said Erwin, then stared at the drop door beneath them for a 
moment before deciding to ask Margret a question," where are we going?"

"Heaven knows," said Margret dispiritedly, as they fell like angels 
into heaven.



 




Chapter Seventeen


                       To see World in a Grain of Sand,

                        And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,

                    Hold Infinity in the Palm of your hand,

                           And Eternity in an hour.

                                           William Blake


The mouse appeared, closely followed by the cat, closely followed 
by the rest of the universe.

Albert's rickety time machine nosed dived into the floor, throwing 
Albert clear of it to land head first in a large pot plant. At the same 
moment as Erwin, Margret and Werner tumbled out of the time crystal 
and for once landing on something soft.

It was a bed.

An instant later - however long that is I'm not sure as nobody I 
know has ever measured one - the time cube dropped down on Erwin's 
head, this time quite firmly knocking him out.

"Albert ," said Margret.

"Margret," said Albert .

"Eeek," said the mouse.

"Miaow," said the cat.

"The Cat!" said Albert.

"My Mouse!" said Margret.

"Shit!" said Werner, as he saw Erwin lying unconscious.

The mouse shot off into a crack in the wainscot, as the Cat pounced 
towards it. Then the Cat tore off, as it felt rather than saw Albert 
ejaculate himself from the pot plant and fly across the room to try and 
tackle it. 

Having missed the cat, Albert found, however, he tackled the wall 
extremely well, as he slid head first across the floor into the wall. The 
floor he discovered was extraordinarily slippery.

"Ugh," he managed, before bouncing up and chasing after the cat, 
which was now out of the room and bolting down the hall.

"Albert!" piped Margret in a faint voice that was a cross between 
affection and 'why haven't you washed the dishes, dear', as she jumped 
up and chased after him, as well.

Werner, whose head had been doing the Waitusi trying to keep up 
with all the events, decided to join the party. Having found his only other 
option was to hold an very inert conversation with the inert bodily mass 
of Erwin which comfortably on the bed.  So, Werner bounced off the bed 
and ran off behind the two, as a slightly bemused vanguard, calling," Hey 
guys, I know this is probably an uncool question. But do you two know 
each other?"

Erwin groaned and sat up in the bed, holding his head. As he did 
so, he glanced around the room. It swam. He smiled. 

-It is a bedroom-, he thought fondly and gave up trying to save the 
universe, deciding he was far more interested in trying to get some sleep 
and fell back in the bed.

The foursome found themselves running down the halls of an 
enormous mansion with corridors that seemed to go on for ever, filled 
with the most exquisite tapestries and finely carved statues of Greek 
heros and plumbing fittings. Which upon reflection was probably a bit 
odd, but at that moment nobody felt the need to comment upon it.

The Cat, was finding running harder than it expected it to be, 
principally due to the floor having a surface like slightly oiled white 
marble. Which was precisely what it was, having thin streams of light 
machine oil trickling along its surface. This gave the floor a grip but 
haphazardly, and would with the least provocation send the runner 
sliding away like a ship in a trade wind on a sea with a definite slope in 
it.

"Albert, wait it's me Margret! Why don't you wait?" squealed 
Margret petulantly, then screamed " Aheeeee!" , as she slipped over.

"It's that cat,"yelled Albert ," I've got to catch it, it's screwing up 
the universe!"

"Albert, are you feeling alright?" Margret said, as she sat on the 
floor.

Albert did a pirouette on his toes to spin around and face the other 
direction to avoid hitting a marble Zeus, who frowned portentous 
thunderbolts at the Venus across the way from him. Albert unfortunately 
failed to halt in time and knocked Zeus for a six, leaving Venus to giggle 
silently at the fallen god.

Behind them, Werner was finding those mindless ice skating 
lessons his parents had given him as a child to finally be of some 
advantage, after all. As he gaily practiced movements from Torvil and 
Dean's rendition of Carmen on ice. Slipping from one foot to the other, 
with his hands behind his back, whistling the toreador song.

Albert and Margret jumped up and took off after the Cat again.

The Cat turned a corner and hit a particularly heavy patch of oil to 
completely lose control of its movements and slip upside down across the 
room. Albert coming round the corner saw the the oil and leapt up over 
it. So that in one utterly fantastic flying tackle he bounced off his head, 
rolled onto his shoulders and caught the Cat. Closely followed by Margret 
and Werner, so that the whole lot of them slide across the room: to pile 
up spectacularly at the feet of a white haired old man. 

The old man was covered in oil, wearing a shimmering robe and 
golden glowing halo, as a choir of tiny heavenly black angels floated in 
the air at his shoulder singing and clapping with manic zeal.

"Hallelujah, praise the Oil"

"Hallelujah, praise the Oil."

Everybody looked at everybody else in surprise. 

A silence descended like the instant of time before the beginning of 
the universe, then the choir went back to singing and clapping.

"Hallelujah, praise the guests"

"Hallelujah, praise the guests."

The intruders stared up unblinking at the distinguished old man, 
with the long flowing beard and the aura of supreme wisdom sweeping 
out of his eyes. They, all knew at once, without asking or being told that 
they were in the presence of the all-mighty, the all-wise, the all powerful 
God. Or Allah or Buddha or Brahma, Vishnu, Thor, Osiris,Ahura Mazda, 
Mumbo-Jumbo or whatever, this was 'The Big Guy'.

God spoke,

"Any of you,got any chewing gum? I think a mouse chewed 
through my last piece." 

The angels broke out into a frenzy of singing, jumping and clapping 
as they sang,

"Hallelujah, praise the gum!"

"Hallelujah, praise the gum!"

God whirled on them and roared,

"Shut up!"

The angels promptly shut up and looked sheepishly at their 
celestial hands.

"Dammed idiots, all they ever do is sing," said God, then beamed 
with a wonderfully benign countenance at his guests, that so filled them 
with awe they almost peed their pants.

Albert dove into his pocket, as he sat in the oil, brought out the 
chewing gum that Hamilton left him and gave it to God, who immediately 
slipped off the wrapper and popped it in his mouth, chewing on it 
reflectively for a minute and gazing at them with a look of absolute 
sublime serenity before taking it out again, and plugging up the hole, 
through which the machine oil was leaking on to the floor.

"There, that's better," then God turned back, to let his eyes wander 
over them in a godlike fashion. "Now then, who might you be then, 
hmmm?" 
Not sure if he should grovel in abject fear or start singing like one 
of the deranged cherubs, Albert spoke.

"God..." he began.

"What! I'm not God, no I just work here," said the god become 
boiler attendant. "But don't worry about it, most people make that 
mistake. In fact in the course of my work I've even had a few major 
religions started after me. Very flattering of course, but totally 
inaccurate."

"You're not God?" said Margret, amazed that god was not what he 
appeared to be.

"No, I'm just Isaac the accountant."

"You're not God?!" echoed Werner equally amazed.

"Of course not. God's big, in fact God's so big it is infinite. That's the 
whole point of God being God. If God were a man then who gave birth to 
him et cetera? No I wouldn't say god was a man, the complete opposite in 
fact. No, I'm just the accountant."

The three of them managed to stand up by holding on to each 
other, cautiously trying the oil beneath their feet and found to their 
surprise that Issac was actually slightly shorter than them by about a 
foot. Though with an extraordinarily domed cerebral forehead that 
reminded them of bust's of Shakespeare and bespoke of either immense 
intelligence or the capacity for incredible hangovers.

"Really,"said Werner," then where are we then, it's certainly not 
what I would have thought heaven to be?"

"No? Funny I've often thought the same thing come to think of it," 
said Issac."I would have thought there would be more blue in heaven, but 
our's is not to reason why our's is but to do and fly."

At this a pair of wings appeared at his shoulders and quickly 
flapped so that he rose a foot above the ground before smiling 
embarrassingly and dropping back to the heaven,  his wings disappearing 
as he did so.

"Sorry," he mumbled," I get a bit enthusiastic at times."

Margret giggled, then corrected herself when she remembered 
with whom she was in the presence of, then corrected herself again when 
she remembered she wasn't and giggled anyway.

"Actually,"said Issac," this really is heaven or a type of heaven, at 
least that's what we call it around here, it is actually an acronym for 
-Heaven's Elysian Arcadia for Vedic Eternity and Nirvana-" 

"Hang on," burst out Werner," you've just used the word heaven as 
part of the acronym for heaven, that's ridiculous." Werner then grinned, 
pleased he knew more than god's deputy.

Issac hummed for a second.

"Yes, you're quite right," he said," but that's the trouble with the 
infinite you either go on forever or you tend to go around in circles, don't 
you."

At this the cherubs began whispering to themselves and clicking 
their fingers,"Hallelujah, praise the infinite.","Hallelujah, praise the 
infinite."

"That's not much of an explanation," said Albert circumspectly. 

"Well, no it is not," Issac said in a wistful way,"but this is an infinite 
universe we're dealing with here, so of course we tend to run up against 
the sticky cloying impenetrable wall of tautology all the time, and in the 
end all your answers run around in circles chasing each other and it just 
depends on the moment which direction you're going as to what you're 
going to believe the ultimate answer is, so there really isn't any, because 
you can only explain something by comparing it with something else, so 
what in god's name do you compare the infinite with?"

"Ah," said Albert, pleased to be confused witless, it was reassuring 
to have things back to normal: again.

"Hey I get! Wow!"said Werner,"What you're saying is that since the 
universe is infinite and since god is infinite therefore god must be 
everything that there is, including itself which means that god or heaven 
or anything for that matter, must contain god and so on for eternity and 
infinity."

"Exactly,"said Issac.

"What,"said Margret," everything is god?!"

"Yes."

"Even my mouse?!"

"Yes."

"You're saying my mouse is god?!"

"Absolutely."

"You're crazy!" 

"Quite possibly," said Issac tongue in cheek.

"Wait, I think I see," said Albert," I am god, you are god, we are 
god. All is god. Really using the word god is a complete misnomer, you 
should use a word like infinite or universe or just plain big."

"Exactly!" said Issac," see you knew the answers all the time you 
just needed to ask the right questions."

"Hang on!" Margret said quickly, to avoid losing sight completely of 
the issue. "How can I be god, I don't feel like god, I don't look like god and 
I sure as hell don't act like god, so how in blazes can I be god?"

Issac looked at her long and hard then said, "What does this god 
look like?"

Margret balked. Her eyes darted about quickly, as if she was 
looking for something to throw at these idiotic males.

"Well, sort of godlike I suppose," and softly chewed her lower lip.

"But when you first saw me you thought I was god, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I um I yes,"she said quietly.

Issac smiled in a wonderfully benign fashion that gave Margret  
goosepimples.

"Well god is the infinite, right?"

Margret smiled, giggled, then gave a quick laugh.

"Yes,"she said softly.

"And you are part of the infinite, correct?"

"Uh-huh," she stared at the ground no longer being game to look in 
Issac's eyes.

"Well then, you are one of the infinite forms of god and since god 
contains itself, ergo you are god."

Margret stared glumly at the oil on the ground, drawing patterns 
with her toes in the machine oil.

"Funny, "she said slowly," I always thought it would be different 
somehow."

"In what way?"

"More harps I suppose, and lots of fluffy white clouds with angels 
singing Beethoven's Fifth symphony. That sort of thing, you know," she 
said coquettishly.

"No problem,"said Issac and clicked his fingers, suddenly the 
basement, the machine oil and all the terrible questions vanished, to be 
replaced by the blue vault of the heaven with its myriad of stars and 
constellations.  

The four of them found themselves floating serenely on the tops of 
little blue white diaphanous clouds, dressed in white gowns with large 
feathery wings sticking out their backs, neon lamp halos and holding tiny 
golden harps: with the exception of Werner who clutched a psychedelic 
Fender guitar with attached amplifier. While all around them, angels 
were singing and playing harps in the midst of a vast array of clouds and 
universes which sank off into the distance so it appeared they were at 
the pinnacle of creation itself. 

"Yes, oh yes,"said Margret excitedly trying to jump up and down on 
her little cloud and clapping her hands," this is just how heaven should 
be!"

Before jumping a little too high and disappearing in her cloud,"Oh!" 
came a little voice from within her cloud.

Werner tried to stand up on his but found it impossible, as there 
didn't seem to be anything to stand on, gave a quick glance around what 
promised to be eternity and swore.

"Ah bulldust! That's not my version of heaven!"yelled Werner.

A hush fell upon heaven,the universes stopped spinning, a few 
aeolian harps twanged as their strings were broken and the angels looked 
in alarm from their clouds at Werner and his profanity.

"Sorry?"said Issac in surprise.

"Oh!" said Margret with a sneer, her head finally peering out from 
the top of her cloud."What is it then, the World Trade Fair?"

Werner ignored her and spoke rapidly to Issac.

"Hey look, Heaven is full of beautiful virgins who wait upon your 
every need and everywhere there is one continuous Bacchanalian feast 
with song and dance and if you get bored with it all, you can race out and 
fight battles with horrible infidels who die by the thousands beneath 
your sword and if you ever get philosophical all your questions are 
answered by wise sages who confer with the angel Gabriel andII"

"Yes, yes,"said Issac quickly,"I get the picture."

Suddenly all the angels had their halos short circuited and their 
wings clipped so that they all fell from grace and the entire breadth of 
Margret's heaven vanished to be replaced by a swarming scene of naked 
women and drunken warriors lolling around in suits of armour, swearing 
profusely and cracking bawdy jokes. 

"Wow! Now this is what I call paradise, alright!" Werner yelled, 
while enthusiastically thumping the table with his fist before quaffing a 
bull's horn of mead and bouncing a nubile young Brunhilde on his armour 
clad knee.

"Men!" said Margret as she turned away to stare off into the 
distance,"you're all the same."

Then she screamed as a great hairy Viking suddenly picked her up 
and ran off with her on his shoulder singing a passage from Wagner's 
Gtterd
mmerung.

"Albert!" cried Margret.

"Margret!"cried back Albert"Don't go!"

"You idiot!" screamed back Margret," I'm being kidnapped!"

"Oh," said Albert quietly, then made a move to go after her.

"Hey kid, don't worry," said Werner grabbing him by the arm," in 
my Heaven, they stay virgins forever."

"What?" said Albert shocked.

"Albert!" whined Margret.

"Do something," Albert yelled at Issac.

"Like what, dear boy?" smiled Issac back at Albert.

Albert froze and thought for a second, as Margret retreated into 
the distance and a trio of Valkyries broke into the final scene from the 
Walkure. Albert  stared at the Cat in his arms, made a motion to drop it 
and go after Margret then changed his mind, then changed his mind 
again.

"Well I ," Albert finally shouted at Issac," what's your version of 
heaven, then?"

Suddenly the Vikings vanished and Werner crashed to the ground 
in his suit of armour, as Margret fell on top of him with a thump breaking 
her wings, and they found themselves in the midst of a vast crowded 
plain beneath a endless blue sky upon which was simply cluttered with 
zillions of angels with tiny wings and glowing halos, sitting at computer 
terminals tapping away to eternity, stretching as far as the eye could see.

"This is heaven?!" asked Werner in a shocked voice as he picked 
himself up.

"Well it's my version of heaven, a little different maybe, but 
somebodies got to keep the world going," said Issac as if it were a 
perfectly ordinary thing, which is just what it seemed to be.

"But it's just a typing pool, for Newton's sake," said Albert walking 
over to one of the angels. "What on Earth do they type about all the time."

"Take a listen for yourself," said Issac mildly and stared off 
distractedly into the distance.

Werner and Margret followed Albert over to one of the angels and 
stood beside him, watching as it spoke quickly into a mouth piece and 
typed messages into the keyboard.

"Charge conserved I tap I tap I charge violation I tap I tap I 
tap," over and over without change between the sentences.

The three of them then walked up to the next angel and listened to 
it next.

"Parity I Parity I all without clarity I  I tap I tap I tap," 

"Spin I spin I who will win I  I tap I tap I tap," 

"Quark I snark I all in the dark I tap I tap I tap," 

And the angel continued on with this strange rhyme of words and 
typing seeming to make no sense at all, without any hint of stopping or 
even acknowledging the existence of the trio.

Quietly they walked back to Issac who for reasons best known to 
himself, was softly humming to himself the tune -Home On The Range- .

They stared at him. 

He smiled back. 

They stared some more. 

He broke into the second chorus of -Home On The Range-.

Albert cleared his voice then spoke.

"You really are, just an accountant, aren't you, you  I  just keep 
track I of the books."

"Yep!"beamed Issac happily,"somebody has to do it you know, else 
the whole thing would just goes to pot, it is simple really, provided you 
never think about it, that is."

"So that's all you do, just keep accounts?" asked Margret with a 
voice somewhere between perplexed and Vladivostok.

"Yes, Oh well there's that and the plumbing too of course."

"The plumbing?" the three cried together.

"Hey! Somebody's got to do it."

"But what about the here after and eternal reward and all that 
stuff," whined Margret.

"That's your version, not mine," returned Issac, never seeming for  
a moment troubled to be troubled by this, as he beamed beatifically at 
them and amazingly enough managed to keep on humming all the time, 
as if he hadn't spoken at all.

"Yes, I think I understand that,"said Albert, slightly thrown by the 
incessant humming and looked around quickly for a musical celestial 
bee,"but which is the real version, I mean which is the real heaven, if you 
can call it that?"

Issac paused his humming for a moment and all the key boards fell 
silent as all the angels stopped their work and looked from their seats to 
stare at Issac. It was as if the entire universes of universes had ground to 
a halt and waited in hushed silence for the answer. The trio went almost 
frantic in the stillness and Albert wished he hadn't posed the problem.

"Er I good question," said Issac and the universe went back about 
its business.

The three sighed deeply, just glad to go on existing.

"Well," began Issac again," it is a bit like the infinite universes, you 
can't have one without all the others popping up into being, actually you 
really can't get away from that idea, can you?"

"No, I suppose not," reflected Albert in an annoyed tone.

"Is there really such a thing as a god then, you know some 
supreme and omniscient being that exists over all other things," asked 
Werner.

"That's another good question," replied Issac and started humming 
again.

"Would you stop saying that," snapped Margret," and stop the 
humming too, please."

Issac smiled at Margret like an angel, who in turn looked bashfully 
at the ground and pretended not to exist.

"Well, it is a good question,"began Issac,"what you want is a 
supreme being that is greater in all qualities than any other being, 
supremely good, supremely wise and so on, well in that case, consider 
this, surely the most marvellous quality or achievement possible is the 
actual creation of the universe or universes themselves, yes?"

The three nodded their heads furiously.

"Therefore only the supreme being above all other supreme beings 
could have succeeded in achieving this feat, yes?"

Again the heads bobbed up and down, like Japanese tourists 
playing hopscotch in an earthquake. 

"And surely non-existence, is the greatest most supreme handicap 
that anything, can possibly overcome; before it can achieve anything else, 
that it may possibly wish to achieve."

The bobbing heads slowed to a halt as they thought this one over.

"Therefore for god to have created the universes, god can not exist, 
ergo god created the universes by not existing and hence god exists by 
not existing, there see, simple really, provided you don't think about it, 
that is."

The Cat, which up till now had done nothing more than sit 
contented in Albert's arms, decided it was time to leave and did so.

"Arrrghh!" screamed Albert." The Cat's disappeared again!"

For without warning the Cat had slowly vanished into non-space 
again.

"It's gone!"screamed Margret, not knowing why she was screaming,  
but since she had been wanting to do it for some time, proceeded to do 
so." Where is it? Where's it gone?"

"Great Newton the cats vanished!"screamed Werner, who had been 
wanting to scream for some time as well.

"What,"said Issac, slightly puzzled by their behaviour," is 
something the lack of matter?"

"The Cat I the Cat it's gone again!" yelled Albert in horror.

"It's gone I It's gone again!" echoed Werner and Margret, though 
not knowing why they were doing so.

"Damn!" swore Albert."Not again!"

"Albert!" said Margret in shocked voice.

"Um I sorry, Hunny Bunny," mumbled Albert.

"Hunny Bunny ?" said Werner drily."Hunny Bunny, I take it then 
you two know each other."

"Um yea, sort of," Albert muttered feebly.

"Albert!" said Margret sternly.

"Well, we're sort of engaged, sort of," Albert said staring at the 
ground and began feeling a little depressed.

"Well done!"boomed out Issac, clapping the couple on the shoulders 
and embracing them,"that's what I like to see now days, more of that 
good old fashioned family spirit."

"I thought you said,"continued Werner inexorably,"he was six foot 
high and played full forward in the local team." 
Issac and Werner stared critically at Albert, who strove his best to 
appear as part of the furniture, preferably a large cupboard in the next 
room, while Margret went a nice bright pink and flapped her broken 
angel's wings slightly.

"Yes I um,"Albert eventually managed, then remembered the 
cat,"but the Cat where is it, I mean I've traveled half the known 
universes to catch it, half the unknown ones, as well as a few that aren't 
even universes, and when I finally do find it, it takes off again , what do I 
do now, for Newton's sake?"

"Oh is that all,"said Issac quietly and clicked his fingers.

Instantly, they were back in the bedroom where they had left 
Erwin. The change took place so fast that it was several moments before 
any of the three realized what had happened.

"There," said Issac, pontifically pointing towards the wall where the 
mouse had early disappeared into the wainscot.

For in front of the mouse hole sat the cat, tensely whipping its tail 
from side to side, staring into the mouse hole with an intensity that 
would have ensured a lifetime of nervous hysterics: had the mouse but 
known about it. Albert made a move to grab it, but Issac caught him by 
the arm and restrained him.

"It is alright, Macavity is my cat," said Issac with reassuring 
bonhomie.

"What? You mean it's your's I as in I your's?!" cried Albert in 
amazement.

"Sure, I use him for keeping down the mice round the place, they 
have a nasty habit of chewing through the plumbing. Strong teeth," he 
tapped his own teeth as he said this," you see."

"But I but I but it keeps jumping through time and space, I mean 
cats aren't supposed to do that sort of thing, are they?!" said Albert 
amazed at the possibility.

"Well, it's not actually a real cat," Issac replied with a grin," not in 
the sense you would call real."

"It's not?" Werner said with even more amazement than the 
amazement that Albert had just expressed.

"It is a Quantum Mechanical cat," Issac said simply and smiled at 
them with his most benign smile.

Albert, suddenly became very, very worried and suspected he 
didn't want to hear the rest of what Issac was going to say, and so began 
making strange 'erring' noises which everybody managed to ignore: albeit 
uncomfortably .

"Hey God baby, what's a Quantum Mechanical Cat?!" burst out 
Werner in complete bafflement." That is I when the weather isn't green?"

"Ah yesIwell now, ahem," Issac finally managed sonorously,"It is a 
theoretical possibility, at how a something, like a cat, might behave if it 
were really an atom."

Albert crumpled down on his heels and began rocking back and 
forth with a vacant expression on his face. 

"Are you saying," asked Margret in amazement, as she stared at the 
ceiling to avoid looking at Albert," that this Cat is just an idea, it's not a 
real cat I not even a little bit?"

"Naturally," returned Issac quickly ," but Quantum Mechanical Cats 
are like that  you know, they're a I  bit odd."

"Qua I Qua I ," Albert tried to mutter, but found his brain was so 
disgusted with the entire affair, that it had switched itself off and was 
now busily searching through its memory banks for a convenient 
telephone book with which to belt itself with.

"Almost," smiled Issac," but not quite, it a Quantum Relativistic Kat 
or Qua.R.K. 

"I should explain," Issac continued genially," a Quantum Mechanical 
Cat is what would happen, if we gave the universe, half a chance to do 
what it really wants to do; which in this particular case I is catch mice."

"Mice!" cried Werner and Margret in symphony and then 
together,"Mice?!"

"Yes, of course," said Issac blandly," what else would you expect 
cats to catch I Aardvarks?"

Albert sat between them, with a mindless aspect to his face, tying 
his shoe laces together, then untying them, then tying them I as he 
whispered to himself,"baba baba gooby dooby wooby I "

"But, why for heavens sake!" cried Margret, ignoring Albert with an 
intensity that bordered on mono-mania," what's the point?!"

"Yeah, surely you're kidding," continued Werner," Like Hey Buddha, 
I mean if a cat can jump around in space and time; how can any mouse 
get away from it. Wow, it would be impossible for the mice to hide, 
anywhere I anytime?" 

"Well no, you see that's the whole problem, heaven is just riddled 
with rodents, they keep chewing through the temporal plumbing, which 
means the little devils are able to tunnel about, at will, through the 
spacetime continuum, so it means they only way I can actually catch the 
pesky beasts, is send these cats in after them."

"Wow," muttered Werner appreciatively.

"And what makes it worse," continued Issac," is the little devils are 
screwing up the universe when they do it."

"Which one?" quizzed Margret.

"Doesn't matter," shot back Issac," one I infinite, all the same to 
me."

Albert rose to his feet and stared at them, a triumphant -though 
slightly dazed- expression appeared on his face, as he threw back his 
shoulders."Yes!" he cried with considerable conviction; to nobody in 
particular.

"What?" asked Issac.

"Yes!" replied Albert,  unperturbed at not knowing 'what'.

The other three glanced uneasily at each other and smiled 
uncertainly at Albert. 

"Is something I the matter Albert?" asked Margret in some 
concern," you don't look too well, maybe you should lie down for a while."

"No I feel fine, just great, never felt better in fact I in fact, I" and 
fainted.


Albert came to, a few minutes later, and found himself lying in the 
same bed that the others had landed in when they first arrived. The 
others were now, standing about the bed with concerned expressions on 
their faces, that is with the exception of Margret: who was slightly 
annoyed with Albert for fainting before she had a chance to. Erwin: who 
was missing, indeed for reasons best known to himself, had disappeared 
entirely, and Werner: who disliked the idea that somebody was getting 
more attention them himself. So really the only person who was looking 
down at Albert with any real concern was Issac and Albert wasn't sure if 
this counted.

"Hello, old chap," said Issac comfortingly," how do you feel."

Albert finding his  head throbbing, began rubbing his temples with 
his fingers and closed in his eyes for a few moments, open them again 
and stared at Issac for an instant, remembered about the Cat and burst 
out angrily."Are you saying are you saying that this Cat I isn't really a 
cat, it's just one of your 'thoughts'?!"

Er I yes," said Issac, somewhat taken aback," in a way, but don't 
forget-that to me- my thoughts are real things."

"Hey Pop, and to us they're just a possible probability, right daddy-
O?" burst out Werner with an insane grin on his face.

"Absolutely," snapped back Issac, starting to get annoyed with 
Werner's supercilious cheerfulness.

"I see," said Albert wearily," so, there was really no need for me to 
go jumping around the universe after all, was there, I mean everything is 
alright with the universe, isn't?"

Issac gave a long thoughtful, medical look at Albert, as the little 
angels on his shoulder started doing a soft-shoe shuffle. Issac hummed, 
then he hemmed and finally blew a pensive sigh through his moustache.

"Ignoring the obvious question of which one," he began 
deliberately," I can't really answer that one. I Ah!" suddenly holding up 
his hand to stop Werner breaking in," Maybe I should try."

"You see, dear boy, you are stuck on the inside of your universe, 
that's because you're part of it and not some airy-fairy thing floating 
around the infinite looking in I a bit like myself, I suppose. The only 
thing you have ever experienced-and can experience for that matter-is 
here inside this universe, with all its laws and all those wonderful little 
bits and pieces that you call traffic jams, Sunday afternoons in the park 
and going to the drive-in on a Friday night to watch the stars cart-wheel 
overhead from one horizon to the next as the galaxy rolls its childish way.  

"It's a bit like trying to appreciate a piece of music when you 
yourself are the music being played, or like trying to understand what 
the outside of a box looks like, when you've spent your entire life inside 
the box. You can make guesses about what it might be and why it should 
be there, but you can never absolutely be sure. You can even build a huge 
edifice of knowledge which models how everything works, but that will 
still be from a point of view on being on the inside. 

"And what's even worse, is that existence is so complex, so varied, 
so ridiculously interrelated, that you can never possibly hope to 
understand or appreciate even just the smallest moiety of it all. And even 
if you came close to doing that-which believe me you can't-, you would 
find that you haven't uncovered even the smallest tip of your universe in 
comparison to the real infinite. In fact, there are no facts, just an awful lot 
of guess's, and that's all!"he said with finality, glaring at Werner, then 
added as an afterthought," which is really an awful lot, I suppose."

"Oh," Albert said and sighed for a moment, before looking across 
the room at the Cat and frowning."Bloody Cats," he muttered under his 
breath.

The Cat, which up to this point had been more interested in the 
hole than them, turned, and in its most peculiar fashion smiled politely, 
as if they had just apologized for their existence and everything was 
alright, again.

After this, they all waited around for a few minutes trying think of 
what next to do, having found they had solved the major problems of the 
life, existence and the better mouse trap, till Werner remembered they 
were missing a somebodything.

"Where's Erwin?" he asked in slight consternation.

"Erwin, whose Erwin? asked Albert.

"Who cares?" remarked Margret.

"I think we borrowed your spacetime machine, a little while back," 
said Werner to Albert, grinning.

Albert sat up in the bed and looked around the room, stared at the 
cat, smiled ruefully before getting out of the bed and walking over to the 
cupboard to open it up.

"Hi Erwin," he said with a cheerful grin to Erwin huddling down in 
the corner with shoebox on his head.

"Arrghhh!, it's you again!", screamed Erwin, closely followed by, 
"Arrghhh! The Cat!"

Issac snapped his fingers and Macavity disappeared.

Erwin stared at the now invisible Cat or where the invisible Cat 
was supposed to be. 

"Wha I er?" as he stood up, as an unmistakable look of cunning 
passed across his face. "Say, how did you do that?" he asked, forgetting 
completely about Albert now in front of him.

"It is just a trick, nothing more," said Issac turning around," Well I 
must go now, there's a little thing I have to attend to, so you must excuse 
me. Oh do make yourselves at home while I'm away, nobody visits me 
much these days, so I'm really glad of a little company. And watch out for 
leaks."

"Whose he?" Erwin whispered to Albert.

"The plumber," laughed Albert and walked over to Margret to give 
her a great big lovable hug, which, however, she only reluctantly 
accepted, still annoyed at the fact he had run off after a cat the instant he 
had seen her.

Then they watched, as Issac walked over to a large oaken chest 
with an ornate padlock which he snapped open with a flick of the wrist. 
The lid creaked open and a swarm of moths flew out bedazzled by the 
light, circled Issac in a feeding frenzy before alighting on his beard, took 
up semi-permanent residence as they layed eggs and hatched plans to 
take over the universe. From within the trunk Issac drew out a large 
battered and stained old red jacket from which he shook the dust free, 
filling the air before him, with a cloud of choking white mist which 
effectively blitzed the remaining flying moths, who fell in their droves to 
the floor to flutter angrily at the inconvenience of their extermination. 
Issac's wings fluttered above his shoulders for an instant before 
disappearing in a flurry of feathers as he pulled on the great red  coat 
and did up its large brass button on his front. After this, he pulled on the 
matching pants onto his surprisingly scrawny legs and tucked in his 
celestial robes, giving him the appearance of being a rolly-polly plump 
old man, and then he took down a pair of great black boots which hung 
on the wall behind the chest and pulled them onto his feet, the black 
leather surface of the boots long since cracked and torn with use. Then he 
whipped from the pocket of the jacket, a faded red sleeping cap with a 
white tassel on its end and plonked it on top of his head. Finally Issac 
dragged out an enormous white hessian bag, with its sides bulging in all 
directions, with the most fascinating of shapes. He turned to them and 
smiled.

"I say, as you came down the hall, did any of you happen to see 
any reindeer?"



se non e vero, e ben trovato.  
26/3/93. Reed de Buch. Brisbane, Queensland. Australia. 



If you are a publisher interested in publishing this novel you can 
contact me through the Church of V\R (knot a religion) on the Internet at 
mporter@nyx.cs.du.edu, or via snail-mail at PO Box 1620, Toowong Q 
4066, Australia.

Otherwise all copyrights are presevered, and any unauthorised 
hardcopy of any part of the text 'Mac Schrodinger Cat' - by Reed 
de Buch is not allowed, except with the permisson of the author.

Furhtermore, if you have actually read this novel: I am interested in
the number of people who have done so - please send a short note to the
above address, it would be much appreciated. Reed de Buch.


[*End*]