Jeff Noon: Automated Alice

"You say that you left Didsbury village in 1860? Why that's... that's... why I don't know how long ago that is. Do you?" Alice tried to work it out, but she couldn't. "No matter," said Captain Ramshackle, "I'll ask the mound how long ago it is." And with that he picked up his pair of tweezers and proceeded to pluck a number of termites from the earth; he rearranged them here and there and then set them on their way back into the mound. "The answer should be arriving in a few minutes," he said. And then he started to consult something lying on his desk beside the computermite mound.

"Oh this is very confusing," cried Alice, edging even closer to the desk in order to see what Captain Ramshackle was looking at.

"Confusing? Splendid!" the Captain cried, not even looking up from his task.

"It's not at all splendid. It's extremely confusing."

"Confusing is splendid."

"Is that a jigsaw you're doing?" asked Alice, having finally dared to look over his shoulder.

"No it is not," fumed the Captain. "This is a jigglesaurus."

"What's the difference?"

"A jigsaw is a modern creature that finally makes sense, whilst a jigglesaurus is a primitive creature that finally makes nonsense."

"None of the pieces seem to fit at all," said Alice. "There's no picture there."

"Exactly so. Everything adds up to nothing. You see, I'm a Randomologist: I believe the world is constructed out of chaos. I study the strange connections that make the world work. Did you know that the fluttering of a wurm's wings in South America can bring about a horse-crash in England?"

"No, I didn't know that," said Alice, "in fact I don't even know what a horse-crash is, but I do know that a worm doesn't have wings."

"Doesn't it?" Ramshackle replied. "How on the earth then does it fly?"

"A worm doesn't fly. A worm wriggles."

"Does it? Excellent! Even better. The wriggling of a wurm in South America causes a horse-crash in England. Oh chaos, chaos! Splendid chaos! Now what's this doing here?" Ramshackle had plucked a jigsaw piece up from his desk with the aid of his tweezers. "This little piece seems to fit perfectly in place!" he cried out loud. "We can't have that! Indeed, no." He slipped the jigsaw piece under his microscope. "It's a section of a badger's head I believe."

"That belongs in my jigsaw," said Alice.

"Splendid! And here was I fearing that my jigglesaurus was starting to make sense, of all things." Alice took the offending piece from Ramshackle and then placed it in her pinafore pocket. "You know, I thought you were a wurm, Alice," the Captain continued, "when first I saw you marching out of the mound."

"I'm not a worm," answered Alice.

"I didn't say you were a worm, Alice. I said you were a wurm."

"Why do you keep saying the word with a U in the middle of it?"

"Because it stands for Wisdom-Undoing-Randomized-Mechanism. Don't you see, Alice? The world is totally random and all the Civil Serpents who try to find out the rules of it are just squeezing at strawberry jelly."

Finally, Alice got round to asking the Captain what a Civil Serpent was.

"Those tightly knotted buffoons!" grunted the Badger-man in reply. "The Civil Serpents are these hideous snakes that writhe around all day in the Town Hall, making up all these petty laws against nature. Nature, of course, follows her own laws, and these are the laws of Randomology, as worked out by yours truly. The Civil Serpents regard me as a trouble-maker, as though I make the trouble! No, no: the Universe makes the trouble; I'm just the watcher of the trouble. And this is why they're claiming the good Captain Ramshackle is guilty of the Jigsaw Murder."

"Has somebody been murdering jigsaws?"

"Silly, silly, silly! It's a murder by jigsaw. Not by jigglesaurus, mind. I mean, what interest have I in jigsaws? Those perfectly logical, slotting-together pictures? No indeed, jigsaws bore me to tears. Oh, those slithering oafs! Civil! I'll give those serpents civil! And they're claiming that I killed the Spider boy. Spidercide? Me? How could I possibly... why I love spiders!" At this moment Captain Ramshackle looked over to a (quite fearsomely large!) stuffed and mounted example of the arachnid species that rested amongst his miscellaneous objects. "Well, never you mind the details, Alice. Suffice it to say that I, the Captain of Ramshackle, am totally incapable of such a crime. Oh, I feel so ostracized!"

"You feel so ostrich-sized?" asked Alice.

"Not at all!" cried Ramshackle. "It's the Serpents who have buried their heads in the sand, not me. Surely you must see, Alice, that I couldn't possibly kill a spider?"

Alice accepted that fact quite easily, having witnessed the Badgerman's bristling indignation at such close quarters, not to mention the fresh cloud of talcum that billowed loose from his hair. (Oh dear, I just said I wasn't going to mention the cloud of talcum powder, only to find that I already have mentioned it. I must be getting rather tired in my old age, Alice. In fact, I do believe that I will take to my bed now, because it is getting rather late, and this is quite enough writing for one day. I will see you in the morning, dear sweet girl...)

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

(There, that's better. Now then, where was I?) Oh yes; Alice tried her best to calm Captain Ramshackle down by asking for an explanation of what, exactly, a wurm (with a U in it) was.

"The science of Randomology", the Captain began, clearly relieved to have the subject changed, "states that a wurm is a parasite who likes to make a stolen home in a computermite mound. Once settled there the wurm does its very best to make the termites give the wrong answers. The Civil Serpents, of course, think that wurms are a pest to the orderly system; they try to kill the wurms. But I, Captain Ramshackle, inventor of Randomology, would like to invite the wurms into my mound. And you know something, Alice...?" And here the Captain looked around from side to side nervously and then bowed his head close to Alice's ear in order to whisper, "Some people actually eat the wurms."

"Eat worms!" Alice exclaimed, quite forgetting the incorrect spelling.

"Wurms, Alice. W... u ... r... m... s! Some people eat them."

"But that's... that's... that's disgusting! Whatever for?!"

"It makes you go crazy, of course."

"But why would you want to go crazy? Why that's... that's crazy!"

"Exactly so, Alice! Knowledge through nonsense. That's my motto. I welcome the wrong answers! Would you like to hear a song I've written about it? It's called 'Trouser Cup'."

"Don't you mean trouser cuff?"

"What in the randomness is a trouser cuff?"

"Isn't it a kind of trouser turn-up --"

"A trouser turnip!" bellowed the Captain. "There's no such vegetable!"

"But there's also no such thing as a trouser cup," protested Alice.

"Exactly!" cried the Captain, upon which he commenced to make a funny little dance and to sing in a very untidy voice:

"Oh spoons may dangle from a cow

With laughter ten feet tall;

But all I want to know is how

It makes no sense at all.

Oh shirts may sing to books who pout

In rather rigid lines;

But all I want to turn about

Is how the world unwinds."

Captain Ramshackle then knocked over a pile of his miscellaneous objects (one of which was a croquet mallet, which fell onto the shell of the Indian lobster, cracking it open). "That looks like a very crushed Asian lobster," Alice stated.

"That lobster is indeed a crustacean!" the Badgerman replied, before continuing with his song:

"It makes no sense at all you see,

This world it makes no sense.