Роберт Грант - The Quanderhorn Xperimentations

TROY: (EXTREMELY SLOWLY) So that means: nobody in the world can’t save me, including me. Which, in other words… (STRANGE GUTTURAL NOISE) Urrrrh…

JANUSSEN: I told you to make him think! Now he’s opened up completely.

NYLON: Troy! Troy! Go to sleep!

Secret Report to Martian Command, by Guuuurk [cont’d]

Occupying a human mind, however simple, is a much more abstract endeavour than inhabiting a chicken.

And so it was I found myself in the symbolic vista of Troy’s psyche.

It was a vast, cavernous space, largely unoccupied: there were several inches of dust on the floor, with cobwebs everywhere and the skeletons of stillborn concepts scattered around.

I realised I was standing in an enormous indentation, which on closer inspection appeared to be some kind of massive footprint. It must have spanned seven feet from heel to toe. What in the name of Deimos’ tin antlers could have made such a mark? [3] Named after Mars’ outer moon. Deimos, in Martian fable, visits the hovels of the poor during the Festival of Misery, which occurs 72 times a year, when Martians are encouraged to leave out cake, sweet-smelling herbs and a selection of erotic literature to avoid offending Deimos (the Spirit of War), lest he steal into their children’s bedrooms and sew their legs together. Many parents gaily sew their children’s legs together under cover of darkness to maintain this delightful myth.

‘Hello!’ I called. ‘Anybody here?’ But my only answer was my echo.

I dimly perceived, ranged around the walls, a number of forbidding doors, all of which were shut. I stepped out of the footprint and tried the nearest one. It was locked. I wiped the cobwebs from its rusted nameplate, to reveal the word: ‘THOUGHTS’.

It had clearly not been used for some considerable while.

I tried the next door: ‘IDEAS’. Nailed shut.

I was getting nowhere rapidly, and it was impossible to tell how much time had passed in the outside world. As seasoned mind-travellers will know, time inside an abstract mindscape runs unpredictably, and not completely in sync with the world outside.

I thought about calling out again, and then I remembered the footprint.

A third door looked more promising: ‘SELF’.

There were no cobwebs, and the dust pattern and shiny hinges indicated it was in regular use. Indeed, it had recently been opened. I pushed it and, to my amazement, entered a pleasantly decorated sitting room, with a roaring fire and a delightful spiral staircase in the corner.

Sprawled in an overstuffed chintz chair in front of me, frowning perplexedly at a copy of The Dandy , was a familiar figure.

Troy’s Self looked up at my footsteps. ‘Guuuurk? What are you doing in my mind?’

‘There’s no time to explain right now. I need you to let me operate your right hand for a moment.’

‘I don’t know which one that is, but you’re welcome to have a go,’ he said, waving over his shoulder.

Behind him hung a large embossed sign: ‘MOTOR FUNCTIONS’. Beneath it ranged an array of large levers in dozens of different colours, like those in a railway signal box.

I hastened over to examine the adjacent polished brass indicators more closely. LUNGS were on, BREATHING set to MOUTH… WINGS set to MANUAL… I looked back at him. ‘ Wings?’

He shifted uncomfortably. ‘They’re only little …’

Simple the boy may have been, but he was endlessly surprising. ‘Ah! Here we are: HANDS!’

I tugged on the immense orange lever with an ‘R’ fixed to its knob. At first I couldn’t budge the blessed thing, but suddenly, with an almighty effort I slammed it all the way back in one jolting movement. There was a deafening clang, and the entire edifice rocked dizzyingly. Chunks of plaster fell from the ceiling. A klaxon went wild, and the large illuminated board above the levers flashed ‘Ouch! Ouch! Ouch!’.

‘Steady on, Guuuurk,’ Troy chided. ‘You just punched us in the face.’

‘How was I to know?’ I brushed the plaster dust from my shoulders. ‘I can’t see what I’m doing. Why have you got it so dark in here?’

‘Well, it was all getting pretty confusing out there, so I closed Troy’s eyes. And his ears.’

‘Well, open them! We need to see what’s going on.’

‘OK!’ The simpleton raced off up the spiral staircase which stretched out of sight into the gloom.

‘And hurry!’ I urged after his disappearing figure.

Tikka tikka tikka.

His footsteps died off into the darkness above.

There was a brief pause.

Tikka tikka tikka.

The footsteps rapidly returned.

Troy stopped at the foot of the stairs, panting. ‘Sorry. What was it I wanted?’

I was losing patience. ‘The eyes! Open the eyes!’

‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘of course!’

He turned and ran up the stairs again.

Tikka tikka tikka.

This time there was a longer pause.

Tikka tikka tikka.

He skittered back down again, sweating and red in the face. ‘What did I go up for again?’

Seriously, the nincompoop couldn’t win a battle of wits with a quarter of pear drops. I thrust him aside roughly. Eventually, he stepped out of my way. ‘Stay here,’ I ordered. ‘I’ll open them myself!’

I ran up the stairs as quickly as I could, my heart pounding in my stomach. I ran and ran, but the stairs didn’t seem to lead anywhere, just stretching on and on into infinity.

I stopped, caught my breath, leant over the side and called below: ‘Where are they?’

A tiny distant voice answered me. ‘I can’t hear you,’ it said.

Had I any breath left in my body, I would have sighed deeply in exasperation. Instead, I raced back down, valiantly fighting the cramps in my leg muscles with every step.

‘I said , where’s the control for the eyes?’

‘Oh, that ? It’s this yellow lever here,’ he said, waving towards the switch next to him.

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘It’s down here?’

‘Yes.’

‘It was down here all the time ?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then why in the name of Norgar’s Ravenous Hordes have we been traipsing up and down these bally stairs ?’ [4] In Martian myth, Norgar the Loose-Bowelled was a warlord who would only fight armies of women and/or extremely old people. There were, therefore, rarely any spoils to distribute, and his starving troops finally ate him.

‘I don’t know!’

I bustled the buffoon out of the way again and reached for the EYE lever.

But before I could grab it, there was a strange, echoing noise from the cavernous hall I’d just left, chilling my very blood. Which is not easy, as my blood is normally at a comfortable simmering temperature.

Footsteps! Extraordinarily large footsteps. There was some kind of monster lurking in Troy’s mindscape, and it was stamping its way towards us.

Every terrifying step brought it closer. And closer. The room began to shake.

Troy’s Self seemed frozen, but I was coursing with noble Martian adrenaline, and bravely leapt to the door which I locked, barred and bolted, then tugged a large sideboard in front of it, and courageously filled the sideboard with rocks, then wedged a ladder up against it.

And still the footsteps came.

Just when it seemed the behemoth was almost upon us, it stopped.

I held my breath. Suddenly, there was a monstrous pounding on the door, and a guttural growl: ‘ Me! Me! Me!’