by Jeff Noon
Inspector Jack Russell ignored this remark. “Chimera is where they play the flutters, of course.”
“The flutters!” Alice smiled. “That sounds like fun!”
“Fun!” yowled the Inspector. “Oh no! Chimera is a blatant pandering to the sickly needs of the common herd, a fluttering of evil pictures on a wall!”
“Is Chimera a little like a lantern show?” asked Alice.
“And the newspapers dare to ask why the crime numbers are soaring!” barked Jack Russell.
“What has this to do with the Jigsaw Murders?” requested Alice.
“Quentin Tarantula was a maker of Chimera. Surely I explained that already? He was murdered, and then all of his eight legs were sliced off and stitched to his head! Stitched, I say! And this pathetic catgirl has suffered the same fate: her body parts have been rearranged.”
Alice felt quite sick.
“This is why we call these killings the Jigsaw Murders. Take a look at this…” Inspector Jack Russell opened his paws to dangle a small piece of wood in front of Alice’s face. “We found this clutched in the spiderboy’s legs.” It was another jigsaw piece! Alice recognized the fragment: the missing picture of a deadly spider from her long-ago puzzle of London Zoo.
“That’s my jigsaw piece!” Alice cried.
“Is it indeed?” Jack Russell replied. “Well then, take a look at this…” And with this ellipsis the policedogman prised open the only exposed claw of the currently dead catgirl, revealing yet a further jigsaw piece hidden there. “Does this jigsaw piece also belong to you, I wonder?” he asked, brandishing a crooked portion of the golden eye of a cat.
“That is also mine!” Alice said.
“Alice the human-girl,” Inspector Jack Russell coldly growled, “I am hereby arresting you for probable involvement in the Jigsaw Murders. I believe you to be in league with the Ramshackle badgerman, our main suspect, and that together you have brought about these rearranging killings. The Civil Serpents will be most keen to interrogate you.”
Just then it started to rain!
To rain and rain and rain.
An astonished (and drenched) Alice felt a pair of police manacles folding around her wrists, and at the very same time she saw Captain Ramshackle himself being led on leads by a cluster of policedogmen. The badgerman looked at Alice as he passed by. “Alice, you know that I’m innocent,” he muttered in the downpour. “Won’t you please help me?”
“Good Captain, I will do my utmost to help you,” Alice replied, whilst being dogmanhandled herself onto the back of a police-auto. “I shall prove us both innocent yet…”
The last thing that Alice saw as the auto-horse galloped off with her was the porcelain look on Celia Doll’s face from the crowd of dripping spectators. “Oh Celia!” Alice cried out, “I’m losing you all over again. Whatever shall become of us now?”
Alice’s ride on the auto-horse’s back was a terrifying rain-beaten gallop into the centre of Manchester. Wilmslow Road changed into Oxford Road, towards the centre, and many a wonder Alice passed on her journey into Manchester, surrounded as she was by a skidding and flashing drive of other auto-horses, all carrying their very own intrepid riders (or should that be drivers?). Alice passed the Infirmary and the University: she also passed the Central Library and the great Town Hall of Manchester.
The police auto-horse eventually drew to a standstill at the Police Station, opposite the Town Hall.
LANGUISHING
IN JAIL
FIVE minutes later Alice found herself being locked up inside a minuscule jail cell in the cellar below the Police Station. “This is not fair!” she shouted to Inspector Jack Russell as he forced her into the cell. “I’m innocent! Let me free!”
“The Over Assistant Civil Serpent will be along shortly,” Jack Russell briefly replied. “You may plead your case to her.”
Inspector Jack Russell left the cell and clanged the door shut behind him.
Alice could hear the key turning in the lock, just so that she now knew she was completely alone.
A long, long time passed and nobody at all came to visit her, not even a Civil Serpent. Hours and hours must have passed. Alice was feeling very lonely and unwanted—very much unloved. The jail cell contained no furniture other than a rude bed and no windows other than a tiny, barred hole set high up on the wall, through which Alice could catch only a glint of distant rainlight. Alice was so very hungry, not having eaten since lunchtime. That’s lunchtime, 1860, by the way. Alice was left to her own devices. Of course, Alice’s devices amounted to nothing more than Whippoorwill’s plucked-out tail feather, and five small pieces from a jigsaw of London Zoo, which offered hardly any comfort at all (especially to the stomach).
Alice quickly became bored of doing nothing at all, so she decided to play with her feather and her jigsaw pieces. First of all she placed the feather on the bed’s rough blanket. Then she dug deep into her pinafore pocket to find the five jigsaw pieces she had collected in her travels so far: the termite, the badger, the snake, the chicken and the zebra. She laid these pieces face-up in a circle surrounding the green-and-yellow feather.
“Now then,” Alice said to herself, “what game shall I play with you? Shall I play Feather-Escape-the-Zoo? Or shall I play Zoo-Catch-a-Feather?”
Alice moved the jigsaw pieces around the feather, and then the feather amongst the jigsaw pieces, and then she threw the whole lot of them to the floor!
“Oh! What difference does it make?” she cried. “I don’t know the rules to either game and even if I did, what fun is it to play with myself? If only Automated Alice were here! She would certainly know the rules to both the games. In fact, Automated Alice would know the rules so well, she would beat me in every single game! And I couldn’t be doing with that at all! But still, it would be nice to have somebody to talk to. And also something to eat!”
Just then the key turned again in the lock and the door to the cell banged open. Inspector Jack Russell stepped into the room, carrying a plate of food. “I thought you might be hungry, Alice,” he growled, setting the plate down on her bed.
“I am hungry,” stated Alice, “but I shan’t be eating that!” (It was a plateful of boiled radishes!)
“Very well,” Jack Russell replied, “I shall take it away then.”
“Where is Captain Ramshackle?” Alice asked.
“The badgerman is being questioned by the Over Assistant at this very moment, and the Lady of Snakes will be interrogating you presently.”
“But I’m innocent, I tell you!”
“That’s for the serpents to decide; meanwhile, I’m giving you a cell-companion…”
A slug was then dogmanhandled into Alice’s cell. A rather large slug, at that! And the door clanged shut on them both. Imagine, Alice the sweet girl and a greasily enormous slug shut up tightly in a mere pigeonhole of a space? (Although, truth be known, even a pigeon would find that space rather too encroaching for comfort, let alone a young girl and a giant slug!) The slug wasn’t just a slug, of course; he was also a man—a manslug. He was dressed in a suit of silky, shiny cloth, with a jacket and tie and trousers of glitter. On his black and glutinous head rested a large twirled hat of spirals, below which his pair of twitching horns moved slowly through the dank air. In his human hands he held a golden trumpet of finely polished brass.
“Who are you?” asked Alice, nervously.
“I…am…Long…Distance…Davis…” the slugman sluggishly replied, putting an age between each word. “And…who…are…you?”
“I’m Alice,” replied Alice, “and you’re a slug!”
“I…am…not…a…slug…” Long Distance Davis replied, just as slowly as before. “I…am…a…snail…”
“So where is your shell?” (Alice knew just enough about gastropodology to understand that a snail had a shell, whereas a slug did not.)
“Wherever…I…lay…my…hat…is…my…shell…” With this utterance the snailman lay down on the dirt floor and then started to smoo
th his body into his hat. Around and around the spirals he went, until he had almost vanished; in fact, only his golden trumpet remained in sight. “Please don’t go home to your shell, Mister Snailman!” Alice pleaded. “Please talk to me.”
“What’s…to…talk…about?” was Long Distance Davis slovenly replied, from within the depths of his shell hat. “I…am…under…my…hat…and…also…under…arrest…”
“For what crime?” asked Alice.
“For…the…crime…of…playing…music…”
“Is it a crime to play music in the future?”
“I…was…playing…too…slowly…”
“I’m getting awfully confused, Mister Snailman; why should slowness be against the law?”
“The…Civil…Serpents…hate…waiting…”
“And what is it exactly that you’re waiting for?” demanded Alice.
“I’m…waiting…for…the…next…note…to…escape…from…my…trumpet.”
“Will you play me a tune right now, Mister Long Distance?” asked Alice, politely. “It would surely pass the time.”
“I…shall…play…you…my…latest…composition…” Upon these torpid words the snailman slid completely free of his shell, so that it once again resembled a hat. “This…tune…is…entitled…‘Miles…Behind’…” He then raised his shining trumpet to his greasy lips and blew out a single note:
“Parp!” went the trumpet. Long Distance Davis then lowered the instrument.
“Is that it?” asked Alice (having noticed that a jigsaw piece rested in the bell of the trumpet).
“That…is…the…beginning…of…the…piece…” Long Distance drawled.
“But why are you talking so slowly, Mister Snailman?” asked Alice (stealing the jigsaw piece from the snailman’s trumpet whilst he was looking off into the far distance). “Aren’t you very good at English?”
“I…don’t…speak…Anguish…”
“I didn’t say Anguish, I said English.”
“Well…it…certainly…seems…like…you’re…very…anguished…”
“What language do you speak then?” Alice was becoming quite exasperated at the snailman’s sluggishness. (Or should that be snailiness? I can’t make my mind up, can you?)
“I…speak…in…Languish…” the snailman eventually replied.
“And what is Languish?” asked Alice.
“Languish…is…the…lazy…language…”
The snailman then raised his trumpet to his lips and once again blew into it, fully two notes this time. (During this musical passage Alice managed a quick glance at her latest jigsaw piece; it showed only a black and greasy patch of wet skin. Alice knew that the piece was for the snail missing from her gastropod house at London Zoo. She silently slipped it into her pinafore pocket.)
“Parp, parp!” went the trumpet, before it was lowered once again.
“Is this still the tune called ‘Miles Behind’?” Alice asked.
“Miles…and…miles…behind…”
“This must be why they call you Long Distance Davis, because you take so very long to do hardly anything at all!”
“This…is…why…they…call…me…Long…Distance…Davis…”
“Ridiculousness!” cried Alice, having completely lost her patience. “Here I am talking to a snailman who can’t even finish a sentence properly, when I have so very much to do! I have so much to find!”
“Alice…you…must…play…it…cool…”
“But I’m not playing anything!” Alice cried. “And how can I be cool, when I’m pressed up tight against a warm and wet giant of a snailman in a tiny cell?”
“Cool…is…as…cool…does…”
“And what does cool do?”
“Cool…is…the…art…of…waiting…”
“Do you have anything to eat?” Alice asked then (having felt a wanting in her empty stomach, and also a wanting to change the subject). “Because I have grown mightily tired of waiting!”
“I…have…head…food…” replied Long Distance Davis, reaching into the bell end of his trumpet to produce a small velvet sack. This he slowly proceeded to unwrap: within its folds lay a silver jar, on which the words SWALLOW US were beautifully scripted in gold leaf. Long Distance Davis unscrewed the lid of the jar and then offered the contents to Alice. Alice took just one look at the contents and then reeled back, quite bilious at what she saw there. “You’re offering me worms to eat!” she cried.
“These…are…not…worms…” Long Distance drawled. “These…are…wurms…”
“These are wurms!” Alice cried yet again, adding the U. “Won’t they make me go crazy?”
“They…will…fulfil…your…need…”
“Very well then,” Alice said (but only because she was so very hungry), “but you first.”
With his untrumpeted hand, Long Distance Davis reached into the jar to bring up a wriggling, living specimen: this wurm he shovelled into his mouth. He then raised his trumpet to his lips to blow three more notes of the tune called “Miles Behind”:
“Parp, parp, parp!” went the trumpet.
Long Distance Davis then scooped up another greasy wurm from the jar. “Your…turn…Alice…” he meandered, “please…take…a…little…trip…with…me…”
Alice decided that she had very little choice anyway, if she wanted to eat: so she allowed Long Distance Davis to slither the wurm into her mouth.
Oh my goodness! The wurm was slippering its way down her throat! Alice fell back onto the bed in a falling faint.
And then everything went very slipperty-jipper indeed…
Alice is now floating along a long snake of water, through a slowly turning world of golden-afternoon colours. It takes her an age to realise that she is no longer inside the prison cell; it takes her an age and a half to realise that she is now lazily reclining in a small rowing boat. Her two sisters, Lorina and Edith, are aboard the boat with her, as is her friend, the kind Mister Dodgson. It takes Alice two whole ages to realise that Mister Dodgson is now telling fanciful stories to the three little maidens.
“Tell us more, Mister Dodgson!” shrieks Edith at Alice’s left. “Tell us more! More, more, more!”
“But my dearest girls…” breathes Mister Dodgson, “the well of fancy has run quite dry, how can I possibly continue?”
“Oh but you must continue!” cries Alice from the boat’s bed.
“The rest next time—” the story-teller tries in vain.
“It is next time!” the happy voices squeal as one.
“Oh very well then, if you insist…”
The boat now drifts aground at the small village of Godstow on the Thames’ bank, and the four friends disembark to take a picnic underneath a spreading elm tree: and here, between bites at a boiled ham sandwich (with not a single radish to be seen anywhere!), Mister Dodgson continues with his tale of Alice’s Adventures Underground. The three sisters are so enraptured by his tale that Alice doesn’t realise, until it’s far, far too late, that a worm has wriggled its way into her sandwich; she takes a bite of ham, and also a bite of worm!
Alice recoils from the taste, and spits the offending morsel out of her mouth! “Alice, my dearest,” whispers Mister Dodgson, “you do know that little girls shouldn’t waste their food in such a manner?”
“But it’s got a worm in it!” protests Alice, still spitting. “And I fear that I’ve swallowed more than half of it, already!” Alice spits and spits, and spits and spits and spits! The soil is by now entirely covered in spume, and Alice notices that a whole knotted wrigglesome of worms is crawling over the picnic cloth! The worms are unfolding themselves upwards to grab at Alice’s ankles, which is mightily strange, but the strangest thing of all is that Alice feels more than happy to allow the worms to slither around her flesh, even though they are dragging her below the very soil of England! Alice’s three picnicking companions seem to be oblivious to her plight; they carry on eating and drinking and telling tales, as though nothing out of the ordinar
y is happening! And Alice is now happy to see that Whippoorwill the parrot is flying over the elm trees towards her. “Come to me, my sweet bird of youth,” Alice cries out. “Come and join me in the swim of these worms: we could surrender to the loopiness together. Wouldn’t that be nice, Whippoorwill?” Alice is by this time half-sunk into the soil, and the worms are twisting around her with a thousand slitherings. Alice feels wonderful, especially when Whippoorwill flies down to perch upon her outstretched hand. “There, there, my long-lost,” Alice breathes softly, stroking at the feathers, “at last you’ve come home to me.”
“Who is it, Alice,” the parrot riddles, “that contains only the half of the whole?”
“Why the answer is me, of course, Whippoorwill,” answers Alice, quite confidently, “because there’s only a half of my whole remaining above this worm hole: and I’m very much looking forward to sinking all the way down!” At which Alice starts to giggle and wriggle about in order to drown herself in the worm bath.
“Right answer, Alice!” squawks back Whippoorwill, “but for all the wrong reasons. Think again and quickly, Alice. Before you sink down too deeply.”
“But the worms have such a warmthiness about them, dearest Whippoorwill,” says Alice, ever-so-happily. “I’ve never felt so much at home…”
“Alice, listen to me clearly,” says Whippoorwill in a surprisingly human voice. “These are not worms that you’re drowning in, these are wurms; worms with a U in the name: the name that stands for wisdom-undoing-randomized-mechanism, as you well have learned. The wurms just want you to go crazy, and to remain in the future forever.”
“What in the earth are you talking about, Whippoorwill?” asks Alice, up to her shoulders in the soil. “And what is so very wrong with going crazy?”
“Alice, you will never get home at this rate,” squawks the parrot: “You will be forever lost in time.”
“But I am home,” replies Alice, sternly, trying to stamp her foot. “And if being home is the same as being lost, well then, I shall want to be gratefully lost for ever!”
