The 13.5 Lives of Captain Bluebear

by Walter Moers

  Many nerve endings produced no images but aroused or intensified emotions like joy, sorrow, suspense, or fear. I soon knew all the stops by heart. Without even looking, I knew exactly how much pressure would generate which image or which emotion.

  I discovered that certain nerve endings produced music, acoustic recollections of the Bollogg music the giant must have heard in his youth. It wasn’t very sophisticated music, as the reader may imagine, but it had a charm of its own and went excellently with the monumental images available. I could now superimpose dreams on suitable melodies and rhythms.

  My dreams developed according to how I combined these images, sensations and melodies. I could produce happy dreams, exciting dreams, even nightmares.

  1600H usually watched me while I worked.

  Early triumphs

  I began by putting together small but carefully devised pictorial compositions and action sequences, which I underpinned with the right kind of music and brought to a climax.

  I generated the image of a predatory dinosaur, for example, combined it with that of a zebragazelle, and a thrilling chase began. An erupting volcano in the background? A throbbing tympanic accompaniment provided by Cyclopses rhythmically beating whole oak trees together? Why not! And if an upbeat finale was required, I allowed the zebragazelle to escape by squeezing the appropriate nerve ending harder to make it run faster.

  As time went by my dream compositions became longer and more complex, almost symphonic.

  I once staged an eventful dream thriller based on the Bollogg’s experiences during the ten-thousand-year Cyclopean Wars, battles waged in primeval landscapes with clubs whose impact shook the whole of Zamonia. I skilfully spliced together scenes that were widely separated in time: the fight between two primeval Cyclopses that started the war, the resulting mass hostilities, and the decisive battle in the Impic Alps, in which thousands of Cyclopses took part. I spanned centuries with lightning cuts and condensed millennia into a few minutes. Only the boldest dream composers could do that.

  I also concocted a few nightmares out of the giant’s phobias, which were mainly to do with small, scuttling creatures – from a Bollogg’s viewpoint, all life forms apart from himself. I soon abandoned such dreams, however, because they made the head very restless. It started to pant and snore so loudly, I was afraid sheer terror would wake it up.

  Little by little, word got around in the brain that my dream compositions possessed special merit and were well worth seeing. The spectators who began to throng the organ loft during my shifts proved an added incentive to produce dreams of the highest quality. Whenever I wasn’t manning the organ myself, I watched my colleagues at work and strove to learn from their mistakes.

  Art and commerce

  After a few weeks 1600H asked me how many scintillas I’d amassed. I counted them. There were less than three hundred. I needed most of what I earned for my own consumption. I had to eat, after all, and the only food available in the Bollogg’s head was scintillas. They didn’t taste too bad, either.

  1600H was critical of my unbusinesslike approach. ‘You won’t get out of here in under ten years,’ he told me.

  He was right. The few scintillas I earned from composing would never enable me to accumulate the twelve thousand five hundred I needed for the Planmaker.

  ‘You could charge for admission,’ 1600H suggested.

  ‘Admission? To what?’

  ‘To your dreams. The other ideas are crazy about them.’

  No such thought would ever have entered my head. For me, dream composition had become an art, an activity transcending the sordid acquisition of scintillas. You didn’t demand payment for art!

  I indignantly rejected the suggestion.

  ‘You accept ten scintillas an hour.’

  True. There was a contradiction there.

  ‘Charge them all one scintilla a head, and you’ll have the twelve thousand five hundred in no time.’

  My performances were always sold out. Spurred on by scruples about selling my art, I strove to repay the ideas for their admission fees by offering them dream delicacies of an increasingly subtle and sophisticated nature. The cerebral convolutions were thronged with long queues of ideas eager to attend my shows. My dreams were the talk of the Bollogg’s head.

  1600H took the entrance money.

  Box-office successes

  Major disasters were my most popular productions, and the Bollogg’s memory had a lot to offer in that field. The giant had witnessed every conceivable kind of natural disaster in the course of his long life, from asteroid strikes to the Great Flood, and had seen them from a unique perspective. How many people had observed a mile-high tidal wave or a Gloomberg Tempest from above? How many had looked down into an active volcano? Who could walk through a shower of meteorites as if it were a warm summer drizzle? Those were images which only a Megabollogg’s memory could conjure up.

  Also popular were peaceful nature films of steppe unicorns grazing, sea serpents mating in Shivering Sound (a truly edifying sight!), or Cyclopses hunting the Tyrannomobyus Rex bare-handed.

  The Bollogg, who had evidently gone diving in the primeval Zamonian Sea, had preserved some unique images of contemporary submarine life: monstrous octopuses fighting huge, glowing jellyfish with countless transparent tentacles, whole schools of primeval sharks with luminous teeth, submerged continents on the ocean bed, ghost cities with shellfish-encrusted skyscrapers populated by colossal crabs and twin-headed moray eels. The Bollogg had seen ghost ships’ graveyards, seething submarine volcanoes, bird-headed fish that seemed to be on fire within, enormous manta rays with pectoral fins as colourful as butterflies’ wings, spiral fish composed of light.

  He had dived ever deeper, down into dark, unfathomable abysses inhabited by creatures of lava that performed amazing underwater ballets. He had swum through the coral forests of the Zamonian Riviera, among red, turquoise and cobalt blue trees of shell limestone, and across meadows of yellow fireweed on which grazed whole herds of seahorses as big as unicorns.

  My audiences were enthralled. Seated at the dream organ like some ecstatic pianist, I used to pull out all the stops. Sometimes I simply improvised, but instead of projecting a haphazard series of images on the Bollogg’s retina I followed a dramatic pattern based on colour. Having summoned up shades of yellow only – streams of lava, flaming sunrises, deep-sea buttercups opening, undulating fireweed – I would then go over to shades of red – exploding meteors, poppy fields, galloping primeval horses with fiery manes – and underscore it all with grandiose music.

  These voluptuously self-indulgent compositions of mine verged on kitsch, I must confess, but the material was just too tempting.

  And the public loved it. Before two months were up, I had my twelve thousand five hundred scintillas.

  The brain map

  ‘All right, ynchronie your watche!’ commanded the Planmaker, turning into a cube, a sphere and a trapezohedron in quick succession.

  ‘Sixteen hundred hours,’ said 1600H.

  ‘Nineteen hours thirty-seven minutes,’ I sang out.

  ‘ixteen hour even minute!’ crepitated the Planmaker, a cube once more.

  The map he’d made was truly worth every scintilla. It not only showed every cerebral convolution in detail, together with the principal short cuts and dead ends, but was beautifully drawn. Inscribed on finest cerebral cortex in dark red ink (Bollogg blood?), it resembled a treasure map and was a masterly aid to orientation. I would be able to find my way out of the other ear unerringly and in double-quick time. The map also made it plain that I might have taken years to do so without it.

  ‘It’ quite imple, jut follow the dotted line,’ the Planmaker explained. ‘Don’t let any bad idea lead you atray. Don’t let them peruade you to take a hort cut or take one yourelf. Life i a winding path. One ometime ha to make detour. That’ my humble opinion, anyway.’ I deposited my sack of scintillas on the ground and thanked him politely.

  ‘Check your watche!’ cried
the Planmaker, turning himself into a ball.

  ‘Sixteen hundred hours,’ murmured 1600H.

  ‘Seventeen thirty-eight,’ I called.

  ‘End of office hour,’ said the Planmaker. ‘It’ high time I ent you on your way.’ Still in the shape of a ball, he bounced a couple of times and hustled us out of his office.

  Before I set off for the other ear I decided to give a farewell performance, admission free.

  I wanted to compose the best dream I could assemble at the organ, the crowning glory of my œuvre. I called it simply:

  The Bollogg’s Dream

  Underwater shot of the primeval sea. Classical Cyclopean music. Fire-squid float upwards like flaming captive balloons. A Tyrannomobyus Rex comes into shot, we follow it. Tyrannomobyus swallows a school of sharks. Torpid after its meal, it swims on. This is the moment when the Bollogg, which has been watching it all the time, leaps on to the monster’s back. A titanic struggle ensues. Imprisoned in the giant’s iron grip, the colossal whale thrashes the water wildly until exhaustion sets in. The Bollogg rides landwards on its back, but instead of dragging it ashore and devouring it, he releases it. Tyrannomobyus swims off into the sunset. The music swells.

  Dissolve to:

  Primeval Zamonia. The sky is a glowing expanse of every conceivable colour. Comets shoot across the sky. Listen! Distant thunder. No, not thunder!

  Cut to:

  A battle in progress. A hundred Bolloggs are belabouring each other with huge cudgels on a lowland plain. We plunge into the thick of the fray. Twenty minutes of mayhem conveyed by a swift succession of cuts.

  Dissolve to:

  A Bollogg wearily trudging home to his sweetheart. Romantic music. The Bollogg maiden is sitting in a valley, uprooting huge oak trees and weaving them into a garland. The Bollogg craves a kiss for his success in battle. The music abruptly turns dramatic. The Bollogg maiden rejects his advances. He hasn’t brought her a gift, she intimates. He might at least have captured an enemy’s cudgel.

  Cut to:

  The Bollogg trudging through a shower of meteorites. Melancholy music. What can he bring his beloved? If only he’d strangled that stupid whale! There, listen! Distant thunder! Has another fight broken out? No. It’s a volcanic eruption.

  The music sounds suddenly upbeat. The Bollogg approaches the volcano. He gazes down affectionately at the dear little mountain, then proceeds to pluck it. Very carefully, he digs it out of the ground. He has to dig really deep to extract the lava stem intact, right down to its fiery root. That done, he bears away the active volcano like a tulip on its long stem of pumice stone – gingerly, so the lava doesn’t dribble down over his fingers.

  Cut to:

  The Bollogg maiden sulking in the valley. The Bollogg hands her the erupting volcano. She smiles. The ice is broken. She rewards him with a kiss. Romantic music. Cut to the primeval sky. Blazing meteors explode like gigantic fireworks.

  The End.

  I found it hard, saying goodbye to 1600H. He’d done so much for me, and I couldn’t do anything in return.

  ‘It was fun to do something useful for once,’ he said. ‘Besides, your dreams were really great. The standard of dream composition is bound to go downhill again. Let’s not prolong the agony.’

  And he shuffled sadly off, back into the Valley of Discarded Ideas.

  The route to freedom

  I proceeded in the opposite direction, following the map east-wards. The recommended route skirted the Lake of Oblivion and followed a switchback cerebral convolution leading to the other hemisphere.

  When I came to the lake I was assailed by evil memories as well as sulphurous fumes. I walked swiftly past it and set off up the switchback. If I hurried, the trip would take me only a few days.

  ‘You don’t propose to run off just like that, do you? We’ve a score to settle. Sssssss!’ said a snarling voice I hadn’t heard for quite a while. It was Insanity, who had been lurking behind a cerebral ridge.

  ‘I’ve been waiting for ages to get you on your own,’ he went on. ‘Very popular you were, you and your dreams, but now you’re all by yourself.’

  ‘Leave me alone,’ I said. ‘I haven’t done anything to you.’

  ‘I’m Insanity. Sssssss! I don’t have to have a reason for doing something evil.’

  ‘You’re insane!’ I said. Nothing more original occurred to me on the spur of the moment.

  ‘SSSSSSS!’ snarled Insanity, very loudly now. ‘Don’t say things like that, not to me!’

  ‘What else, then? That you’re bats in the belfry?’

  Insanity rolled his eyes and seemed to double up in agony. He couldn’t bear to hear the truth, I suppose.

  ‘Never say that again!’

  ‘What would you prefer? That you’re a screw loose? That you’re off your rocker?’

  I’d found a way of tormenting him.

  ‘SSSSSSSSSS! Take that back!’

  ‘Sorry, no can do. You’re bananas! Is it my fault you’re cracked? All right, so you’ve lost your marbles and come unglued, but can I help it if you’re loony, screwy, gaga, cuckoo, not all there, nutty as a fruitcake, a couple of prawns short of a sea-food salad …’ Sadly, I’d run out of synonyms.

  It was all too much for him. He sprang at me with a snarl and wrested my map of the brain away.

  ‘Now let’s see you fish it out of the Lake of Oblivion!’

  And he ran off in the direction of the lake.

  Here’s a piece of good advice: Never tell Insanity to his face that he’s not quite right in the head. It makes him really mad.

  Insanity raced to the clifftop from which he’d intended to hurl me into oblivion. I sprinted after him, even faster than I had from the Spiderwitch. On the edge of the cliff he halted and, with the map between his fingertips, held it poised over the seething brew. Green bubbles of corrosive acid burst with an ugly sound.

  ‘I hereby solemnly commit you to oblivion,’ he said in an unctuous voice. Then he let go.

  I boldly leapt forwards and just managed to grab the map, only to lose my balance and tumble over the edge. As I fell I succeeded in clinging to a small cerebral fissure with my free paw.

  There I dangled like an overripe fruit, one forepaw lodged in the crack, the other holding the map. Beneath me lay the Lake of Oblivion, above me loomed Insanity.

  He leant over with an evil grin.

  ‘So I’m not all there, eh?’

  It was time to be diplomatic.

  ‘I didn’t mean it that way! It was just a joke in poor taste!’

  ‘Oh well, if I’ve lost my marbles it doesn’t matter if I let you fall into the Lake of Oblivion. It won’t be my fault. After all, I’m not responsible for my actions.’

  Insanity prised one claw out of the crack. I was now suspended by only four claws.

  ‘Don’t!’ I cried.

  He prised out another claw. That left three.

  ‘Did I hear something? No, must have been the voices in my head. I’m off my rocker, don’t forget.’

  Another two claws. Only one left.

  ‘Goodbye, then. Another few seconds and you’ll cease to exist, even as a memory.’ He set to work on the last claw.

  Quite suddenly, Insanity went flying over me and plunged head first into the Lake of Oblivion.

  ‘AAAAAARGH!’ he gurgled as the mortality bacteria closed over him. The lake hissed and bubbled, giving off noxious putrescent gases.

  There was a hideous crackling sound, and Insanity sank from view. 1600H bent down and grasped my paw.

  ‘Honestly, you can’t be left alone for a minute.’

  He hauled me up.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to do that,’ he said, watching the last of the ugly bubbles Insanity had left behind.

  ‘That was a really good idea!’ I told him.

  1600H blushed and bridled. ‘I came back because I remembered the pool of earwax. There must be one inside the other ear as well. How do you propose to cross it unaided?’

  I was ge
nuinely relieved to have 1600H’s company while crossing the brain. In other respects it was a very tedious trek along endless, monotonous cerebral convolutions and across knotted ganglions and excrescences of cogitative tissue. Ideas were rarer in the left-hand half of the brain. Most of the ones we did encounter had lost their way, so we were able to redirect them with the help of our map.

  I seized every opportunity to tell them how 1600H had disposed of Insanity. He always writhed with embarrassment like an earthworm, but I thought it might earn him somewhat more respect in the cerebral community. It was my only way of repaying him a little.

  Things were more boring in the left-hand half of the brain, which was largely populated by reflexes and thought patterns. These took the form of little spheres and cubes in various shades of grey that floated along the passages, humming monotonously to themselves. No creative processes occurred in this part of the brain. No ideas were originated or debated here. This was where orders were executed and stocks of ideas filed. It was the brain’s administrative centre.

  We felt like ants that had strayed into the wrong nest. Although the ideas we met politely stepped aside to let us pass, they did so with a resentful hiss. Foreign bodies and anomalies were clearly not appreciated in this half of the brain.

  All the walls were dotted with recesses of various sizes, many rectangular, others hemispherical. The whizzing spheres and cubes would look for a suitable niche and park in it, still humming to themselves. Then they flew on once more.

  CRRRASH!

  A very faint noise, accompanied by a very faint but perceptible vibration.

  ‘Hey, what was that?’ said 1600H.

  ‘No idea.’

  CRRRASH!

  There it was again. The tunnel walls shook slightly.

  ‘What can it be?’ asked 1600H.

  ‘Concussion?’ I said flippantly.

  ‘I’ve never known anything of the kind in here. We’d better hurry.’ The further we went, the stronger the tremors became. Scarcely perceptible at first, they steadily increased in violence. The rhythmical, repetitive sounds reminded me of something, but what?