The Less Lonely Planet

by Rhys Hughes

  There is a room somewhere in Lipsaria that is full of kisses. Nobody knows where this room came from, although Contrivance has often been cited as a possible origin. I’m not sure where Contrivance is but apparently it’s “everywhere on this page” so it must be close. Future reviewers of this tale told me that. Very thoughtful of them to help me out in this manner!

  To return to the room that is full of kisses… Actually that’s one of the quirks of the room, it won’t allow people to visit more than once, it’s a unique experience for anyone who enters. When a man or woman passes through the front gate, the room will ask ‘what sort of kiss do you want?’ and the reply can be ‘with tongues’ or ‘with noses’ or any other variation.

  The kiss you ask for is the kiss you get. Furthermore it is the best possible example of that kind of kiss!

  While you are being kissed, the room ushers you towards the exit and then finally expels you. The rest of your life is spent thinking about that one kiss – all other kisses will seem pallid in comparison – but you’ll never be permitted to sample it again.

  Diddly Derek cheated the system. When he entered the room and it asked him to choose a kiss, he replied “with syllogisms please.”

  “That’s not possible,” said the room.

  “Prove to me it’s not possible,” challenged Diddly Derek, “with logic.”

  To which the room answered:

  (a) This room delivers only kisses,

  (b) A syllogism is not a kiss,

  (c) Therefore this room does not deliver syllogisms.

  Needless to say, Diddly Derek was very happy with this result. As far as he was concerned he had just tasted the finest kiss of his life, but the room didn’t recognise it as a kiss at all. So Diddly Derek was free to pass through the exit and run back to the entrance and ask for the same thing again. And again. He is still there, running back to the entrance after each syllogism. He hasn’t expired yet from exhaustion or hunger because verisimilitude isn’t my strong point.

  “Plus it’s a difficult word to spell!”

  Are you still here? I thought you left after that bad joke about a place called Contrivance.

  “No, I’m in your bed under you – naked!”

  So you are! I bet you didn’t enjoy that tale, I can tell without even asking, so I’ll give you another. This one takes place near a country called Wales, far away from Lipsaria. Wales is the original homeland of unfaithful wives, but this story is set offshore. It is called ‘The Bones of Jones’ and it goes like this:

  The bones of Jones lie under the sea.

  “I’m a teapot,” claims a femur.

  “I’m a flute,” insists a knuckle.

  “We have degrees in economics,” sing the ribs.

  “I’m the smell of parsley,” declares a tibia.

  “It’s nice and dry down here,” observes an ankle.

  The only bone of Jones that doesn’t lie under the sea is the pelvis. “I knew the Duchess of Cumberland,” it says.

  The Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees

  Just by chance I am a very helpful man. I went to the market and overheard a conversation between a grocer and a customer. It turned out that the customer was the famous Soviet writer who came in from the cold – CCCP Snow. I remembered reading his books when I was a very helpful student, years ago.

  “Do you still favour social realism in novels?” I asked him.

  He shook his head. “I’m planning to move into more Calvinoesque territory if I can, but I haven’t made a start yet.”

  “No worries,” I replied. “I’ll give you a lift.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “The territory you mention is beyond the woods behind my house. My car is outside. It won’t take long to get there.”

  He was doubtful but he finally accepted my offer. We drove out of the town and turned up the lane that forms the eastern boundary of my large garden. It is a well tended piece of land and because I am very helpful all the gardens of my neighbours are equally pleasant. But my passenger was more concerned with our destination.

  “How will we know when we arrive?” he enquired.

  “Keep an eye open for the Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees. When you see him, that’s a strong indication.”

  He was silent for some minutes and then he said, “The best thing you can do is skip ahead and insert your own name into all the blank spaces above all the empty lines.”

  “Who are you talking to?” I wondered.

  “The reader, who is the main character near the end of this story.”

  “It seems you are quite Calvinoesque already!”

  He nodded gratefully but remained silent until we entered the woods. Then he craned his head upwards in surprise. “Who are all those men sitting in all those trees?”

  “Viscounts,” I replied, “but they aren’t non-existent, so ignore them. It’s not far now but we aren’t there yet.”

  How it happened I don’t know, but I clearly took a wrong turning and our destination remained elusive. The forest became darker and stranger and I couldn’t find my way back out. We were thoroughly lost. At last I stopped the car near a large hut.

  “I’ll go in there and ask directions,” I said.

  “I’ll come with you,” he answered.

  We entered the hut together. It was a sort of hostel or refuge for walkers and climbers and it was full of people, but after only a few minutes I realised they were all writers who had hoped to change styles but ended up here instead. One Irish author told me that he wanted to explore Joycean territory and had gone looking for it on a very drunken horse.

  “That was after an experience I had in the oddest restaurant in Dublin,” he added. “I wasn’t happy with the service and so ordered a new waiter. To my astonishment the old waiter came back with a tray and one of those big silver coverings I don’t know the name of. He lifted it to reveal a tiny man with impeccable manners and a napkin.”

  “You got what you ordered,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe. But a tiny man like that wasn’t much use to me, so I asked for another replacement. The tiny man had his own tray and silver covering which he lifted to reveal an even smaller waiter. I demanded yet another. The next one was truly minuscule and they kept getting smaller. I expect that sort of thing in Cork but not in Dublin. Finally I galloped away to safety.”

  “A sensible precaution,” I observed very helpfully.

  Then I saw that CCCP Snow was growing agitated. He didn’t like being around other writers, especially as they were all more interested in themselves than in him. He felt intimidated by a sailor who introduced himself as Captain Nothing and explained how he had sailed here down a narrow stream looking for Conradian themes. Another fellow had been hoping to tread ground already covered by Kafka. His failure in this regard wasn’t quite Kafkaesque enough to satisfy him.

  Although I am a very helpful man, there is a limit to what I am prepared to do. I didn’t know where I was, so there was no way I could return my passenger to the market where I found him, much less drop him off in Calvinoesque territory. I am a very helpful man but I rarely keep my promises. Because I am so very helpful I tend to make promises I can’t keep. Let that be a helpful warning to you. Take my hand and shake it to prove my good faith.

  Thanks. Now I have a firm grip on your hand I can pull you into this story. Too late to resist! Take my hat and coat as well. You look just like me and CCCP Snow will never notice the difference. While you deal with him, I’ll slip out and make my escape. He’s coming over now. Thanks again! Farewell.

  “I dislike this place. I think it’s time to leave.”

  “I’m not the man who drove you here. My name is ____. I was innocently reading this story when I was dragged out of the real world and onto the page. I hate literary tricks like that.”

  “Well I’m planning to use more of them in my next book. I’m moving away from social realism. What did you say your name was again?”

  “I
t’s ____. Actually my full name is____ ____.”

  “Don’t you have a middle name?”

  “If I do, it’s ____. If I don’t, I can’t help you.”

  “But you’re supposed to be a very helpful man.”

  “You must be mixing me up with someone else.”

  “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “This is just a guess but I think we’re on Happenstance, a planet that collided with the Earth so slowly they became stuck together without major catastrophe. Happenstance is where Christendom overlaps with Lackadaysia, the Three Utopias and Muffin Chops. All these facts I made up just now.”

  “I thought you were a reader, not a writer!”

  “Someday the name ____ ____ will occupy the highest pinnacles of Mount Literary Fame. Believe it!”

  “Bah!”

  I was long gone by the time that conversation was half done. I drove randomly for an hour, worried that I was going in circles, but then I spotted a tree without a figure sitting in it. At last I had wandered into Calvinoesque territory. From here I knew my way home. I waved at the empty tree as I passed.

  I decided to return to work. I own a time machine shop. Being very helpful isn’t enough when there’s no help for it.

  “Do you have any time machines in stock?”

  “Past or future models sir?”

  “I’ll take a future, if I may.”

  “We’re still waiting for them to come in.”

  “In that case I’ll have a past.”

  “Sorry. We used to have them, but they’ve all gone!”

  When the Microscopic Giants Took Over Happenstance

  This is what happened when the Duchess of Cumberland went camping with Jones. Her real name was Prunella but she preferred to use her title and she wasn’t really keen on roughing it outdoors. As for Jones he didn’t have a title but he was often called the Fleshly Clothed Skeleton, probably because his skin wasn’t his own but had been purchased in one of those mortuary shops known as a slaberdashery. Together they made an unlikely couple but individually they liked each other a lot, too much perhaps, for tongues often wagged when they appeared, and in those places where tongues were in short supply other things were wagged, but never tails.

  Prunella disliked discomfort so much that she bought the most expensive tent on the market. It was almost a portable palace. When it was erected it had a driveway and a verandah and a ballroom and a dozen bedrooms and various turrets and attics and formal gardens and even a patch of indoor wasteland where it was possible to go camping in a smaller tent. She loaded this fabric edifice upon a herd of camels and set off with Jones through Persia and the desert kingdoms of Krokh and Rholl. After several small adventures they arrived in the land of Afterthoughtia, at the very edge of reality, and decided to settle on the supplementary shore.

  This was their first visit to Happenstance, for both of them had spent their entire lives on planet Earth but they were familiar enough with the history and politics of this adjacent world. So when they had forced all the pegs into the ground and tightened the guy ropes against the sea breeze and Prunella went for a stroll to explore the inside of her new tent, leaving Jones in the kitchen to cook the first banquet of their trip, she recognised the intruders who suddenly appeared in her main conference chamber. She didn’t reveal herself to them but tiptoed to the nylon door and peered through the keyhole. Their voices had attracted her.

  The conference chamber was full of tall men engaged in loud whispering and clumsy gesturing. They were holding a conference, that much was clear, and a rather cramped conference at that, for they were all so very large. But what alarmed Prunella the most was the nature of their discussion. They were Microscopic Giants from Microgigans, one of the most important countries in Happenstance, and they were plotting to take over the entire hemisphere. As Prunella listened she gradually understood the reason for their discontent, the difficulties they faced buying hats and shoes, the shocking expense of filling their bellies with twenty course meals in even the cheapest restaurants.

  Prunella hastened back to the kitchen, informed Jones of her disturbing discovery and they decided to warn all the rulers of the other Happenstance lands about the forthcoming coup. They wrote letters to each ruler in turn, rolled these letters up, tied them to the camels and scattered the herd in all the relevant directions. There were just enough beasts to visit every independent nation. Without the camels Prunella and Jones were stuck in deepest Afterthoughtia, but they soon learned there was no cause for despair. Near the rear of the tent they found a shop selling small ships and they used one of these vessels to sail home along the coast, past Lowest Bo, the Three Utopias and Portugal.

  Actually they were shipwrecked on the rocks of the Not So Good Utopia and not for the last time. But that’s another story. Or two.

  The rulers of Happenstance met to debate the threat from the Microscopic Giants. They decided to convene on neutral territory in the exact centre of Happenstance, on Dworkin Island in the middle of Gregg Lake, a small pebbly triangle also known as No Man’s Land. Only one objection was raised to this choice of venue. Equally remarkably, not one ruler made an excuse to avoid the meeting. Prince Rainier was there, the Derek of Bo, the Peep of Bo, the Artificer of Contrivance, Woozy Growl, Plish of Plush, Frabjal Troose, El-Viz, the Samosa of Flipside, the Chap of Chops, Big Ear Emir, the Kings of Itselfia and Mash, Diddums Jalopy, the Jest of Bo, the Self Raising Flower, the rulers of the Spiffing and Mediocre Utopias and others too numerous and illustrious to mention.

  They argued into the night and finally the leader of the smallest Happenstance state, the Blink of Missit, threw up his hands in resignation.

  “I’m going home!” he announced.

  “Will you be able to find it?” came the sarcastic reply.

  The Blink of Missit sighed deeply. “This meeting is pointless. We’re getting nowhere. You can be sure that Tiddly Vast and his Microscopic Giants achieve far more in their conferences than we do in ours!”

  “How can we trust this Prunella woman anyway?” asked someone.

  “That’s right,” agreed a very deep voice. “The Microscopic Giants have always lived in harmony with the rest of us. I don’t really believe they have changed their attitudes and aspirations so abruptly. It seems too peculiar.”

  “Who said that?” cried the Blink of Missit.

  “It was Tiddly Vast himself!” answered the Derek of Bo. “How did he get here?”

  The speaker with the very deep voice leaned forward out of the shadows. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m Woozy Growl, the most elevated of the Tall Midgets!”

  The Blink of Missit chuckled and remarked at the close resemblance between the Microscopic Giants and the Tall Midgets. It was almost impossible to distinguish between the races and the Derek of Bo’s mistake was an easy one to make. This gave the Blink an idea. What if an attempt was made to convince individual Giants that they were in fact Midgets? A Giant who was unsure if he really was a Giant would be less likely to want to take over Happenstance in the name of the Giants. Cunning agents could be sent to Microgigans to spread such misleading propaganda around that land. Provided they walked on stilts and wore large plaster heads they shouldn’t arouse too much suspicion. Alternatively, leaflets could be printed and distributed randomly.

  “That’s an outrageous scheme,” remarked the Derek of Bo, “so it might just work!”

  “I foresee one difficulty,” said Woozy Growl.

  “Yes?” pressed the Blink of Missit.

  “What if the Microscopic Giants have already anticipated this idea? What if they have already sent cunning agents of their own to the Valley of Tall Midgets to convince us – meaning my own people – that we are Giants rather than Midgets?”

  “That’s not very likely, is it?” asked the Derek of Bo.

  “I’ve got some bad news,” said Woozy Growl.

  “Tell us what it is,” demanded the Blink of Missit and others.

  “I’m not really a Tall M
idget after all but a Microscopic Giant. Sorry to break the news to you like this. Tiddly Vast came round to see me last week and he was very persuasive. There is really no such thing as a Tall Midget. All my people are Microscopic Giants. We have surrounded this island and we plan to keep you imprisoned here while we take over Happenstance! Deprived of their rulers, your countries and citizens will be helpless against us. You might as well capitulate immediately. It will save time.”

  The gathered leaders were distraught. “This is the end of civilisation as we know it! The age of relative freedom is over! From now on our world will be nothing more than the Empire of the Microscopic Giants and our descendants will toil and die in your shadows! Woe is us! We have condemned our people to slavery!”

  Woozy Growl frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “You have declared your intentions plainly enough. You are going to take over our world. Therefore we must draw the worst conclusions!”

  Woozy Growl shook his head. “We don’t plan to take over indefinitely. That’s how they do things on planet Earth. This is Happenstance. We only want it for a day or so, just long enough to reduce the price of hats, shoes and restaurant meals. Then you can have it back. We have a sense of proportion. We’re not humans!”

  And so the meeting came to an end. Of sorts.

  The Samosa of Flipside was the strangest ruler of the strangest kingdom in Happenstance. His stomach was where his chest should be and his head was lower than both. He aged well, because gravity broadened his shoulders rather than his waist over time, but his face was triangular and pinched at the corners and this reduced his physical appeal. As for his homeland it lay under the ground, supporting all the other nations on pillars. As these pillars slowly eroded, the ceiling that was Flipside’s sky moved lower and lower. Already it was too low. It was no longer possible to trampoline safely in Flipside and within another generation extravagant wedding cakes and multi-level jellies would be out of the question.

  But the Samosa of Flipside was determined to save his realm from a squashing. He had been working on his own plan of domination for many years. With hammers and saws his workmen had completely removed the pillars on his northern and southern borders and now all the upper lands were balanced precariously on a short row of columns located at the very centre of Flipside. A shift of too much weight on the surface would cause the continents to tip. That is what the Samosa wanted. In fact he wanted them to tip so fast that they would flip and then Flipside would be the upper kingdom, basking in the sun for the first time in its rather sheltered history.