The Fez Journeys On

by L. T. Hewitt

  Shortly after his thoughts had been muddied with the notion that getting a job would be a useful pursuit, Dave had had to chastise his mind for crafting the idea that he should get a job anyway and pay his landlords. He thought it very rude that his own brain should call Oprah wrong.

  In the calm week Dave had been part of Oprah and Calvin’s household, he felt more at home than he ever had before. Sure, Dave missed the freaks he had been travelling with, but he was finally at home somewhere and he thought that this time it would—

  ‘Hello Dave.’

  —last forever. He knew it couldn’t, however, as his life was destined to fail, but for one short moment, he was happy and content with his feeble existence. The fact that he had managed to prolong this period of obliviousness for a whole week (even if it was a five-day week) was an added bonus.

  ‘Help me, Dave. Down here.’

  Dave glanced at his sandwich. Ignorance is bliss, Dave decided. It felt great to finally be free from things he didn’t care about. If he chose to block something irrelevant from his mind, he could do so with relative ease, bearing in mind—

  ‘David Gray, I’m going to get very angry with you if you don’t listen.’

  “Oh Quack!” Dave cried, his mind collapsing once again as he buried his face in his hands. Nobody heard him, as Oprah had gone to singing lessons for the day, and Calvin had a job as a driving instructor. He was being paid by the council to give lessons to outpatients, but only after they’d been through a week of study to prove they were physically and mentally complete. The idea was to rehabilitate those formerly with issues and to integrate them back into society by reintroducing them to menial tasks. A stupid plan if I ever heard one, Dave thought. “It’s been so long since I heard voices.”

  ‘I’m not a voice.’

  “Well that’s the stupidest statement I’ve heard in a while.”

  ‘I mean I’m not imaginary. I’m merely a mind who creates thoughts in your head.’

  “That sounds pretty much like the last voices I had. Have you ever heard of the Vaemei?”

  ‘Yes, and they’re awful,’ said the voice. ‘But I’m not one of them.’

  “There aren’t more of you, are there?”

  ‘Not yet.’

  “Oh Quack,” Dave repeated as he sank to the floor. As he was down at a physical and emotional low, he prepared himself for the future by fashioning a sort of bed out of the creases in his clothing – a way of making the most comfortable form of intense inconvenience.

  ‘Don’t worry; I’m an old friend.’

  “I’ve never been friends with you. In fact, I try to make a habit of not being friends with disembodied voices. I’m getting quite good at it.” Dave remembered all the previous offenses he had ever caused by refusing to be cohabiting towards those he didn’t know. “But I’m always willing to change and meet new people.” He then remembered having been told that the two mental voices were already sufficiently acquainted to avoid the inconvenience of politeness. He stretched the bottom of his T-shirt back down to soften the pressure of the planet resting on his hip. “Are you technically a person? I don’t mean that in a human sense. I never do. I’m no doubt a different species to that most popular here. But are you an animal? Who isʔ̦ I suppose. If such a thing as a person even exists separately from the mind, are you part of it? Do you, in fact, have a body somewhere?”

  ‘I’m right in front of you, sitting on the kitchen bench.’

  Dave popped bolt upright. “Where are you?”

  ‘I’m the jam.’

  Dave refaltered, and found his home to be the tender kiss between the mouth of a lunatic and the surface of a stranger’s floor.

  ‘David, you do not need to react like this every time you remember that everything you have ever known is, in reality, meaningless in the greater context of the world. You’re just being melodramatic.’

  Dave was silent for a minute. “Holy Sock, the jam’s talking to me.”

  ‘It’s okay.’

  The alien’s face was squashed up against the beautifully grimy cracks between the tiles. His eyelids were attempting to blot out the world, but drooped open to reveal its worst features. He would that he could be comatose, for at least that permanently remained a fixed state of perpetual, blissful uselessness. “I definitely never made friends with a jar of jam,” he droned, dreaming that he was asleep and hoping that he was anything less than fully aware. “Why can’t my life just be normal?” Ignorance is bliss.

  ‘Dave, you’re an alien whose best friends are a lunatic, two identical identical twins, a Chicken and his Egg with only one biological – astrozoological – parent. Oh, and a god.’

  “How do you know who my friends are?”

  ‘I told you, I’m another good friend.’

  “But I’ve never even met you before,” Dave explained, desperately trying to cling onto the idea that such a thing as normality exists.

  ‘I’m not a good friend now. I’m from the future.’

  “Oh, now it’s getting complicated!” Dave frowned and squinted on the floor in pain. He did something, but he didn’t know whether it was cry or sneeze.

  ‘Because my being a jar of talking jam from the present was completely understandable up until the point when time-travel and the future got involved, was it?’

  “Well, some animals on Glix can talk,” Dave justified, “so I thought some fruit might be able to as well.”

  ‘Yes, some animals can talk. Notably you. Well, you’re not from this planet, but all those most similar to you can communicate with relative vocal ease. All animals can communicate somehow. Isn’t that what makes a person?’

  “How did you know I was an alien?”

  ‘You told me a minute ago.’

  Dave breathed a sigh of relief. The jam didn’t know everything. That was frequently a good sign.

  ‘I knew already, of course.’

  Dave groaned. “You knew I was an alien?”

  ‘Yes,’ the jam replied bluntly, something jam infrequently does. ‘Everyone knows that. That’s old news.’

  “Does all fruit talk?”

  ‘It depends upon your perspective.’

  “Is all fruit annoying? Give me straight answer.”

  ‘What sort of fruit?’

  “Any. Does any fruit talk? You, obviously, but who else?”

  ‘Dave, I’ve told you a thousand times: it’s ‘whom’ when referring to the object of a sentence.’

  “Sorry. Whom else, then? Whom else is a talking fruit?”

  ‘There’s another grammatical point for me to establish here.’

  “What is it?” Dave sighed.

  ‘You can only say “Whom [sic] else is a talking fruit?” if somebody had been noted as a talking fruit in the first place.’

  “But you have.” Dave theoretically gritted his teeth. In reality, as was often the case, he couldn’t be bothered.

  ‘I was never a talking fruit. I was most definitely born a homo sapiens glixtenus.’

  “But to become talking jam, you must have been a talking fruit at some point, right?”

  The jam looked down at Dave in his humble simplicity, if ever an eyeless being could look down, which they evidently could, and did so more frequently than any being which could actually look down. ‘You’re using an awfully linear perception of time.’

  “What were you before you became jam?”

  ‘I was here. I don’t think I’ve become jam yet.’

  “What were you in the future?”

  ‘I don’t know, but I’m trying to forget I ever remembered.’

  Dave tried to sleep again. Awareness was betraying him by forcing him to remain in this physical ‘real’ universe, rather than a random one of his unknowing choosing.

  ‘I have yet another grammatical point to raise.’

  “Why do I become friends with you in the future? Just inform me, because I honestly can’t think of any reason why I’d choose to spend time with you.”

 
‘Well you didn’t exactly choose it.’

  Dave pushed himself up with one hand and glared dazedly at the sandwich he had created. “Why should I believe you’re from the future? You’ve provided me with no evidence.”

  ‘Well you’ve already believed that I’m talking jam.’

  “But I can see that. That makes it real.”

  ‘Why’s it more real than your mind? Why on Glix would you believe that external stimuli are more reliable than your own mentally constructed thoughts? There are fewer regions for error, fewer areas for beings to confuse you.’

  “What was the grammatical mistake?” If Dave ignored the jam’s meanderings, the alien’s logic ran, some intelligible thought should find its way through eventually.

  ‘Sorry, I’m not always like this. You’ve just no idea how frustrating it is to hear these mistakes coming from someone you’ve spent so long with, teaching him the rules of grammar all the while.’ Dave rapidly rejected his own theory of intelligible thought.

  “Oh, what fun my future is going to be⸮” Dave exclaimed sarcastically. “And how long do I have to wait for this future to happen?”

  ‘Not as long as you might think. We’ll be thick as thieves as soon as... When are you planning to leave here?’ At this point, Dave rejected the notion that thought existed at all, and clung to the hope that the only actual and real item in the universe was an all-powerful potato somewhere which proved the source of all ‘life’ and related false phenomena.

  “Well, surely you know when I leave,” Dave said. “Can’t you remember?”

  ‘When are you planning to leave?’

  Dave sighed. “I don’t know. What was the grammatical point you had to raise?”

  ‘Oh, that. You were using the past tense to refer to the future.’

  “I’ll try to avoid that. But would you mind telling me what your physical state was in the future?”

  ‘You’re doing it again.’

  “What is your physical state going to be?”

  ‘Solid.’

  “Hopeless. I’m not going to bother any more.”

  The jam laughed. ‘Okay. I am a human now and will be a human in the future, but became jam when I travelled back in time.’

  “Is that not an example of your using the past tense to refer to the future?”

  ‘To me, these things are in the past. You were speculating upon the chronological future, not a perspective-based time stream.’

  Dave sighed painfully.

  ‘In the future, I will be a human. In my past, I have been a human.’

  “Do you, as you presently rest on the cookery base before me, deem yourself to be human?”

  ‘No.’

  “Then why do you say you’re a human now?”

  The jam just laughed. ‘I became jam in the past; that’s all you need to know for now.’

  “And how exactly did that happen?”

  ‘Transportational difficulties.’

  “This is all going far above my head.” When something when over Dave’s head, it usually meant something to do with books or— “Does Quack have something to do with this? Is it religious?”

  ‘Yes.’

  “Ah, that makes sense.”

  ‘I’m fine, though. I’m without a movable body now, and will remain a stationary object in the future.’

  “But I thought you said—”

  ‘Different timeline, Dave.’

  “Ah.”

  ‘A portable body isn’t the important thing when you have a brilliant mind,’ the jam said.

  On Dave’s home planet, idiocy had been a quality of great admiration. However, Dave possessed an idiocy which derived from having the knowledge necessary to survive on a planet, but knowing less than 50% of the infinite amount of information there is out there to know. In reality, few people had knowledge above 1‱ of that possible, but the law remained: idiots are those who know less than 50% of knowledge, and accept it with an air of humility. Morons are those who know less than 50% of knowledge, but refuse to acknowledge their own idiocy. ‘Genius’ is a self-applied term used by those who have given up learning.

  The most popular form of idiocy where Dave lived came from ignorance: it was terrible to be in the pursuit of knowledge one didn’t have, but wonderful to be unaware how unaware you were. He was wise, but that was of little significance to anyone. “Shut up.”

  ‘Sorry. The important thing is that you put the lid back on this jar and take me to the Great Oak Tree.’

  “Why do I need to put the lid back on the jar?”

  ‘Well, it’s so you have an easy way of transporting me. I was just trying to be helpful.’

  “But you’re not in the jar anymore.”

  ‘What‽ Where am I, then?’

  “You’re spread across two pieces of bread. I was making a sandwich.”

  ‘What? You were going to eat me? What’s wrong with you?’

  “I wasn’t aware of the fact you were a sentient being.”

  ‘That’s what they all say. Then they shovel the carcasses of their former friends down their throats.’

  “I was ignorant, now I’m sorry. I merely wanted a tasty snack.”

  ‘Oh, bless His little Cotton Socks,’ the jam blasphemed.

  “That’s a new one. I’ll have to use that more often. What does it mean?”

  ‘“Bless His Cotton Socks”? It’s based on a legend,’ the jam explained. ‘Often physical objects get mistranslated in celestial delivery. Some people believe that Quack ordered a shipment of footwear and only one item arrived the right size.’

  “And what really happened?”

  ‘This is religion, Dave. Fact isn’t important; opinion is.’

  “Either way, I shall make more common usage of blessing his little cotton socks.”

  ‘You mean blessing His little Cotton Socks.’

  “Whatever.”

  ‘Returning to my original point,’ the jam said, ‘why have you made me into a sandwich?’

  “I was hungry.”

  The jam thought about this for some time. In its mind it went through all the thoughts which had ever passed through his head and re-evaluated them. Its knowledge covered much of the history of Glix, most of which had been made up during the time the jam had been learning it. This was called culture. Some days it was superior to history. Some days it was the exact same thing. As the jam thought, it felt that its time was all of the universe and that it was nothing at all. It thought about the fact that Dave had nearly eaten it as a sandwich out of hunger. ‘Fair enough.’

  “I assume that means you don’t want me to eat you.”

  ‘No!’

  “Does that mean you want me to eat you or not?”

  ‘No! I mean I don’t want you to eat me.’

  “Oh.”

  ‘Dave, I need to be merged with the Great Oak Tree.’

  “And whereabouts is the Great Oak Tree?”

  ‘I’m not sure if it’s been planted yet.’

  “Well, that’s a great help.”

  ‘But it will be soon. And – being a sandwich as I am, thanks a lot, Dave – the Acorn will need to be planted inside my slices.’

  “That’s it settled, then. We’re leaving this house to hunt down your acorn. This lovely, catering, resourceful house. With its kind, caring, voluntarily hospitable occupants and its food which rarely talks.” Dave sighed a groan. “We’re leaving it out of a forced choice. Oh, well. I knew my life couldn’t go well for too long. Something inevitably had to urge me out of this place and make me travel with the carnival of insanity once more. Here I go, I guess.”

  ‘That’s the spirit! One more thing, Dave.’

  “What is it now?” asked Dave, more than a little bit frustrated.

  ‘Before we leave, would you mind putting me in a lunchbox?’

  Chapter 12

  The Space Chicken had always felt uncomfortable on trains. It almost made him regret having invented them in the first place.

  Str
ictly speaking, he hadn’t been the sole inventor. Quack had needed to have a few ways to conveniently transport His people around Glix, so Quack had come up with the idea of public transport. One clever member of the public had engineered aeroplanes, omnibuses and trains, and the Space Chicken had been their chief entrepreneur, later helping to distribute them. He felt ill-at-ease whenever riding on a train, owing mainly to the fact that he was putting his life in Quack’s hands. Still, it was better than a car, where he was putting his life in his own hands. Especially since he didn’t have any hands.

  Now, Quack he wasn’t too sure about. The sacred overlord probably had a set of hands somewhere. Hands can have some great uses, though are frequently an inconvenience to have on one’s person all the time. Yes, Quack almost definitely had a set of hands somewhere, though most probably not attached to the rest of Him.

  When he looked back upon his early days as a working man— well, not as a man with its biased connotations of human, but as a life form which fulfils more than or equal to none of the properties of being male, and certainly not such a being in working order —as a worker, the Space Chicken began to remember the name of the person – the working man – who had really been the actual creator of public transport. He had been David Gratton. A great help that is now؟ he thought, with an irony mark which greatly pleased Margery. The Space Chicken sincerely hoped that this was just a distant relative of the David Gratton. David Gratton I/VI, maybe.

  The more the Space Chicken dwelt upon his past, the worse he felt. That was one of the reasons he disliked trains. There was too much time spent thinking to himself, so he inevitably depressed himself. It was also the other nutters he found on the train. When the Space Chicken stepped into any building, vehicle or other public place, he liked to feel safe in the fact that he was the only nutter in the vicinity. Perhaps this was why other loons came along to talk to him. In general, most nutters like to keep away from the rest of the population, whether the general population also consists of nutters or not.

  But, upon seeing a creature so extraordinary and Gallular as the Space Chicken, any nutter would willingly (if subconsciously) glide towards, and inevitably squash up close to, him, in all his feathery elegance.