H is for Happiness

by Barry Jonsberg

  ‘Hah!’ said Rich Uncle Brian in triumph, one hundred dollars later. The man handed over the deformed camel/ gnu and RUB passed it on to me. I knew he would.

  ‘I don’t want it, Rich Uncle Brian,’ I said. ‘It’s vile.’

  His face crumpled in disappointment. I felt bad, but I couldn’t lie to him. The toy was horrible.

  ‘But I won it for you, Pumpkin,’ he said. ‘If you don’t like this, what do you like?’

  ‘That,’ I said, and pointed.

  A goldfish in a plastic bowl. It sat on a shelf to the right of the ducks, which were still going round cheerfully despite being targets. I say it sat, but that was the bowl. The fish was swimming. It was gold and beautiful.

  ‘We’ll have that instead,’ said Rich Uncle Brian, pointing.

  The man shook his head.

  ‘No can do, mate,’ he replied. ‘That’s not a prize. That’s my pet. Time was, you could give away goldfish as prizes, but no more. Against the law. I could lose my licence.’

  ‘Your pet?’ asked Rich Uncle Brian. There was that cynicism in his voice again.

  ‘Yup. Very attached to him. Very.’ The man stroked his chin thoughtfully. ‘Then again, if the price was right … not against the law to sell your pet, is it?’

  Rich Uncle Brian sighed.

  ‘How much?’

  ‘A hundred bucks.’

  ‘WHAT?’

  ‘Very attached to him, I am.’

  Rich Uncle Brian looked down at me and then at the fish and then at the man. He sagged a little and got out his wallet. Again.

  ‘Tell you what,’ he said to the man. ‘Fifty and you can have your stuffed prize back.’

  ‘Deal.’

  Rich Uncle Brian handed over the cash and the gnu/ deformed camel and the man handed over the fish and the bowl.

  ‘Tell you what, mate,’ said the man. ‘Since you’ve just bought the world’s most expensive fish – about ten thousand dollars a kilo I reckon – then I’ll throw in the bowl for free.’

  Rich Uncle Brian smiled, but it didn’t come out right. It was like one of those smiles when someone has pointed a camera at you for half an hour and neglected to press the shutter.

  Later, in the car as we drove home, he asked me what I was going to name it.

  ‘Earth-Pig,’ I said. Rich Uncle Brian sighed.

  ‘It’s the translation of the Afrikaans word “aardvark”,’ I continued. ‘It is an anteater and means earth pig.’

  ‘Is there any reason, Pumpkin, why you want to name a goldfish after an African anteater? I mean, I can’t think of too many similarities. Colour, size, presence or absence of gills, that sort of thing.’

  ‘You’re right, Rich Uncle Brian,’ I said. ‘But it’s the first proper word in the dictionary.’

  The dictionary is my favourite book. I often read it at bedtime. It has thousands of different words and it doesn’t try to tell a story, and fail. It just deals in words for their own sake. It is pure. The only other thing I read is books by Charles Dickens. He has taken many of the trickiest words from the dictionary and put them in an interesting order. This is clever and admirable.

  ‘Won’t it be confused by being called a pig?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘It could suffer an identity crisis.’ I thought for a few minutes. ‘I will call it Earth-Pig Fish. That is a good name.’

  We drove in silence for about twenty minutes.

  ‘Do you know what the best thing about you is, Pumpkin?’ said Rich Uncle Brian finally.

  ‘No.’

  ‘You sing your own song, Pumpkin, and you dance your own dance. You see the world differently from the rest of us. And you know? Sometimes I think I wish everyone saw it the same way you do. I know the world would be a better place.’

  I didn’t say anything. But I must admit I was very surprised. He didn’t use one maritime metaphor.

  Douglas Benson told me his secret ten minutes into lunch. The librarians lent him a chair, though they didn’t encourage him to eat. They didn’t forbid it either, mind.

  ‘I am from another dimension,’ he said.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I replied.

  ‘Well, not really,’ he said. ‘You see I like the dimension I came from whereas this one sucks big-time.’

  I considered that for a while, but it didn’t do any good. I still had no idea what he was talking about.

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ I said.

  Douglas Benson has an interesting face. His eyes crowd towards the middle as if they are trying to merge together but are prevented from doing so by the barrier of his nose, which is larger than you’d wish if you were designing it from scratch. He has eyebrows like hairy caterpillars, and a mouth that is very wide. His fingers are thin and long, though they are not part of his face, obviously. He would make a good pianist. Anyway, Douglas’s interesting face was screwed up in concentration.

  ‘You know about M-theory, I imagine,’ he said.

  That wasn’t a question so I said nothing.

  ‘It’s a multi-dimensional extension of string theory in which all universes – the multiverse, if you like – are created by collisions between p-branes …’

  ‘Pea brains?’

  ‘Yes.’ He spelled it. He said some other things, but I missed some of the detail because I was thinking about colliding pea brains creating universes. We have a lot of pea brains at my school. Remember pencil-sharpener-sucker Darren Mitford? He and other pea brains often collide in the playground, particularly when they play ball games. I enjoyed the image of their collisions spawning universes inhabited by pea-brained sports enthusiasts. I shook my head and tried to focus on what Douglas was saying. ‘… operating with either eleven or twenty-six dimensions. As a result of these collisions a universe is created within its own D-brane, and there are, clearly, an infinite number of such D-branes, and therefore an infinite number of universes, of which this is just one. Now the point is …’

  I was glad he was getting to the point because my brain was hurting. Or was it my brane?

  ‘… each universe is locked from the other universes because each object, including forces and quantum physics itself, is restricted to its own D-brane. Except gravity. You see? Except gravity. The only force not restricted to its own D-brane. Thus it is through gravity that transference between universes is possible. It is how I came to be here. Consequently, gravity is the key to me returning.’

  He gazed at me triumphantly. I gazed back at him blankly. He sighed.

  ‘You haven’t understood a word I’ve said, have you?’

  I ripped a sheet of paper from my pad and extracted a black pen from my pencil case. If ever there was a time for such a manoeuvre, it was now.

  On the contrary (I wrote). I understood

  nearly all the words you said. ‘Brane’ was,

  I think, the only exception, unless it is a

  contraction of ‘membrane’, in which case

  I understood ALL the words you said. Words

  are not a problem. It is their order which can

  be. For example, here are some simple words:

  jumped; desks; happy; will; aardvarks; in;

  back. All can easily be understood in isolation

  (maybe not aardvark – it is an anteater

  indigenous to South Africa). But if I put

  them together thus – back desks in aardvarks

  happy will jumped – then you would have

  difficulty understanding my meaning and

  might interpret it as a particularly bizarre

  pronouncement from Yoda, of Star Wars

  fame. So it is with your expressions, Douglas.

  I understood the words. I missed the meaning

  entirely. Explain in simple terms, please.

  Douglas read this and frowned again. I think he might be a huge fan of frowning.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘This universe you know. All the stars, all the space. Everything that exists. It is not the on
ly one. There are an infinite number of such universes. Millions upon millions, billions upon billions. And then more …’

  ‘I know what infinity means.’

  ‘Okay. That means there are an infinite number of Earths. And each will be slightly different. There will be an infinite number of Candices, for example. In one you might have brown hair. In another … well, the combinations are … infinite.’

  So somewhere, I thought, there is a world where penpal Denille replies to my letters. Just my luck to be in one where she doesn’t.

  ‘The other universes are separated from this one,’ he continued, ‘not by space and time, but by a different dimension. I came through that dimension. Another universe.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. It seemed a reasonable question. And it was short.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand. It involves manipulating dimensions and invoking gravity, of course.’

  ‘How?’ I asked. I was on a roll.

  ‘I jumped out of a tree.’

  I could understand that bit.

  ‘And found yourself here?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So jump out of another tree and go back.’

  He sighed and frowned, confirming my earlier suspicions.

  ‘It’s not as easy as that,’ he said.

  Nothing is, I thought.

  Dear Denille,

  I have a goldfish called Earth-Pig Fish. She lives in a bowl on my bedside cabinet. I say ‘She’, but to be honest, I can’t be certain about her gender. I think you need to have studied veterinary science for a number of years, since there are no outward indications, at least not that I can spot.

  Earth-Pig Fish is an interesting fish. She doesn’t do anything that most people would categorise as interesting. In fact, she is fairly predictable and swims around her bowl, opening and closing her mouth. Sometimes she goes clockwise and sometimes she goes anti-clockwise. I do not think there is a pattern and I should know because I have spent a lot of time with her. What I think is interesting is how she MIGHT view her world. I stressed the word ‘might’ because obviously I can’t know for sure.

  Bear with me on this.

  Look at the world from Earth-Pig Fish’s perspective. As far as she knows, her universe is bounded by plastic. She cannot experience life outside it (because she would die). She probably thinks it’s an okay universe, if only because she doesn’t know any other. BUT (and this is my point) occasionally a human face (MY face) looms up outside her universe and interacts with her. I mouth things through the plastic. I talk to Earth-Pig Fish a lot, for reasons I don’t want to go into right now. What does she make of this? Does she think, maybe, that I am God trying to communicate with her? I balloon into view (on account of the refractive nature of certain types of plastic) and then I balloon out again. This could be a mystical experience for her. Does she think I am giving her a message about how she should live her life?

  Maybe. Maybe not.

  But what if the God so many people believe in is something like that? A presence ballooning into our consciousness from time to time – a presence we think is telling us something profound, but is actually only thinking it’s time to clean us out?

  I have a friend. Douglas Benson From Another Dimension. I sometimes think he feels like he is swimming around in a bowl and wants to know what it is like on the other side of the plastic. Sometimes I think we all feel like that.

  I would be interested in your views.

  Your penpal,

  Candice

  About three weeks after I first met Douglas Benson From Another Dimension, he invited me round to his house. For afternoon tea. This was both amazingly exciting and deeply troubling. Exciting, because no one had ever invited me to afternoon tea before, and troubling because, as Rich Uncle Brian has often remarked, I can be somewhat socially challenged.

  I say it was my first invitation, but that is not strictly true. I was once invited to a birthday party when I was six, but I remember nothing about it. According to Mum I refused to speak and spent the whole time sitting under a tree, mumbling to worms. I was NOT the life and soul of the party, though it’s possible the worms enjoyed my company. I cannot say with any certainty. What is clear, however, is that after that everybody human gave me up as a hopeless case.

  So I was excited by Douglas’s invitation and scared I would ignore his parents and talk to invertebrates [unlikely, I admit, since invertebrates are rarely invited to afternoon teas].

  ‘Is it okay with your mum and dad?’ I asked.

  ‘They are NOT my mum and dad,’ snarled Douglas. His mouth twisted in a fashion reminiscent of a snarly creature – a vicious dog, for example – so I feel justified in describing him so. ‘They are facsimiles of my real mother and father who are in another dimension.’

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I said. It’s difficult to know what to say in these circumstances, so I hummed for a few seconds. ‘Do they know they are facsimiles?’ I added after I ran out of hums.

  ‘They think I am mad,’ said Douglas. ‘I tried to explain the situation to them logically. That I had arrived from another dimension and that, due to some law of the multiverse that conserves matter, their son is now in my universe, living with my parents. I told them my real mother was a quantum physicist and my real father a famous experimental musician. They refused to believe me.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ I said.

  ‘They took me to the hospital. Some idiot in a white coat, hearing that I had fallen from a tree, pronounced that I was suffering from loss of memory caused by a blow to the head. It is unscientific and, frankly, insufferable.’

  I hummed a bit more.

  ‘What do your facsimile parents do?’ I asked. This seemed safe ground.

  ‘The female is a postie and the male is a nurse,’ snarled Douglas.

  I was impressed with his snarling. It was really very good.

  I have never known a quantum physicist. I’m not sure what they do, but it doesn’t seem to have much impact on the world. A postie, however, is different. Useful. She delivers letters and parcels. This is definitely a good thing. Without posties, penpal Denille couldn’t read my letters. Without posties we would constantly check our letter boxes and be constantly disappointed. The world would be a sadder place. I was tempted to point this out to Douglas Benson From Another Dimension, but felt it wasn’t the right time. I believed that we would certainly disagree on the respective merits of posties as compared to quantum physicists.

  I am not qualified to talk about experimental musicians, so I kept quiet on that subject as well.

  ‘So is it okay with your facsimile parents?’ I asked.

  ‘Is what okay?’

  ‘Me coming to afternoon tea.’

  ‘Oh, they love the idea,’ said Douglas in a bitter tone of voice. He was an unhappy boy. Bitter tones of voice and excessive snarling are, to my mind, clear evidence of this. ‘They think it’s a sign my mental health is improving. You know, having friends.’

  I felt their optimism might be dashed once they met me, but again I kept my own counsel.

  ‘I will talk to my mother,’ I said. ‘She’s not a facsimile. At least, not as far as I am aware.’

  I talked to my mother.

  First, I had to tap gently on her bedroom door. When I come home from school, the house is generally quiet and Mum’s bedroom door is generally closed. Sometimes I don’t see her until the morning when she makes me breakfast. Sometimes I think she might be an endangered species. Conservationists could get very excited and talk in hushed tones when they spot her.

  I rarely intrude when she is in her room, but this was an emergency and she had told me I could knock if there was an emergency. There was no immediate response. I was thinking about knocking again when I heard a faint, ‘Come in.’ I opened the door gingerly, since even the squeak of a rusty hinge can cause Mum pain. The bedroom was dark and smelled of something that had spent a long time out of the sunshine. I waited a few moments to allow my eyes to adjust. Mum was sitting up i
n bed, a lumpy shadow among other lumpy shadows. I tiptoed over.

  ‘Mum?’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes, Pumpkin?’ she replied in a voice soaked in weariness.

  ‘I have been invited round to afternoon tea tomorrow by a friend from school. Can I go, please?’

  The lumpy shadow sat up straighter. A shadow that was probably a hand rubbed at a shadow that was probably her eyes.

  ‘A friend, Pumpkin? That’s brilliant. Who is she?’

  Her voice was tired, but tinged with excitement. Mum has spent considerable time hoping I would find a friend who would invite me to afternoon tea. As the years passed I think she gave up all hope. I believe this has contributed to the weight of sadness she carries, and naturally I have felt guilty.

  ‘The she is a he, Mum,’ I replied. ‘Douglas Benson From Another Dimension. He is incredibly strange as well.’

  ‘You are NOT strange, Pumpkin.’

  I didn’t say anything. We have had these conversations many times. Mum insists I am not strange. I know I am. There is little point in arguing about this. Especially if it makes Mum unhappy, which it does for reasons I haven’t yet worked out.

  ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Can I go?’

  ‘I will need to ring his mother,’ she said.

  I had the phone in my hand already. I also had the number that Douglas had given me on a sheet of paper. I pride myself on being well organised. I held out both the phone and the sheet of paper.

  ‘Make me a cup of tea, Pumpkin,’ she said as she took them. ‘I’ll ring and then come out to the kitchen.’

  ‘You should be aware that she is his facsimile mother,’ I said. ‘I leave it to you to decide on the correct form of address under these circumstances.’

  I left to make the tea, which is something I enjoy doing.

  Rich Uncle Brian says newborn babies look like bulldogs. Most of the time, I know what he means. The hanging jowls and lolling heads.

  But Sky was different. Her cheeks were rounded and covered with soft down. When I ran my hand along her cheek it was like stroking a peach, faintly warm and the texture of satin. She smelled of powder and milk and her. I would bury my nose in her neck and fill my nostrils. I inhaled her while she made snuffling noises.