The Fez Journeys On

  “Thank you,” Clint said, clambering into the car. “Now drive us to the Fez.”

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘Now drive us to the Fez.’”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Clein explained, “He said—”

  “Yes, I know what he said.” The Space Chicken was beginning to get rather irritated.

  ‘You may need to explain in greater detail.’

  “Fred Jr thinks you may need to explain in greater detail.”

  “Yes, we can hear him too,” Clint said. “And you decided to call him ‘Fred Jr’? Hm, interesting.”

  Clein said, “I didn’t know you were called ‘Fred’.”

  “That’s beside the point!” the Space Chicken calmly and politely explained. “When I said, ‘What?’ I was clearly mistaken in pre-empting your interpretation.”

  Clint and Clein stared at him blankly.

  “What I had meant to say was, “Don’t you dare think for a minute that I’m going to drive you to BongVe Bong.’ There wasn’t meant to be much room for your interpretation.”

  “Space Chicken,” said Clein, “please,” said Clein, “could you,” said Clein, “drive us up to BongVe Bong? Please.”

  “No.”

  ‘Dad, you must help them. All we shall be doing anyway is wandering around. We have no proposed destination; we may as well help our friends.’

  “All right,” the Space Chicken agreed. “Get in, if you must,” he said to Clint and Clein. It seemed they must, for they clambered into the back of the Speedvan without a second thought.

  “Um... Space Chicken?” Clein said.

  “Yes.”

  “There’s another man in the car with us.”

  “Ah, yes,” the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack said very calmly. “I have taken him hostage. I did so at divine request.”

  “Has Quack actually asked you to take him hostage?”

  “Well, no.”

  Clint gasped. “Have you gone beyond Quack? Have you spoken to— to God? Does God exist?”

  “No.”

  “God doesn’t exist? Do you know that exclusively now? Perhaps you should tell the press.”

  “I mean ‘No, I haven’t spoken to God’. I don’t know if It exists or not. Even Quack doesn’t know that.”

  “Well, there are a lot of things Quack doesn’t know, aren’t there?”

  “He knew how to ridicule the Space Chicken,” Michael Rowland Daffodil said.

  “That’s enough out of you,” the Space Chicken said sternly. “Now, does anyone have a compass?”

  “The Speedvan has one, doesn’t it?”

  “Where?”

  ‘It is in the centre of the dashboard, next to a series of violet switches.’

  “Ah, yes. So it is.” The Space Chicken checked it. “We appear to be heading Nekken.”

  “Good,” said Clein. “We’ve already established how we shouldn’t be having any mishaps this time.”

  “Yes, Dave did inconvenience us a large amount, but he is a member of our group who is greatly missed.”

  “Where is Dave now?” asked Michael Rowland Daffodil.

  ‘Well, he would have been sent home, but we’re uncertain where his home is,’ said Fred Jr.

  “Quack knows,” the Space Chicken put simply.

  “Should we ring him up and ask him?” Clint asked.

  “No,” the Space Chicken mumbled, “it was just an expression.” He added, “Quack couldn’t find a Dirring book in Carpe Yolu library.”

  “I imagine he could—”

  Clein interrupted, “We might need to explain all this to the stranger in the car.”

  “Michael Rowland Daffodil,” Michael Rowland Daffodil introduced himself.

  “Hello Michael Rowland Daffodil,” said Clint to Michael Rowland Daffodil.

  “Hello Michael Rowland Daffodil,” said Clein to Michael Rowland Daffodil. “We may need to explain some things to Michael Rowland Daffodil. Unless you don’t want us to,” he added to the Space Chicken. “The phone business, that is.”

  “Can I ask you something?” asked Michael Rowland Daffodil. “Why do you call me Michael Rowland Daffodil? What’s wrong with a nickname? Or even just one of my long names? Do you have to say all three?”

  “Quiet, Michael Rowland Daffodil,” said the Space Chicken. Then, to Clint and Clein, “Don’t refer to him by his first name.”

  “Should I just call him ‘Daffodil’, then?”

  “I mean I don’t want you getting friendly with him.”

  Michael Rowland Daffodil leant forward so he could whisper loudly in the Space Chicken’s ears. “Oh, you needn’t worry there, chickiwick. I’ve got very friendly towards you already. And I know all about your little phone, too. Talking to Quack. Trying to block doors – trying to reverse rifts. Naughty, naughty.”

  “I’m doing that for good. Quack told me to.”

  “Just like how you kidnapped me.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “Keeping secrets, were we?”

  “How do you know all this?”

  Michael Rowland Daffodil leant a little closer. “I’ve been talking to a frog called Sam.”

  Chapter 18

  Arthur Cardigan woke up. It had been one week since he had spoken to Quack. One Tartarus of a week. He had discovered that the greatest punishment that could be bestowed is thinking. But Quack wasn’t punishing him. Quack just wanted him to understand himself, as well as Himself, and indeed He needed to understand Himself as well as himself on top of him understanding himself and Himself. Arthur Cardigan had been beginning to grasp it. Then he had a week solely to think about it. Now he understood it or else.

  What he needed to understand was the initiation process of becoming a messenger of Quack. Quack didn’t see why He needed another servant; He had plenty of prophets, so unless Arthur Cardigan was planning to outlive immortals, he would be of little use to Him.

  The complex mind required in order to grasp and guide the actions of a constructed, uncontrolled and non-dominated community of planetary scale required a great deal of understanding to be gained. Understanding, as ever, came from confusion.

  In order for Arthur Cardigan to understand Glix, he had to look within himself, reanalyse his own flaws and misunderstandings, and discover a new meaning to the world in which he lived with the help of nothing but his own self-exploration. The one thing he didn’t understand was why Quack needed a new prophet.

  There were doesn’t of prophets hanging around anyway. Quack had them all over the place. Most of them didn’t even know what they were doing. Why would Quack need more of those? Even the present Quack wasn’t sure why.

  At the same moment, Quack and Arthur Cardigan had the same thought. One of the prophets was going to die.

  This must be why the future Quack sent me back, Arthur thought. To train me for the perfect moment when a prophet leaves us and I must replace them.

  Chapter 19

  A week of thinking had been both a help and a hindrance to Arthur Cardigan, but a helpful hindrance at that.

  A week seemed a very useful period of time to Arthur Cardigan. Not just this past week, but all weeks. It was the perfect unit of time for measure events that were neither instantaneous nor ever-enduring. Five days. Five simple days. It began with an introduction and ended with a conclusion. In the middle was a turning point, supported by a natural bridge either side. If anything needed doing, any trip needed taking, any thought needed thinking, a week would be the perfect period of time to set aside for it. Five simple days.

  A year had been wrong for Arthur Cardigan. A was was much better. He had progressed greatly in the past year, of course, but it wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t perfect. What was unachievable in a year came naturally in a week. The past year hadn’t been perfectly set out for Arthur. There had been too much action, too much distraction. A week of thinking was perfect.

  “How are you feeling now?” Quack asked Ar
thur over the phone. Arthur was sitting under a tree on the outskirts of Carpe Yolu. Quack was in the overworld – specifically, in the Ache.

  “I’m feeling pretty good, actually. The week of thinking has done me good. I’m not angry or stressed any more; I just have a calm, relaxed attitude and a simple approach to everything.”

  “Good,” Quack replied. “Now I’m going to mess that up for you.”

  “I won’t let you.”

  “I have a simple task to set you. This will be part of the prophet experience, training you up for whatever big thing the Me wants you for. I want you to go to Gary’s Vehicles in Gord and ask him to build you a Spaceboat.”

  Chapter 20

  After having successfully travelled from England to BongVe Bong – without having to visit Wales this time – the Space Chicken, Fred Jr, Clint, Clein and Michael Rowland Daffodil were forced into stopping at a motel for the night. It was 18th Haca and the Space Chicken was tired and convinced that, if they drove for any longer, he wouldn’t be able to see straight. He couldn’t really see straight anyway, as his eyes were on the sides of his head, but at least they were effective for the time being, even if they were facing in opposite directions.

  The chiefest difficulty was actually the act of driving itself. The Space Chicken was an excellent driver, having centuries of experience and even having been present at the first drive of an automobile in history (the inventor, John Whimsy Gisbert, had assured the curious and skeptical public that, owing to the limitations observed in current scientific understanding, no vehicle would ever be able to travel faster than ten kilometres per Haca – sure as no tree will ever be able to grow more than ten items of fruit per year, eleven being an unlucky number and thus perpetually avoided in nature; sure as protein can only ever come from the remains of slaughtered animals; and sure as there will never be any evidence in favour of life outside Glix – before pushing his foot down upon the spike – the pedal having already been invented, but naturally rejected in favour of the electroconductive abilities of the spike – and hurtling forward into a brick wall at 57.11kmpH and being crushed between his concrete chair (“concrete being the only substance known to man which can go within eleven metres of an electric wire without causing an explosion”) and his safety spike. The Space Chicken’s chiefest difficulty was not having any hands to drive with, a biological fact he addressed as ‘discrimination’.

  Fred Jr was unable to drive not because he was too young, which he was, though driving age restrictions hadn’t been introduced in 2042 N.G. (which stood for ‘New Glix’, the second period of 1,000,000 years in Glix’s lifetime, after ‘Glix Time’), but because he had no limbs apart from feet – laws preventing people driving with their feet had been introduced before age limits.

  Clint and Clein had already informed the Space Chicken that they could not drive, much to the disappointment of their mother, Oprah. She had told them they ought to study a course in vehicles (“They reckon ‘at movers is the third big somethin’ in ‘istory, after elec’rick an’ sloiced butties!”) at one of the universities, Dogsbridge or Llamafoot, but none had appealed to the twins. Oprah was at that moment in operation of the Spaceboat, driving significantly farther every second than she had ever imagined Clint and Clein would in their entire lives.

  That left Michael Rowland Daffodil. A man who was quite probably evil, whom Quack senses had indicated would cause great harm and would be very dangerous to the Fez-followers. He was currently the Space Chicken’s prisoner. With no other options available, he was elected to the position of driver.

  They arrived at the motel safely, after a great deal of arguing and disagreement between all parties: on all counts, a successful journey.

  “There’s one thing I’ve come to notice about motels,” said the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack.

  “What’s that?” asked Michael Rowland Daffodil.

  He ignored him.

  “What’s that?” asked Clint.

  “Nothing good ever happens in them,” the Space Chicken said.

  “Have you had bad experiences in the past?”

  “I’ve never been to a motel.”

  Clint thought about this. “Neither have I.”

  “Well that’s hardly surprising,” Michael Rowland Daffodil said, “he’s a dozen times your age.”

  Clint was confused. “Who are you suggesting is older here: me or the eternal prophet?”

  “The Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack.”

  Clint narrowed his eyes. “I’m not sure I believe you. In fact, I’m sure I don’t believe you.”

  “I wouldn’t have confused the ages of you and the Space Chicken,” Michael Rowland Daffodil explained. “I’ve been paying attention to what you have to say. You’re seventeen and the Space Chicken’s four centuries old.”

  “Just shut it, you,” said the Space Chicken. “You’re a criminal, and you ought to know that.”

  The evening continued in a tense mood. The group argued over nothing for the sake of individual solidarity and community liquidation. They were still frosty when they snuggled into their beds for the night. Michael Rowland Daffodil was told to sleep in his clothes from the day preceding. Clint and Clein wore matching striped pyjama bottoms and red slippers. The Space Chicken had a nightcap and had managed to find some triangular slippers which only it provided he put them on with his feet closed, then spread his claws once they’re inside the slipper. Fred Jr had a small nightcap with a large plume sticking out of the top, which his father had fashioned out for him out of his own body materials. The Space Chicken took off his own nightcap and let Fred Jr sleep in it, before cuddling the bundle into his pennae.

  The Bird glanced around the area, before passing the vast judgement again that, “Nothing good ever happens in motels.” Most of the group ignored him and the evening remained frosty.

  Then Clein asked, “What do you mean?” in an attempt to restore peace. “What do you mean that nothing good happens in motels? How can you pass judgement if you’ve never been to one?”

  “Although I have never been to a motel,” the Space Chicken began to justify, eyeing the others while fluffing his – and therefore also Fred Jr’s – pillow, “I am able to base my opinions upon works I have studied.”

  “That was a very long, thought out and fancily worded justification,” said Michael Rowland Daffodil. “That probably means you’re trying to distract us from the fact that you can’t explain what you mean. Please elaborate.”

  The Space Chicken glared at him with each eye in turn. “What I meant,” the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack explained, slowly detracting his gaze from Michael Rowland, “was that in every piece of fiction I have read – whether it be a novel, a poem or a play – motels are always regarded as being a dodgy location. Loads of murders happen in motels. Of course that’s not real life.” As the Space Chicken said this, he reached towards the light switch. He had a glint in his eye that made everyone else feel uncertain. A glint that told them there might just be a murder in a motel after all. A glint that told them there could easily be a chalk outline with a feather on it. The Space Chicken was a maniac. He’d made mistakes before. Usually because Quack had told him to. The twins had never slept in a room with the Space Chicken without Dave being there before. Michael Rowland Daffodil hadn’t even met him before that morning. The Space Chicken was a nutter with a metal glint in his eye. And they were sleeping in a motel room with him. “Sleep tight.”

  Chapter 21

  During the night, Michael Rowland Daffodil began to grow restless. He often had trouble sleeping at night, and now that he was standing accused, it was even more difficult. But he no longer had any handcuffs. He had been freed at Quack’s request. The gods were urging him forth. Michael Rowland Daffodil stood and stared at the others in the room. They had let him in. They had allowed a stranger they believed to be evil into their friendship group. The Space Chicken seemed absolutely certain that Michael Rowland Daffodil was bad – more
specifically that Michael Rowland Daffodil would do something very sad very soon – yet still he had brought the man along on a trip with his friends. They had dropped unconscious before the man. This was the point where they had fully placed their trust in Michael Rowland Daffodil, who was now standing over their dormant bodies.

  Chapter 22

  The Space Chicken didn’t think himself very trusting. He had often come across complete strangers and assumed the worst of them. But then there were bad people. Some people in the world did bad things. And if you trusted someone who was going to do bad, it was... well, it wasn’t good. Logically, the only way to make sure you don’t trust get hurt is to not trust a bad person. And the only way to make sure you don’t trust a bad person is to not trust anyone who could be bad; therefore, anyone. Don’t trust anyone. The Space Chicken thought this was a good policy to go by.

  The Space Chicken didn’t think himself very trusting. Apparently this was a bad thing. But when a stranger that he had been told at pious word was going to do something bad watched the Cockerel and his peers sleep, he got the impression that something was up.

  The Space Chicken stepped out into the orange dusk. All around was barren with a glow of fullness. There were a number of cars left in the parking lot. The Space Chicken ignored these, but thought of the number of drivers who must be sleeping here and therefore the number of people at risk of getting hurt. He turned around the corner of the wood panelled wall and saw Michael Rowland Daffodil standing at an ice machine.

  Michael Rowland Daffodil picked up a cup and pushed back the lever. Cool blocks of ice fell out of the machine.

  “What’re you up to?”

  Michael Rowland Daffodil turned and smiled slightly. It was a warm night and all the leaves in the trees seemed to have turned golden in the twilight hours. They would be back to normal come morning. “Y’know, a lot of people get the wrong impression about me.” His ice had begun to melt already. He tipped the cup and the ice fell forward onto his face. He drank the trickle of water that came down. “They think I’m strange.”

  “You are. You’re a stranger. That has ‘strange’ in the title.”