The Fez

  “Right.”

  “Well, since you’ve made it so democratic,” said Dave, “here is my first suggestion; I propose that these timeholes be named… ‘Timeholes’.”

  “No! You need to be more creative,” said the Space Chicken. “These… things are affecting the whole of history as well as the future. Whatever we name them today is going to stick around for ever.”

  “Margery’s telling Me to tell you that ‘forever’ is one word,” Quack informed the Space Chicken.

  “It can be either, mum,” the Space Chicken said angrily through a gritted beak.

  “I’ve already told you, I’m not your mum!”

  “Can you just remind me what these time things do, again?” asked Clint. “And what’s the point of them?”

  “If you fall into one – or get sucked into one – you travel to a random place in time.”

  “…and space,” Clein added mysteriously.

  “No!” Quack replied. “These… things can only make you travel through time. And just on Glix. If you travel through space that’s a wormhole.”

  “What’s the point of them, anyway?” Clint asked again.

  “I didn’t create them deliberately,” said Quack. “They are accidentally coming through a rift in space. But that’s another story…”

  “So this specific kind of accidental timehole is one unique to Glix? And it needs a name you say?” asked Crazy Dave. “How about an ‘Edam’?” he suggested.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s madE backwards.”

  “What?”

  “Because when you go through one of them, you’re madE backwards,” he chortled.

  “That doesn’t make any sense,” said Clint.

  “You don’t actually become unmade when you go into one,” Dave clarified. “You just get sent backwards in time.”

  “I’m glad someone understands it,” said Quack, rolling His pious eyes.

  “I understand the way in which they work,” the Space Chicken announced proudly. “In fact I know everything there is to know about the Edams.”

  “They’re not called ‘Edams’!”

  “Also,” said Clint, “if you’re suggesting that a person is madE backwards when they go through one of the timey-thingies, wouldn’t the person be the Edam, not the place they pass through?”

  “Exactly so, Clint or Clein,” said Quack.

  “That’s enough trying to sound smart,” the Space Chicken snapped enviously.

  “I think we need some form of variation on a word at least,” Clint said, doggedly trying for Quack’s recognition like the attention-seeking Glix’n traveller known as Baron Münchhausen. “How about ‘Emad’ or ‘Dame’?”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “How about ‘Dema’?”

  “How about shut up?”

  “Stop! Everybody!” Quack called.

  There was a long break for sound to take some time off and vision to start his shift. In sound’s absence, silence crept in.

  There were many glares between freaks across the path. There were even looks from the sightless Egg and scowls towards the unseen Quack.

  “Anyway,” Quack said, “I prefer the word ‘Emmental’.”

  “I thought we’d stopped‽”

  “I don’t like Emmental.”

  “I like neither the cheese nor the word, and I don’t particularly like the place in Germany.”

  “I don’t like you now you’ve said that.”

  “There’s a German place called Emmental?”

  “No, I just don’t like Germany in general.”

  “I can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not.”

  “At least ‘Edam’ made sense.”

  “But it didn’t make sense!”

  “It sort of did.”

  “When you said ‘made sense’, did you say ‘made’ with a capital E or not?”

  “He didn’t, I checked.”

  “Good, because I hate that.”

  “Anyone who says a bad pun will be smitten.”

  “Ha. Smitten.”

  “Was that a Play On Words?” Quack spat.

  “No, it was just – um – just a comical and analytical interpretation of Your choice of heteronyms. Sir.”

  “Good. That had better be all it was.”

  “I prefer the term ‘Cantaloupe’.”

  “‘Cantaloupe’ is a type of melon, not cheese.”

  “At least ‘Emmental’ begins with the same letter as ‘Edam’.”

  “Will you shut up about your ‘Emmental’.”

  “Will you stop using quotation marks‽”

  “Who said we were talking about cheese?”

  “Edam and Emmental are both types of cheese.”

  “And they begin with the same letter.”

  “Shut up.”

  “Do you want Me to smite you?”

  “I didn’t say a pun.”

  “I know, but it was a bad one.”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.”

  “Neither does the Edam joke.”

  “I didn’t make up that joke!”

  “I never said you did.”

  “I wasn’t talking about Edam or Emmental, I was talking about Cantaloupes.”

  “Shut up about cantaloupes.”

  “No, that is the new word for this kind of timehole.”

  “What made you say Cantaloupe?”

  “The bad pun.”

  “No bad puns or I’ll smite you!”

  “We weren’t saying bad puns. We were just talking about them.”

  “I said Cantaloupe because they are like ‘loop’-holes.”

  “No bad puns!”

  “Or what?”

  “Or smity-smity.”

  “Cheeseburger.”

  “But you don’t say ‘Cantaloop’, you say ‘Cantalope’.”

  “I don’t!”

  “Well you should.”

  “I do!”

  “Good!”

  “I don’t.”

  “It seems like you’re going round in a loop/lope.”

  “Now You’ll have to smite Yourself.”

  “I have a suggestion,” said the Space Chicken. “How about we all agree – for once – and just accept these weird timeholes as being called Cantaloupes—”

  “Edams!”

  “Emmentals!”

  “Cheeseburgers!”

  “—and make do with it.”

  There was a moment of silence.

  “I don’t like the word ‘Cantaloupe’.”

  “I think we should call them ‘Goudas’.”

  “I agree… yet I don’t.”

  “I agree to disagree.”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Yes it does.”

  “I believe it’s called an ‘octomoron’.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That’s where something doesn’t make sense but nobody cares.”

  “Do any of us fall into one of these Cantaloupes—”

  “Edams!”

  “Emmentals!”

  “Cheeseburgers!”

  “—in the future?”

  “I think Crazy Dave does. And maybe one of the twins.”

  “I’ve found it.”

  “What, a Cantaloupe?”

  “No, look.”

  “Wow.”

  “I always forget the twins’ names.”

  “See, I knew you’d listen.”

  “What are they, ‘Flint and Ryan’?”

  “Clint and Clein,” they both corrected in monotone.

  “Come on.”

  “Anyway, don’t, whatever you do, fall into one.”

  “I’ll try not to.”

  “You just told us we would anyway.”

  “Oh,” said Quack, struggling over a simple paradox. “You probably will, but try not to.”

  “Stop using optomorons.”

  “I believe you made a mistake there.”

  “Did I?”
/>
  “Yes. It’s octomoron.”

  “It’s not called an ‘octomoron’. You all sound like octomorons when you say that.”

  “What is it called, then?”

  “An ‘octofool’. Duh.”

  “So just remember: avoid the Cantaloupes.”

  “Edams.”

  “Emmentals.”

  “Cheeseburgers.”

  “Hey,” said Clint. “Where are the Space Chicken and Dave?”

  As they looked up, they saw the two walking a way along the road.

  “It’s the Border!” shouted Clint and Clein simultaneously, and they both ran towards the country change ahead of them.

  “Hmm,” said Crazy Dave, mostly to himself, but also to the winds of time. “I thought the Border would be more built-up with industry than that. Strange.” He also ran, impersonating a duck.

  “There’s the Border,” the Space Chicken said simply, as soon as everybody had caught up. “After all this time, all the searching and anger and moaning, it boils down to us simply crossing that line of nations and then we will instantly know where the Fez is.”

  “Thank Quack for that,” said Clint.

  “There aren’t many big buildings,” Dave observed, almost complaining at the lack of dense commercialism. “There are some, but they aren’t as tall as I had expected, and you can hardly call them skyscrapers.”

  “It’s true they do stop right before reaching the Border,” stated Clein, “but it’s definitely not the impact the Space Chicken described.”

  “I know,” said the Space Chicken, slightly disappointed himself. “Nor is it what I expected. But the land sure does look desolate over there on the other side. Oh,” he sighed. “We must have come to a different entrance than the one I remembered,” he surmised.

  “I suppose.”

  “Anyway, it doesn’t really matter whether the entrance lived up to our expectations; it’s about what we’ll achieve when we cross the threshold.”

  “As soon as we step over there we’ll know the precise location of the Fez,” Dave said, reassuring himself.

  “Then it will be one more short step until we reach our goal.” The Space Chicken smiled.

  “Don’t jinx it,” said Crazy Dave.

  “I’m so excited!” Clein squealed.

  Everyone looked at him.

  “What, I’ve been waiting ombers for this,” he justified.

  “Ombers?” Dave asked.

  “Yes… Oh, did I say it funnily?” he worried. “Did I say omberrs or ombears or ombeers?”

  “No, I just thought… what does that mean?”

  Clint was confused. “You know: 20 days; one tenth of a year; one cycle of the inner satellite around the Glix.”

  “Oh, yes! Of course, I know now – ombers!” Dave faked. “An omber… You know when your mind just blanks…?”

  Dave faked badly.

  The Space Chicken stepped up to him as Clint and Clein went off to speak to Crazy Dave. “Next time you have trouble, why don’t you just ask me?” he said, sounding less welcoming than he could have.

  “Okay.” Dave ventured forth with the most apparent of his many questions. “Which omber is it now? In fact,” he added, “what’s the current date?”

  “It’s Ooll, 85th Quinquomber 2042.”

  “Okay…”

  “What is it?”

  “Nothing,” he lied.

  “What is it?” the Space Chicken persisted.

  “You have eighty-five days – or more – in an omber? I thought Clint said that there were only twenty days? Oh, did Clint get it wrong?”

  “No, you did. When did I say that there were eighty-five days in an omber? That would be ridiculous.”

  “You said that today is the 85th day in Quinquomber. I assume ‘Quinquomber’ is an omber.”

  “No it isn’t and yes it is,” said the Space Chicken. “I never said that today’s the 85th day of Quinquomber; I said it was the 85th day, and it is in Quinquomber.”

  “And the difference is…?”

  “It’s the 85th day of the year, birdbrain. Why would anyone care what day of the omber it is?”

  “On my home planet that’s how we measured time. We said which day of the month it was.”

  “But the day inside of an omber – or a ‘month’, as you call it – is completely irrelevant! There is nothing obtained by knowing how long since the start of that month. What happens if, say, you organised something today for the… 14th day in November? You wouldn’t have any clue (without doing a long calculation) how far away that date was. Your system is completely ludicrous.”

  “Well, since you’ve put it that way, it does seem quite pointless. It always seemed to work, though…”

  “Now that you’ve settled that little issue, shall we step over the line?”

  “Let’s.”

  The whole gang approached it in awe and anticipation.

  Dave took the first step over the line at the countries’ Border, alongside the entrance signpost.

  He concentrated hard on finding the location where he imagined the Fez to be placed. It was harder than he’d thought. The way the Space Chicken had described it made him think that you could instantly know the Fez’s location without trying to find it. It proved to be far more difficult than this. “I’m not quite sure where the Fez is yet,” he said with caution.

  “You’ve never journeyed to the Fez before, though, have you? I made this journey many times before. I’ll know.” The Space Chicken stepped over the line.

  “Where is it, Space Chicken?”

  “It’s,” he replied. “It’s… nowhere.”

  Clint and Clein stepped past the signpost.

  After a short while, Clint said, “Well I can’t feel anything.”

  “Me neither,” said Crazy Dave, who had just walked into the country unobserved.

  “Just step back and read what it says on that sign, Space Chicken, could you please?” said Clein, pointing to the post they had just ignored.

  The Space Chicken went back to read the signpost and examined it thoroughly.

  “What does it say?”

  “It’s written in a strange series of symbols,” said the Space Chicken, “but I believe it translates as ‘Welcome to Wales’.”

  Chapter 29

  “I’m still not entirely sure what I need to train you for.” Quack tried as hard as He could to connect with His future self and work out exactly what He was/is/will be going to do. But, unfortunately, He could find no logical explanation for why He might have wanted/might want/might soon want to send Arthur back in time/keep him in the present/bring him forward from the future. And if it hurt that much just thinking about the illogical concept, then it didn’t bear thinking about. “Do you want Me to treat you like a prophet?” Quack asked.

  “Sort of. Possibly. It depends upon the context,” Arthur said, vastly mentally contradicting himself. “How do You train Your prophets?” he asked, making sure to give respect to the pronouns when begging to a god.

  “Well, I give them a small, religion-based task and guide them through the whole thing.”

  “Wouldn’t the Space Chicken be a better person to explain this to me? In fact, where is he right now?”

  “He’s busy. I’ve got him working away, informing the public of the imminent Flood.”

  “There’s going to be a flood?” he asked. “Sorry, it should be ‘Flood’, shouldn’t it?”

  “Yes,” said Quack. “But relax; he’s got it all under control.”

  “Oh, right. Good,” said Arthur. “How about getting one of the other prophets to help me? What happened to the Eternal... Great… Oh, for Sock’s sake, I wish I knew my prophets better.”

  “Well, tough. That’s what you get for not caring about Us deities except in times of dire need. Do you not appreciate Me, or something?”

  “You have been known to make mistakes before.”

  “Who do you think you are talking to? Like I told you, I’m in control.
I have everything sorted. Margery organises things for Me. I have tasks going for all of the prophets (which, may I add, are currently going splendidly; You can always trust a talking Animal to do Your work for You). Overall, My planet is just perfect. It’s filled with satisfied Glix’ns. Every one of them worships the ground I walk on. Mainly because I only walk on the ground for a few steps every dozen millennia. But still,” he justified, “they all love Me.” Quack’s look of self-satisfaction turned into one of displeasure. “Except you,” he said with utter contempt, grimacing like a mad fish on a gherkin overdose.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t exactly mean what I said about You having been accident-prone, clumsy and generally foolish in the past” Arthur admitted.

  “Okay. I don’t remember you saying anything along those lines. You said I make lots of mistakes, but that was about the gist of it.” Nevertheless, Quack took this as an apology and accepted it. “Thank you.”

  “They don’t quite though, do they, Quack?”

  “What?”

  “I respect You and look up to You and worship the ground You… well, You don’t walk on it, but You occasionally water it,” Arthur rambled. “Which I also respect, of course.”

  “Yes. Your point being?”

  “Very few other people do. I occasionally meet elderly people with respect, but the youth of today just don’t care about religion. It’s slipping with each successive generation.”

  “What do you know about the culture of past generations?”

  “Not much,” admitted Arthur. “But it’s more about what I will know.”

  “I don’t think religion’s really that important to the Glix’ns. A lot of them are atheists.”

  “But why, Quack? You’re here, and a select few of us know You’re here. Why can’t You just tell them? Why can’t You show them?”

  “I used to. And they used to care. But now I give them obvious hints (and if you’re lucky you may become one of these hints), but nevertheless they ignore them.”

  “You can tell them. I could tell them. We have definite proof in gods and the public needs to know about it.”

  “Do they? Do they really?” Quack commented cynically. “Arthur, have you ever heard of the Divine Why?”

  “The Divine Y?” he asked. “Or was it the Divine Why?”

  “The second one.”

  “I can’t quite tell the difference between them.”

  “Soon you will. That’ll have to be one of the things I teach you.”

  “Anyway, what is the Divine Why?”

  “It’s the idea that belief in gods or denial of anything beyond one’s own understanding isn’t import to a person’s lifestyle, so long as they live a good, moral life.”

  “Hmm. I quite like it.”

  “As do many people. Generally accepted by a large percentage of the population as the ideal route to peaceful coexistence, it brings harmony to the world that no proof of God or gods ever could. It’s the new religion.”