Read Online Lucky Alan : And Other Stories (9780385539821) by Jonathan Lethem - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jonathan Lethem
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Phnudge (King of the Phnudges), C’Krrrarn (a monster). Large Silly and C. Phelps Northrup are in black and white, all others are in color. All gaze downward, terrified, except C’Krrrarn, who plays computer solitaire.
Page one, panel four, splashdown. The plane’s wings curl inward to cover its windshield as it crashes into the lagoon. The wings have fingers, and the doomed pilot and doomed copilot peer from between the fingers like eyeballs.
*
From
The Journals of C. Phelps Northrup
July 14
On this fifth day of our desolitude I fear our little compact of necessity has fractured. Mr. and Mrs. Dingbat have refused Poacher Junebug’s sagacious notion that we depart the beach for the caves of the interior, insisting that salvage is imminent and in trepidation of the rumored wolverines and bandicoots roaming the deeper groves. However, despite his intrepitude and riflery, Poacher Junebug has succeeded in bagging nothing, which circumstance neither allays our fears nor stocks our larder. The hunter also continually alludes, in snide asides, to the possible deluxe repast to be made of Peter Rabbit. Hence, much dissension, resultingin parturition of our ranks; Peter Rabbit now savors protection within the circled wagons of the Dingbat Family, on the sand where we first crawled ashore, while Poacher Junebug, Large Silly, King Phnudge, and I have undertaken to conquestify the interior. Murkly Finger has, too, stayed behind and entrenched on the beach, in a fragment of the airplane’s darkened hull, within which he hoards untold provisions. Only King Phnudge has managed penetration of Finger’s lair (King Phnudge has no arms and so perhaps represented no threat to Finger’s cache), but his vocabulary was inadequate for conveying to us any sense of the inventory he’d espied there:
“Creamy dreamy breamy—hip hurdle hoo!”
C’Krrrarn has of course from the first gone his own way. He was sighted again, by the brainy little Dingbat girl, early this morning, posed atop the volcano. Lisa summoned us all to see him there, still as sculpture, foreclaw beckoning to the new sun.
*
PRE-NOSTALGIA CLEARANCE SALE!!!
LIMITED EDITION DINGBAT SODA
REDUCED
FUTURE COLLECTOR’S ITEMS???
T. DINGBAT’S BEER COLA (nonalcoholic)
KEENER’S LITE ICE TEA
LISA DINGBAT’S CHERRY-ROOT BREW
SPARK’S FIZZUM (caffeine-reduced)
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN???
TWENTY DOLLARS PER CASE
DINGBATS WE MISS U!!!
*
Ten-year-old Spark Dingbat wandered the beach at midday, wearing an inverted bowl of woven palm fronds, a sun hat fashioned by Keener, his mom. Spark had left his family and Peter Rabbit at the campsite they’d improvised, a ring of crappy lean-tos encircling a presumptive fire that his dad, Theophile, had serially failed to light. His sister, Lisa, having forged a twee, cooing alliance with the terrified hare, Spark was left somewhat on the outside. Now, obstinately solo, he strolled at the shell-strewn beach’s exact margin, where the wiper blade of surf just dyed the pinkish sand a wetter hue, where his eight toes were teased by a fringe of bubbles.
Rounding the top of a rocky knoll, a view unfolded below of an inlet sheltered from the harder surf of the surrounding beaches. Two fat figures splashed there. Large Silly and King Phnudge. Spark clambered past the spit of rock and eased down the sand embankment, to stare from the inlet’s grassy ridge. The clown had removed his shoes and clothing, all but his jet-black underwear. His feet were enormous, his white body both fleshy and firm, like the ripest fruit. King Phnudge remained fully dressed,or perhaps he was painted. His crown and beard seemed to flow into his collar, and his collar seemed to be one with his belt and his boots, less accoutrements than fancy outcroppings of his smooth, pudgy whole. Armless, he splashed excitedly side to side in water that came to what should have been his knees, while beside him the clown beat maniacally in the water with a large forked
Page one, panel four, splashdown. The plane’s wings curl inward to cover its windshield as it crashes into the lagoon. The wings have fingers, and the doomed pilot and doomed copilot peer from between the fingers like eyeballs.
*
From
The Journals of C. Phelps Northrup
July 14
On this fifth day of our desolitude I fear our little compact of necessity has fractured. Mr. and Mrs. Dingbat have refused Poacher Junebug’s sagacious notion that we depart the beach for the caves of the interior, insisting that salvage is imminent and in trepidation of the rumored wolverines and bandicoots roaming the deeper groves. However, despite his intrepitude and riflery, Poacher Junebug has succeeded in bagging nothing, which circumstance neither allays our fears nor stocks our larder. The hunter also continually alludes, in snide asides, to the possible deluxe repast to be made of Peter Rabbit. Hence, much dissension, resultingin parturition of our ranks; Peter Rabbit now savors protection within the circled wagons of the Dingbat Family, on the sand where we first crawled ashore, while Poacher Junebug, Large Silly, King Phnudge, and I have undertaken to conquestify the interior. Murkly Finger has, too, stayed behind and entrenched on the beach, in a fragment of the airplane’s darkened hull, within which he hoards untold provisions. Only King Phnudge has managed penetration of Finger’s lair (King Phnudge has no arms and so perhaps represented no threat to Finger’s cache), but his vocabulary was inadequate for conveying to us any sense of the inventory he’d espied there:
“Creamy dreamy breamy—hip hurdle hoo!”
C’Krrrarn has of course from the first gone his own way. He was sighted again, by the brainy little Dingbat girl, early this morning, posed atop the volcano. Lisa summoned us all to see him there, still as sculpture, foreclaw beckoning to the new sun.
*
PRE-NOSTALGIA CLEARANCE SALE!!!
LIMITED EDITION DINGBAT SODA
REDUCED
FUTURE COLLECTOR’S ITEMS???
T. DINGBAT’S BEER COLA (nonalcoholic)
KEENER’S LITE ICE TEA
LISA DINGBAT’S CHERRY-ROOT BREW
SPARK’S FIZZUM (caffeine-reduced)
GONE BUT NOT FORGOTTEN???
TWENTY DOLLARS PER CASE
DINGBATS WE MISS U!!!
*
Ten-year-old Spark Dingbat wandered the beach at midday, wearing an inverted bowl of woven palm fronds, a sun hat fashioned by Keener, his mom. Spark had left his family and Peter Rabbit at the campsite they’d improvised, a ring of crappy lean-tos encircling a presumptive fire that his dad, Theophile, had serially failed to light. His sister, Lisa, having forged a twee, cooing alliance with the terrified hare, Spark was left somewhat on the outside. Now, obstinately solo, he strolled at the shell-strewn beach’s exact margin, where the wiper blade of surf just dyed the pinkish sand a wetter hue, where his eight toes were teased by a fringe of bubbles.
Rounding the top of a rocky knoll, a view unfolded below of an inlet sheltered from the harder surf of the surrounding beaches. Two fat figures splashed there. Large Silly and King Phnudge. Spark clambered past the spit of rock and eased down the sand embankment, to stare from the inlet’s grassy ridge. The clown had removed his shoes and clothing, all but his jet-black underwear. His feet were enormous, his white body both fleshy and firm, like the ripest fruit. King Phnudge remained fully dressed,or perhaps he was painted. His crown and beard seemed to flow into his collar, and his collar seemed to be one with his belt and his boots, less accoutrements than fancy outcroppings of his smooth, pudgy whole. Armless, he splashed excitedly side to side in water that came to what should have been his knees, while beside him the clown beat maniacally in the water with a large forked
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