Read Online Nowhere Near Milkwood by Rhys Hughes - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Rhys Hughes
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bodies were not separated but relaxed . They are connected now by long taut fibres. At night, when I am completely alone, I can play these fibres like the strings of a zither. I can even play the forbidden note, my favourite note. And because my tower casts such a total shadow over the streets and squares below, blocking out the whole sky, I can send down one of my lesser bodies with a bucket to collect inspiration from the moonless gutters of the future.
TALLER STORIES
Prologue
Somewhere down near Cardiff Docks lies a road which doesn’t exist in our space-time continuum. Like many roads, it has its fair share of shops and houses and even a pub. However, these buildings are no more real than the road itself. Some people declare they are phantom structures left over from another age. The argument runs something like this: if men and women can become ghosts, why not bricks and mortar? I have to agree with them. Not only have I explored this road myself, but I have often entered the pub for a drink.
It is an odd pub with a stranger set of patrons. The beer it sells is strong and not respectful of brains. It is brewed on the premises by the barman, who is generally only known by his first name and his final wink. He is called Hywel and was born far to the west in the village of Lladloh. Why he left his home to work in Cardiff is a minor mystery not worth solving. It seems he was once a baker, but lost his nerve in an incident with a highwayman, and now prefers to serve anything not in a tricorne hat, whether man or monster.
He accepts payment mostly in tales. One evening he resolved to take more care with his accounts and asked me bluntly if I would invent some new stories for him, to balance his books and fill up this one. His pub was already crowded with professional authors, so I declined and pointed out that I was the only one of his customers who never composed fiction. Unfortunately, he considered lack of talent to be an ideal qualification for his fraud. He wanted the style to be clumsy but light, to cheat the Inspector of Metaphors if he called.
So if you are ever near Mountstuart Square and you happen to see a road that wasn’t truly there before, take a chance and walk down it. The adventure will be absurd but safe, a brief flirtation with rare spooks. The pub in question is the friendliest tavern you may hope to visit, and a pint costs less than whatever you pay when you order beer in your sleep. No, that is untrue. I am not permitted to depart unless I find a replacement for my unbearable task, and for that I am desperate enough to trick even you over this impossible threshold...
1: Rainbow’s End
Although the TALL STORY on Raconteur Road is a pub that doesn’t exist, takings are always high. Its richest patrons are the potbellied council overseers who step through its doors during lunchtimes. They step, as it were, into another dimension where imagination becomes reality and truth takes a siesta on one of the benches in the beer garden.
The landlord of this dubious establishment is none other than Hywel Price, a beery auroch of a man, whose hands are too large for the piccolo and yet too small for the fiddle. Consequently, he can neither short-change customers nor assail their eardrums with unwanted music. This is doubtless the source of his popularity.
When I entered the tavern yesterday afternoon, business was brisk. So brisk indeed that Hywel had decided to close the bar. He was leaning with his elbows on the counter, talking to Flann O’Brien and declaiming on subjects he knew nothing about. This is a peculiar habit with Hywel. It is probably why his popularity won’t last.
“Now take your modern rainbow,” he was saying. “It has neither the consistency nor the vibrancy of your good old fashioned rainbow. When I was a lad, rainbows were something special, but your modern rainbow looks tired and a bit worn around the edges. Personally I blame the Martians.
TALLER STORIES
Prologue
Somewhere down near Cardiff Docks lies a road which doesn’t exist in our space-time continuum. Like many roads, it has its fair share of shops and houses and even a pub. However, these buildings are no more real than the road itself. Some people declare they are phantom structures left over from another age. The argument runs something like this: if men and women can become ghosts, why not bricks and mortar? I have to agree with them. Not only have I explored this road myself, but I have often entered the pub for a drink.
It is an odd pub with a stranger set of patrons. The beer it sells is strong and not respectful of brains. It is brewed on the premises by the barman, who is generally only known by his first name and his final wink. He is called Hywel and was born far to the west in the village of Lladloh. Why he left his home to work in Cardiff is a minor mystery not worth solving. It seems he was once a baker, but lost his nerve in an incident with a highwayman, and now prefers to serve anything not in a tricorne hat, whether man or monster.
He accepts payment mostly in tales. One evening he resolved to take more care with his accounts and asked me bluntly if I would invent some new stories for him, to balance his books and fill up this one. His pub was already crowded with professional authors, so I declined and pointed out that I was the only one of his customers who never composed fiction. Unfortunately, he considered lack of talent to be an ideal qualification for his fraud. He wanted the style to be clumsy but light, to cheat the Inspector of Metaphors if he called.
So if you are ever near Mountstuart Square and you happen to see a road that wasn’t truly there before, take a chance and walk down it. The adventure will be absurd but safe, a brief flirtation with rare spooks. The pub in question is the friendliest tavern you may hope to visit, and a pint costs less than whatever you pay when you order beer in your sleep. No, that is untrue. I am not permitted to depart unless I find a replacement for my unbearable task, and for that I am desperate enough to trick even you over this impossible threshold...
1: Rainbow’s End
Although the TALL STORY on Raconteur Road is a pub that doesn’t exist, takings are always high. Its richest patrons are the potbellied council overseers who step through its doors during lunchtimes. They step, as it were, into another dimension where imagination becomes reality and truth takes a siesta on one of the benches in the beer garden.
The landlord of this dubious establishment is none other than Hywel Price, a beery auroch of a man, whose hands are too large for the piccolo and yet too small for the fiddle. Consequently, he can neither short-change customers nor assail their eardrums with unwanted music. This is doubtless the source of his popularity.
When I entered the tavern yesterday afternoon, business was brisk. So brisk indeed that Hywel had decided to close the bar. He was leaning with his elbows on the counter, talking to Flann O’Brien and declaiming on subjects he knew nothing about. This is a peculiar habit with Hywel. It is probably why his popularity won’t last.
“Now take your modern rainbow,” he was saying. “It has neither the consistency nor the vibrancy of your good old fashioned rainbow. When I was a lad, rainbows were something special, but your modern rainbow looks tired and a bit worn around the edges. Personally I blame the Martians.
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