Read Online The Smell of Telescopes by Rhys Hughes - Free Book Online
Authors: Rhys Hughes
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the globe rose above the turret. The men who steered the device were Pennsylvanian farmers—I noted the missing teeth, the straw hats. But they also had something of the dastardly Iberian about them—the pointed beards, the golden earrings. I surmised that they were emigrant Cadizites, cousins and agents of Ugolino.
Tottering on the sill, I called up: “Please kill me! Without my wife I am nothing!”
The squonk rested the gun on the tiller of the rudder and aimed at my chest. I opened my arms to receive the shot. To be released from my desolation and fly with my wife to paradise! I was ecstatic. But the explosion never came: a spot of turbulence rocked the craft—there are pterosaurs on the island, though I never see them—and by the time it had settled, I was out of range. The chance was gone.
As a believer, I am not permitted to finish myself. I must escape or die of old age. Ugolino is not a simple monster: before he uprooted the whole Picos de Europa , he took care to evacuate or metamorphose all the inhabitants of the range, except me. It does not serve his purpose to tyrannise everybody. I was a poet; I wrote a song for him. He did not like it. This is my punishment. And now the original mountains are regrowing, or so I speculate—the bears, Ursus ibericus , and the goats, Capra hircus , are returning.
There was a single consolation in this latest sleight: my mistress could now come out of hiding. She had been locked in a wardrobe with my waistcoats ever since my wife returned home early from her flamenco class. I strode to the piece of furniture in question, unbolted the door and helped her out—a duelling pistol. Then I hung her in my wife’s place, on a hook above the hearth. A poor substitute really; a flintlock floosie, always powdering her pan.
If I do not leave before the castle falls down, I will be turned into a pair of shears. That is the prophecy.
I wonder if there is a parallel between the visit of this squonk and the other two who came last month. They also arrived in balloons and stole a teak hatstand and grandfather clock—my valet and cook respectively. One might almost suspect that package holidays are being arranged by the Pennsylvanians. But why?
The hemlock forests are jealously guarded by the squonks. Is Ugolino trying to win them over to his side for commercial purposes? But why does he need so much of the plant? The last I heard, he was assembling a college of philosophers in Valencia. What use have they for hemlock? And does he really think a vacation on my unlikely isle can cheer up a squonk, the saddest of all beasts?
The answer is obviously that he does. For when I set up a tripod by the window and fixed my younger brother to the screws, placing my eye to the lens and adjusting the focus, I was able to study the balloon from afar. I saw the passengers in great detail, and they were fighting over my wife. Then a peculiar expression came over the spherical face of my visitor, and something happened which had never previously been deemed possible in the history of cryptozoology.
Telegram Ma’am
The Queen sits on her throne, writing telegrams. There is a knock on the door. It is Perry, the inventor. “What do you have for me this time, Mr Perry?” He holds up a slim object, dripping like a snake fang. The Queen frowns. “Well what is it?”
“A fountain-pen, your majesty.”
“Is it faster than a quill, Mr Perry?”
“Much faster, ma’am.”
The Queen discards the quill, which tickles the floor.
Many more things have just reached their hundredth birthday. There is a frayed glove in the second drawer of a maple desk in a forgotten room in a cheap hotel in Brighton. There is an octahedral ruby cut from a flawed stone by a myopic jeweller with a blunt chisel in Winchester. There is a saying among the folk of Bideford, Devon, which declares, “Better to dip an organ in cider than a piano in rum,” and another in Folkestone, Kent, not recorded—they have both
Tottering on the sill, I called up: “Please kill me! Without my wife I am nothing!”
The squonk rested the gun on the tiller of the rudder and aimed at my chest. I opened my arms to receive the shot. To be released from my desolation and fly with my wife to paradise! I was ecstatic. But the explosion never came: a spot of turbulence rocked the craft—there are pterosaurs on the island, though I never see them—and by the time it had settled, I was out of range. The chance was gone.
As a believer, I am not permitted to finish myself. I must escape or die of old age. Ugolino is not a simple monster: before he uprooted the whole Picos de Europa , he took care to evacuate or metamorphose all the inhabitants of the range, except me. It does not serve his purpose to tyrannise everybody. I was a poet; I wrote a song for him. He did not like it. This is my punishment. And now the original mountains are regrowing, or so I speculate—the bears, Ursus ibericus , and the goats, Capra hircus , are returning.
There was a single consolation in this latest sleight: my mistress could now come out of hiding. She had been locked in a wardrobe with my waistcoats ever since my wife returned home early from her flamenco class. I strode to the piece of furniture in question, unbolted the door and helped her out—a duelling pistol. Then I hung her in my wife’s place, on a hook above the hearth. A poor substitute really; a flintlock floosie, always powdering her pan.
If I do not leave before the castle falls down, I will be turned into a pair of shears. That is the prophecy.
I wonder if there is a parallel between the visit of this squonk and the other two who came last month. They also arrived in balloons and stole a teak hatstand and grandfather clock—my valet and cook respectively. One might almost suspect that package holidays are being arranged by the Pennsylvanians. But why?
The hemlock forests are jealously guarded by the squonks. Is Ugolino trying to win them over to his side for commercial purposes? But why does he need so much of the plant? The last I heard, he was assembling a college of philosophers in Valencia. What use have they for hemlock? And does he really think a vacation on my unlikely isle can cheer up a squonk, the saddest of all beasts?
The answer is obviously that he does. For when I set up a tripod by the window and fixed my younger brother to the screws, placing my eye to the lens and adjusting the focus, I was able to study the balloon from afar. I saw the passengers in great detail, and they were fighting over my wife. Then a peculiar expression came over the spherical face of my visitor, and something happened which had never previously been deemed possible in the history of cryptozoology.
Telegram Ma’am
The Queen sits on her throne, writing telegrams. There is a knock on the door. It is Perry, the inventor. “What do you have for me this time, Mr Perry?” He holds up a slim object, dripping like a snake fang. The Queen frowns. “Well what is it?”
“A fountain-pen, your majesty.”
“Is it faster than a quill, Mr Perry?”
“Much faster, ma’am.”
The Queen discards the quill, which tickles the floor.
Many more things have just reached their hundredth birthday. There is a frayed glove in the second drawer of a maple desk in a forgotten room in a cheap hotel in Brighton. There is an octahedral ruby cut from a flawed stone by a myopic jeweller with a blunt chisel in Winchester. There is a saying among the folk of Bideford, Devon, which declares, “Better to dip an organ in cider than a piano in rum,” and another in Folkestone, Kent, not recorded—they have both
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