After some recent discussions in the pub it has become obvious that not everyone knows what to do if they find a dead g’nee. Back in the day of course we caught the giant ones and processed their oil, but the really big ones don’t come to the island any more, for some reason.
G’nee are easy to identify. If you find something with tentacles that has been crushed by a rock, this will be a g’nee. They have a nearly-invisible hot hair balloon as part of their anatomy, and when their candles run out, they fall out of the sky and are often killed by the stones they were carrying. Why they feel the urge to carry the stones is anyone’s guess – maybe as stands for the candles. How they get the candles remains a mystery. How they light the candles is also unknown. But they are at least easy to identify when dead.
Having scraped what remains of the g’nee off the stone, you have to press the oil out. This is best done through either squeezing, or the application of weight or pressure. Do not try to boil the oil out, this does not work. The oil is dark, thick and smelly. It is exceptionally good for oiling machinery. It is singularly dreadful for cooking with, and as James Weaselegrease has recently ascertained, likely to induce vomiting. Frankly, if James can’t eat it, no one can.
We hear rumour that some people swear by it as a skin oil. Applying it to the skin is likely to make your average islander smell a good deal worse than usual, and as the oil deteriorates, the smell increases. Whether there are any skin benefits to be achieved remains to be seen – we look forward to hearing about you experiments with this.
(Image and text by Nimue, with input from James and Keith)
Or so Duckhouse Eddie would have thought, were he given to thoughts.
You see, Duckhouse Eddie … but I get ahead of myself.
Allow me to introduce myself. I am Delia Spatchcock.
Yes, you heard me right.
Delia.
It’s an old family name; both my father and my grand-uncle (who was also my grand-aunt for a while) went by the name Delia.
But anyway.
Duckhouse Eddie was a lodger at – well, that doesn’t actually matter for this story.
He was strongly built, with a wide chest and a narrow waist; legs almost too narrow to support his bulk, but fortunately his head was quite light because it was mostly empty. It was said that when it rained – which, given it was mostly cloudy all the time, wasn’t actually that often – that he would feel it first.
But that wasn’t why he was called Duckhouse.
He was called Duckhouse because –
Well. I’m not sure we really need to go into that.
Anyway.
To rd. Yes. Well.
Oh, is that the time? I must be going. Maybe next time. You see, there are lots of interesting people in this cul-de-foggy-sack-built-buildings area. Thing. Whatever we call this place we make a home. I shall introduce you to some more of them later.
“Do they really expect me to eat this muck?” Doc Willoughby regarded his bowl of dark cereal with a look of disdain.
“It’s called tsampa, the staple diet of the monastery, and it is all that there is,” snapped Durosimi O’Stoat. “If you bothered to taste it, you would find that it’s really quite good.”
“I would be happier if I knew exactly what I was eating,” complained the Doc. “I can’t say I trust these fellows…”
“They are monks, for goodness sake!” exclaimed Durosimi, exasperated. “They’ve saved your life. Show some gratitude for once.”
Doc eyed his companion warily. This sudden respect for others was a side of the sorcerer that he had never seen before.
“Well, what’s in it?” asked the Doc.
“As far as I understand,” replied Durosimi, regaining his composure, “it is made of roasted flour and some seeds…”
“And what else?” muttered the Doc, suspiciously.
“Something called bod ja – Tibetan tea. It’s all perfectly good and, I have been assured, extremely nutritious also.”
Durosimi decided not to go into the details of how bod ja is made. Doc did not need to know that a large lump of greasy yak butter gets added to some heavily salted tar-black tea, which had previously been strained through a horse-hair colander. Neither did he need to be apprised of the information that this concoction is then churned until it reaches the consistency of thick oil, and added to the flour and seeds in order to make tsampa. Durosimi felt that knowing this, the Doc may have been disinclined to eat. Why such facts might have bothered someone who was more than happy to gorge on starry-grabby pie, however, is something of a mystery to me.
If you have just wandered into this tale after several weeks, or more, away, you may be wondering what Durosimi O’Stoat and Doc Willoughby are doing, enjoying the hospitality of a Tibetan Buddhist monastery, high up in the Himalayan Mountains and many thousands of miles from Hopeless, Maine. To cut a long story short, Doc Willoughby – for reasons yet unknown – had been found, not so much at Death’s door, but wiping his boots on Death’s welcome mat. Philomena Bucket and Mr Squash, the Sasquatch, agreed that the Doc’s only hope of being saved lay in the healing hands of the lamas of the legendary Dge-lugs-pa, or the Yellow Hat sect, (fortunately, these days they are known more for their distinctive burgundy robes than their yellow hats). Durosimi, who had visited the monastery some time before, offered to go and keep an eye on the Doc, and so Mr Squash transported the pair of them to the Himalayas, via one of his mysterious portals. Now you are up to date.
Philomena Bucket winced as Mr Squash lowered his huge, eight-hundred pound frame onto the old wooden settle bench that had stood for years in the corner of the bar of The Squid and Teapot.
“Is that worried look, etched upon your dear face, placed there for my welfare, or for the settle’s?” he asked mischievously.
“Both,” Philomena admitted. “I wouldn’t want to see either of you damaged.”
“That’s not likely,” said the Sasquatch, “This old seat is as solid as The Squid itself; it will take more than my delicate weight to do it harm.”
Philomena smiled. She hoped that he was right.
“Talking of damaged goods,” said Mr Squash, “it’s high time that I brought Doc Willoughby back from Tibet. If the monks have not cured him by now, they never will.”
“You don’t know, he might want to stay there,” said Philomena, optimistically.
“Don’t get your hopes up,” replied the Sasquatch. “Besides, Durosimi is with him. Having to entertain those two for any length of time wouldn’t be fair on the monks. It would be enough to make them lose their religion completely.”
“And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” laughed Philomena.
Mr Squash waited until daybreak on the following morning before leaving for Tibet. As ever, wisps of mist curled around the portal, which was just a simple natural gateway formed between two trees. If you or I had stepped through we would have found ourselves to be nowhere other than a stride away from where we had started, but for Mr Squash, and anyone whom he carried, it was a wormhole – albeit a large one – to the Himalayas, the land of his cousins, known to humans as the Yeti.
“Bon voyage, old friend,” said Reggie Upton, who had come to see him off. “Give my regards to your relatives.”
Mr Squash waved and disappeared into the portal. A few seconds later he returned, a concerned look in his wise and ancient eyes.
“Something wrong, old chap?” asked Reggie.
“There has been a rock-fall on the other side,” said the Sasquatch. “It’s totally blocked, and far too much for me to shift. There is no way that I can get through.”
A Semblance of Truth is a Hopeless Maine novella set in the same time frame as the first graphic novel. It started life here on the blog, and developed into a tale of the island from the perspective of journalist Frampton Jones.
It would be fair to say that Frampton is not a reliable narrator. He tries very hard to be fair and honest, but he experiences a descent into madness that has him questioning everything he knows. What he shares can therefore only ever be a semblance of truth.
It’s interesting looking back at the early island science in this book, for it was written before islanders had really got to grips with the presence of spoonwalkers. Imagine not having any spoons but also not knowing why you don’t have any spoons. Fortunately we all live in more enlightened times now.
In recent weeks, we’ve had odd glimmers of sun on the island – rare summery conditions that have had strange effects on the locals. A person might safely venture forth without wearing a scarf. Some have even gone so far as to roll up their shirt sleeves, or turn up the cuffs on their trousers.
This has proved difficult for Mrs Beaten. The sight of exposed forearms inspires uneasy feelings in her. Especially the vision of blue-ish veins in skin pale from scarcity of sunlight. Gaze for too long and you can make out the presence of a pulse. It is too much, too intimate beholding such things unexpectedly. And as for the trousers…
Mrs Beaten tries not to think about what anyone else might have beneath their trousers, or under their skirts. If the notion is unavoidable, she likes to picture candlesticks and lamp stands. It is a horrifying thing to be able to see a person’s socks. No one should bare their undergarments in this way. A little exposed skin about the calf is too shocking, truly wanton. The young men seem at ease with these appalling displays of flesh.
Mrs Beaten worries about where this will lead, and what unspeakable acts may follow. This orgy of trouser rolling, this hedonistic horror of visible shins runs the risk of inviting other, even more dreadful acts of deviation. She fears the exposure of knees, tries hard not to think about knees, finds herself haunted by the idea of them.
What would she do if she happened to be walking in the street and a man came towards her with his knees on display? How could she possibly cope? Could she control herself in such circumstances? She hopes that the overwhelming nature of the encounter would provoke her into saying some stern and appropriate words of condemnation. She fears that she might stand there transfixed, unable to look away from the sordid display.
If the man asked her to touch his knees, what would she do?
She thinks a lot about the danger of such a proposition. The exact way in which it might be phrased. She pictures a scenario in which she is unexpectedly close to the man who has exposed his leg joints so shamelessly for her viewing.
“Look at my knees, Mrs Beaten. You know you want to look at them,” he says in her mind.
She tells herself that she absolutely does not want to be trapped in a narrow alleyway with a man who demands she looks at his knees. And yet somehow she can still hear his voice in her head. “I’ve got big knees,” he says.
Mr Squash squatted on the ground outside Neville Moore’s mausoleum-like home, idly stroking the bible-black, though distinctly dishevelled, feathers on the head of Neville’s pet raven, Lenore.
“People have lost fingers for attempting less,” observed Neville, admiringly.
“And over-ambitious birds have lost their heads for trying,” said Mr Squash. “Luckily, Lenore and I have an understanding.”
The raven gave the Sasquatch a sideways glance and shuffled uncomfortably on her perch.
“Reggie Upton told me that you’ve been away, trying to find a cure for whatever it is that’s troubling Doc Willoughby,” said Neville, changing the subject.
“Yes. I had to take him to a Buddhist temple high in the Himalayas,” replied Mr Squash. “He’s barely alive, and the monks there are his only chance.”
While it is almost impossible to leave the island of Hopeless, Maine, Mr Squash is able to come and go as he pleases, via a series of secret portals. Convenient as these doorways are, they are potentially lethal for mere humans. As I have mentioned before, in a society more conscious of Health and Safety procedures, each portal would doubtless have carried a notice, proclaiming in large, angry letters:
‘DANGER – NO ADMITTANCE. HUMAN ACCESS STRICTLY FORBIDDEN. SASQUATCHES ONLY BEYOND THIS POINT.’
“What concerns me,” admitted Mr Squash, “is if the trip kills Doc Willoughby, then so be it. He would have been a dead man anyway if he’d not gone. Durosimi, on the other hand, didn’t really have to accompany him. I would have stayed.”
“Durosimi?” said a surprised Neville. Mr Squash nodded.
“He volunteered to keep an eye on the Doc. The trouble is, he looked in as bad a state as Willoughby when I left them. The monks are going to have their work cut out with those two.”
“Good luck with that,” said Neville. Lenore, who had become restless, and still brooding over recent references to lost heads, flapped noisily up onto a window ledge that had been generously streaked with guano.
“When are you fetching them back?” asked Neville.
“I’ll give it a week or so. I’ve relatives living up that way.”
“Ah, the Yeti,” said Neville, who had read about such creatures in several of the many books that Philomena regularly sent along to him, foraged from the attics of The Squid and Teapot.
“Don’t let them hear you calling them that,” said Mr Squash. “It’s not particularly complimentary in Tibetan. It’s almost as bad as referring to me as Bigfoot.” With that, Mr Squash rose to his feet (and yes, they are inclined to be on the largish size) dwarfing the hermit of Ghastly Green. “I need to get back to The Squid and collect Drury,” he said. “We’re keeping young Winston Oldspot, The Night-Soil Man, company tonight. It seems that he thinks we’ve all abandoned him.”
“Yes, apparently so,” said Neville. “He did look a bit miffed when I saw him the other night.”
“Philomena’s sending him over some Starry-Grabby pie,” said Mr Squash. “That should cheer the lad up.”
“If there’s any going spare,” said Neville, hopefully, “Lenore and I would be very grateful…”
“I’ll see what I can do,” said the Sasquatch, quietly wondering to himself how anyone could possibly manage to eat the stuff.
Meanwhile, half a world away, in the high Himalayas, Doc Willoughby and Durosimi O’Stoat were lost in comfortable oblivion, unaware of the burgundy-robed lamas who rotated the prayer-wheels on their behalf.
When you wake up, your aunty is all around you. When you went to sleep you thought that you had only one aunty, but now there seem to be a lot of her.
You may be feverish. You feel very cold – but it is normal to feel cold so this clarifies nothing.
You’ve heard that there are tiny magical creatures who some people call aunties. You do not think your aunty is a small magical creature but also you have no idea what would happen if an aunty gets inside an aunty.
“This is all perfectly normal” she tells you, and all of her mouths move at slightly different times.
This makes you wonder how many heads you have, and how many mouths, and whether you have woken up with the same number of eyes you had when going to sleep.
“It’s just a nightmare,” one of her mouths says.
You have the feeling she is lying to you.
“When you wake up it will all have been a dream.”
You do not want to go back to sleep, because you have no idea what will have been a dream. This vision? Your life? Everything you have known? If you go to sleep you might wake up into something even worse than this.
“You are just a bone remembering when you had flesh,” she says. “Go back to sleep.”
If this is the only life left to you then you do not want to give it up.
“You are just driftwood and dry seaweed imagining that you are a person, and having a nightmare,” she says, oh so sweetly.
You are drifting now, sliding gently towards oblivion with no confidence that there is anything in you capable of ever waking up again.
Dustcats are much debated by The Scientific Society of Hopeless, Maine.
Observations of James Weaslegrease: According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way a dustcat should be able to fly. The dustcat, of course, flies anyway, because who cares about tiny details like the laws of physics.
Keith Errington: As a fellow member of the Scientific Society, I am astounded by your inaccuracy Mr. Weaselgrease, clearly dustcats do not fly, they are simply not capable of flying, to suggest as much is tantamount to lunacy. No. Clearly dustcats float. And it’s their floating that defies all known laws of physics. (Even the ones that “Professor” Evenheist made up).
Mark Hayes: dust ‘floats’ in the air due suspension in air currents , until it settles on a surface, in the same way that heavier particles ‘float’ in water, suspended in the medium a dust cat does not fly, it ‘floats’.
James Weaslegrease: Your theory, whilst interesting, has some room for improvement. Floating is what occurs when a creature has buoyancy within the appropriate body, be that liquid or gaseous. It, critically, involves no input from the creature itself to sustain, and does not allow for directed movement, forcing the creature to move as the flow of its surroundings dictates. With this in mind, I have performed several tests with a dustcat’s favoured human, as well as some especially tasty piles of dust, and have concluded that dustacats are entirely capable of “floating” towards whatever their target is with far too much regularity to be a coincidence. Therefore, since their aerial mobility is controlled, it constitutes flight, as opposed to floating.
At this point it needs noting that the debate in question had occurred informally at The Squid and Teapot and that further insights may be less than perfectly scientific in nature…
Herb Chevin: Your mum’s a dustcat.
James Weaselegrease: You wish my mum was a dustcat.
Bob Evenheist: I have proved beyond any shadow of a doubt that my theories about physics…
Herb Chevin: I’ve got a theory that if I punch you really hard, you’ll shut up. Want to test it?
At this point Herb Chevin undertook to punch Bob Evenheist. Bob flew through the air in a graceful arc and then just lay horizontally in the air above the fireplace, looking awkward until she was towed out at closing time. Various conclusions have been drawn from this, but frankly none of them were useful.
(Image by Nimue. Text by named individuals, other bits also by Nimue.)
Reggie Upton picked up the fallen candle-lantern, which by some miracle had stayed alight, and looked down at the prone form of Doc Willoughby, sprawled in the mud. The last thing that the Doc had said to him was, “I think I’m dying,” and, to all intents and purposes, had proceeded to do exactly that.
“Surely not,” thought Reggie.
To the accompaniment of a series of grunts, wheezes and winces, he managed to drop to his knees and, dredging up some dimly recalled instructions barked out by Surgeon-Major Shepherd, of the Royal Herbert Military Hospital in Woolwich, he rested three fingers just below the fallen physician’s jawbone to check for a pulse. The tiny flutter of life that he felt was not encouraging, but at least it proved that the Doc was still in full receipt of his mortal coil, though only just.
“How the devil am I going to get him any help?” Reggie muttered to himself. It was long past midnight, and the mean streets of Hopeless, Maine were dark and deserted. Only one lonely light glimmered some distance away from, what might be laughingly referred to as, the island’s main thoroughfare.
Reggie groaned inwardly.
To say that Durosimi O’Stoat was somewhat annoyed by the rapping on his front door would be an egregious understatement. While I have no idea what he might have been up to at such a late hour, it is safe to assume that it was unlikely to include any plans designed to benefit his fellow islanders. Finding Reggie Upton standing upon his doorstep did nothing to improve his mood.
“What?” he barked, with a ferocity that made the veteran of the Siege of Ladysmith quake in his boots.
“It’s Willoughby,” said Reggie, who went on to give a brief account of his meeting with the Doc, and all that followed.
“Blast the man,” growled Durosimi, dragging on an overcoat. “We’d better get him inside before something eats him, I suppose.”
Luckily, Doc Willoughby had been considered decidedly indigestible by any predator who may have been passing, and remained, as far as could be ascertained, totally intact.
“Why is it,” puffed Durosimi, “that the only corpulent man on the island decides to play dead in the middle of the night?”
He and Reggie had taken an arm and a leg each, and were carrying the Doc up the hill to Durosimi’s house.
“He’s certainly no lightweight,” conceded Reggie, ‘but we’re nearly there old chap. Chin up, and all that.”
It was fortunate that the darkness concealed Durosimi’s scowl. No one had before said – or even dared to contemplate saying – ‘Chin up’ to the sorcerer, much less referring to him as an ‘Old Chap.’
Doc lay on a vast leather sofa that took up most of one wall of Durosimi’s parlour.
“It’s beyond me,” admitted Durosimi, scratching his head. “The answer might be in some grimoire or other, but to be honest, healing is really not my forte.”
“No, I can imagine,” thought Reggie, but wisely decided not to say it aloud.
“I could go and fetch Philomena,” he suggested. “She’ll still be up. It was James Weaselgrease’s birthday bash in The Squid and Teapot last night, so you can guarantee that there’ll be plenty of mess to be cleared up.”
“Very well,” said Durosimi, resignedly, seeing all hope of completing his night’s work rapidly disappearing.
In less than half-an-hour Philomena was in the parlour and looking down at Doc with concern. She had never liked the man very much, but she had never wished him harm… Well, not real harm, anyway.
“It is as though his spirit has left him,” she declared, after a cursory examination of the Doc’s aura.
“Are you sure?” queried Durosimi. “The only spirit I associate with that man is my whisky, which he seems rather too fond of.”
“He’s not drunk… for once,” said Philomena. “Something is very amiss, though. I fear that it’s beyond my ability to cure him.”
Durosimi looked thoughtful.
“We could ask Mr Squash to take him to the monastery where I stayed,” he said. “If anyone can work miracles, those monks can.”
Philomena looked at him approvingly. Since his couple of weeks recuperating in Tibet he seemed to be a changed man. He was still as dangerous as a viper, but somehow more human than he allowed people to believe.
“Mr Squash looked in at young Weaselgrease’s party earlier on,” she said.
‘Looked in’ just about summed it up. There would have been little enough room for Mr Squash’s bulk in the bar last night.
“I’ll go and see if I can find him,” said Reggie. “I know all of his usual haunts.”
Mr Squash scratched his enormous head and regarded Durosimi with puzzlement.
“What makes you think that the monks would be able to cure him?” he asked.
“They know things that I can only dream of,” said Durosimi. “If they can’t do it, no one can.”
Philomena looked at him in astonishment; for once in his life Durosimi was actually showing some humility.
“He’s very weak; the journey there could kill him,” warned the Sasquatch. “Remember how it affected you?”
“Oh, I remember well enough,” said Durosimi, wincing at the memory. “The thing is, if he doesn’t go to the monastery, to my mind he’s as good as dead anyway.”
Philomena nodded her head, then felt shocked that she was actually agreeing with Durosimi. The day was still only a few hours old, and it was becoming weirder by the minute already.
“Very well,” said Mr Squash, “but someone should stay with him; I refuse to leave him there alone. You know what he can be like. He could try the patience of a saint, and while those monks might be religious, believe me, they’re not saints.”
“I don’t mind travelling back,” said Durosimi. “Going through your portal last time nearly killed me, but it was worth it. I would relish the opportunity to visit Tibet again.”
A small cove, lit only by moonlight. Often a good place for line fishing, but tonight the seas shudder with awful sound, and the fisherfolk huddle amongst the rocks, hoping that the danger will pass before morning.
At first, the raucous trumpeting, echoing between the rocks. A shuddering, making the sea itself tremble, the waves choppy and erratic. A dire rasping, as though rusty metal objects were drawn across each other’s surfaces, setting every nerve ending into spasms of discomfort.
A violent honking, angrier than geese. Screaming geese would be a welcome distraction just now for they at least are a familiar kind of threat.
The sea throws cold wetness over the huddling folk amongst the rocks. Their wiping fingers find it is not water, but something sticky and insidious that clings to their skin.
All night long the sea itself seems to hack and hiss, until the anxious light of a new day creeps in to bring strange insights.
In the centre of the cove lies a large form, grey in the faint light. It thrashes from time to time, and hideous sounds emerge from between its gaping lips. Not just sounds, but flurries of spittle and revolting, slimy nuggets that are taken by the tide. It is a sea monster, and it is dying.
This is a rare sight; leviathans such as this one spend their lives beneath the waves, and only come into the shallows in the final days. Here, they cough up their offspring from the depths of their massive bodies. Each greasy lump is in truth an egg, that will float away to begin a new life. Only in death do they reproduce, and the awful night sounds are life and death entwined as the old sea monster passes and new ones are born through the same unpleasant process.
There is nothing to do but leave the monster to the crows. In time, the bones may be worth salvaging.
(With thanks to Steven C Davis for the prompt. What he actually suggested was that I should record the noises I’ve been making whilst ill, but I thought it would be less disturbing all round if I just tried to describe what the last ten days have been like. I appear not to have drowned, but have unleashed a massive swarm of unholy snot-offspring into the world.)
