Ruthermore, Potbelly and ‘Four’.

Somewhere, in amongst the twisted turmoil of the mind, there occasionally appear tendrils of normality.

These are very quickly squashed lest they get out of hand; so we plunge back into a kind of semi-controlled madness that takes over what passes for living.

For instance, last night I checked the pulse of a dead man. You may think that this was a fairly fruitless exercise but I should wish to point out that he was very freshly dead as a result of somersaulting his new Volvo. Volvos (Volvoes?) are very strong except when you drop them on their roof. The result was that his neck broke, I could tell because he was listening for his own heartbeat—never a good sign when someone’s ear is almost on their chest.

And he was twitching.

This is what happens when you try to go past a queue of traffic at high speed and fail to notice a large piece of kerbing sticking up to separate traffic at a junction.

So there was a journey that took the rest of someone’s life. Very sad. Somebody is sitting at home waiting for their takeaway or, even, just for Dad to come home and give them a kiss goodnight.

I drove the rest of the way home very carefully after that, as you might imagine.

We are all, in our own way, strange. We do strange things. Sometimes we do things where we are overtaken by madness. The result of that is sometimes not so good for our friends and families.

In my imagination there live lots of strange people. Some of them live with a fellow called Ruthermore Heidigens.

Beloved asked me where I got the name. I told her it crawled into my head and sat there staring at me until I used it. Idea sprites do that; they are mean, delinquent and persistent.

In the first ‘episode’ of ‘Ruthermore Heidigens’ story he is engaged by the Planetary Fiscal Committee to assist in the apprehension of a certain Tarbert Mutch who has insisted on the presence of Heidigens. If Heidigens is not there the location of the Fifth Planet will be revealed to all.

Currently the ‘known Universe’ consists of four planets. Ruthermore, it should be said, is the finest Wizard in that known Universe. By his own admission he is also the only Wizard in the known Universe thus, by default, becomes the best.

The Planetary Fiscal Committee are an all-powerful body who, as is explained, do not want others to know of the existence of another planet in case people actually go there, make money and do not reveal the source of this bounty to the Committee.

Politicians, you see. Ah! Now you understand.

The second Ruthermore story, just completed, is about a sixth planet. They set off to look for it on a fairly routine adventure, discover that it is inhabited already but cannot retreat because Chau, Ruthermore’s daughter, is assailed by a voice in her head.

Ruthermore will not let that go unpunished. He may be a fat and gentle soul but he is a devil when roused. Threatening his daughter is one certain way of attracting his attention rapidly.

It is occasions such as this that will get him out of his comfortable existence. Ruthermore reasons that, since he can cast spells, there is absolutely no reason why he should work—or do anything that remotely resembles work; his daughter waits on him hand and foot and he always, but always, has a comfortable chair to sit in.

That last is much to the eternal chagrin of his would-be partner and business associate, Rennidl Dienst.

During their stay on the sixth planet (Earth, by the way) Chau mentions to a policeman that her Dad is a wizard. The policeman, not unnaturally, asks if his name is Merlin.

Chau is shocked! “Dad,” she says, “He knows Merlin.”

And that, dear souls, is where it is all left wide open for yet another ‘Ruthermore Heidigens’ story.

‘Suit, Potbelly, Earlobes and the Rest’ is a short story. From the ‘off’ you have to figure out who is the bad guy in all the goings on. It may be that, even at the end, you will not really know. Will ‘Knees’ be taken? Will they ever get ‘Tonsure’ back? Maybe that will become another story.

For those of you who have read the short story called ‘Three’s Company’ there is a treat. The sequel, a short novelette, has gone to the publisher; it is called ‘Four’s a Crowd’.

Instead of heading North, the gang go East up into the hills. They do this to find some gold.

As you will remember, they have no use for gold but the ‘ghosts’ of the Northern Jungle want some. In exchange for the gold they will clean Metth Croym’s beloved painting.

Metth absolutely does not wish to relinquish the painting—especially to the ‘ghosts’, but he feels that there is an inherent threat. He has no choice.

He heads South to see Iffan Beute and Oggun Raud, together with three lads from the village plus Three they set off to find the gold.

Everything starts out just fine and then, on the day when they feel they must turn around and head back, disaster strikes...

Now to bend my head to the keyboard to work more on the third novel—‘The Adepts: Book Three—Pitch Perfect’.

Incidentally, I sometimes do requests. Never fear dropping me a line with ideas, thoughts, suggestions. We all get idea sprites. Let them do the work!

Internal Struggles

A thousand years ago, when the British Empire was still a twinkle in some merchant’s eye, I had a thought that rose up from the words in a book I was reading.

In those days, after around seven or eight years of life, I would read anything. Books about birds, birds’ eggs, animals, trees, aeroplanes (avid reader of anything about aeroplanes), astronomy... anything.

Astronomy was one of my favourites although I have never been able to pick out constellations or other planets. My interest was purely academic—no practical applications at all.

As a side note, astrology has never interested me. For those who gain comfort from it, may it warm your heart and keep your soul. For me? I cannot imagine how a star many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of light years from us can have any bearing on our lives. Furthermore, the future has yet to happen and so soothsaying and other forms of ‘voyancy’ into that ‘which is yet to happen’ is a nonsense; too many variables.

I should love to know what is going to happen in the next few minutes—never mind next week, month, year...

[NB: This ‘spell/grammar check thing has no clue about ‘astyanax’. It’s quick enough to leap on ‘fragment’ and ‘passive voice’. Irritating!]

Where was I? Too many idea sprites sparking away, they trigger ‘The Voices’!

Oh, yes. The thought.

While reading about stars and galaxies, steeped in a sense of wonder at how many different forms these things take, ‘The Thought’ hit me.

Where does it end?

Our planet goes around a star that we call ‘Sol’—our sun; this, in its turn, goes around with billions of other stars in a galaxy; billions of galaxies, spreading out, presumably rotate in a Universe.

Perhaps there are many universes—in fact, there would have to be or there would just be an infinite void full of nothing out there.

So? Where does it end? Is there a wall or fence? Is there a sphere of crystalline rock entombing all that we know?

But, then, what lies beyond that?

I could feel my mind slipping away. This was a thought that I was not equipped to deal with but I knew that it would grab hold of my mind and put it in some sort of cerebral lock forever if nothing was done.

The only way I could rationalise it was to write a story. Where the story is now I know not. Lost forever in some rubbish bin swirling around in the space-time continuum where favourite teddy bears and stamp collections go.

The Seed

A boy gazed at a seed. It was quite a large seed, possibly from one of the trees that grew all around the place where he was sitting.

His focus was entirely on the seed. Nothing else existed, not even the faint sound of his Mother’s voice calling him in for lunch somewhere in the distance.

Somewhere within the seed he knew that there were smaller parts that made up the seed. That it was a collection of molecules and atoms arranged to form the flesh of the seed so that it would grow and become something bigger, perhaps huge.

He held the seed closer to his eye even ‘though he was well aware that those tiny particles were invisible; even microscopic life forms were beyond the visual range of his eye.

‘Perhaps,’ he thought, ‘one day someone will invent something that will be able to see atoms and molecules. But, then, how will they know that it is the atoms or molecules they are aiming at and not the particles that make up the machine for seeing such infinitesimally small points of matter.’

The boy sat back, staring, unseeing, up at the trees.

We are going around the sun. The sun is part of a galaxy. There are billions of galaxies out there just as there are billions of atoms in this seed.

What if this universe is an atom?

What if we were able to go so far out into space that we could observe millions, perhaps billions, of universes?

What would that make?

If we went even farther out, what are the universes rotating around?

Could we go so far out that we could see what becomes of these universes?

Eventually we could see that all those universes were part of a seed.

A small boy is holding it, wondering. Wondering at what tiny particles make up this seed. He is ignoring his Mother’s voice in the distance.

Does he realise that deep, deep down inside that seed is another boy holding a seed just like his and that that small boy’s seed also contains a small boy holding a seed?

Does he know that he, too, is just part of an atom?

End

Little dogs have little fleas upon their backs to bite ‘em.

And little fleas have smaller fleas, and so ad infinitum.

Anon.

Now you know.  Even back in 1956 or ’57 my head was full of odd things.