dull thud #13
featuring Cressida, the Worm Wonder

Closure


Midnight on the Newfoundland coast. The icy Labrador current clashes with the warm Gulf Stream; a thick fog lumbers out of the sea and over the shore. It coats sheer cliff faces with a film of moisture, lurks among the motionless pine branches and rolls silent and unchallenged through the unlit streets of a small town.

Squat, prefabbed concrete buildings, briefly modern, now crumbling and patched up with timber and corrugated iron, are piled apparently at random on a granite promontory jutting into the Atlantic. This is West Meadow, founded in the 1780s by starved, storm-lashed survivors of successive wrecks on the adjacent Reefs of Disaster. For many years a fishing town, it was abandoned after the war and recolonised in the sixties by artists, drop-outs and free-thinkers. It was a very particular type of person that ever showed up here, and even more so the type of person that chose to make it their home. The residents were a hardy breed, having swapped their smocks for Helly Hansen and their contact with the outside world for, well, not.

Being reachable only by boat, and that on an erratic schedule dictated by tide, weather and Max the boatman's delerium tremens, the townsfolk were well practised in making their own fun. For many this meant complex and highly fluid coital arrangements. For everyone else it meant open mic at the only bar in town.

Open mic was hosted by Open Mic Mike. Six days a week he was a sculptor working mostly in salt, gravel and disappointment, but when Friday came he donned his sequinned sou'wester and invited the clientele to share their talents. Clarice, the deconstructivist puppeteer now working on an all-marionette staging of Salomé, performed the Dance of A Veil. “Any more than that and it's just too fiddly”, she explained. A group of zen tapestry weavers had formed an acapella yodelling quartet called A Little Alp From My Friends. Their version of Enter Sandman had to be heard to be believed, and possibly not even then. Frazzled poet Claude gave selections from his song cycle Gangrene Has No Sense Of Humour:
   “Surmise minutely the tadpole's chorophobia
   This caseation remains
   Goebbels in ermine
   Only its Hapsburg chin divines my spurting execrescence.”

Next up was Stanley.

Stanley couldn't have been a day under ninety, and had made his life's work the collection of field recordings of nautical song. Like the others, he had many strings to his bow; as well as sea shanties, Stanley was an authority on glassblowing and the Faerie tradition. Tonight he accompanied himself on accordion, the pair of them wheezing through an extended recital of Reuben Ranzo which incorporated eighty-seven self-penned verses about the seaman's hitherto unchronicled adventures as a glassblower in the Land of Faerie.

His eventual quivering to a halt raised polite applause. “Thanks Stan,” said Open Mic Mike, bounding onto the stage before another epic could weigh anchor, “thanks very much. Well folks, we're taking a short break. Back with another box of delights in twenty minutes, so hey! Don't go away!”

Nobody went away, in many cases because this was the only bar in town.

It had fallen to a relative newcomer to operate the rudimentary lighting and PA. Indeed, he'd built much of the latter himself from broken radios. It was powered by a small generator burning alcohol distilled from rotting seaweed, the one resource of which there was little local shortage. He was tall and shambling and hairy. His name was dull thud, and he took this opportunity to haul himself out from behind the tiny mixing desk. “Ah'm goin' tae get some air,” he grunted to Open Mic Mike, who gave him a thumbs-up before resuming his methodical programme of half-time macking on the laydees.

Apple juice in hand, thud hunkered down on the back step, listening to the waves lap against the harbour wall and taking deep chilly lungfuls of fog. Somewhere deep inside, his psychic tapeworm chuckled to herself.

“What's funny?” asked thud.

~~Oh, nothing.~~ Cressida's voice chimed in his head. ~~But it's a strange old life, isn't it?~~

“Tis that. Any one aspect in particular?”

~~Who'd ever have thought we would wind up here? I mean...~~

She didn't bother to finish the sentence. Life before the Meadow had been a whirl of garage rock bands, supervillains, falling great distances without injury, the transmutation of objects into things that rhymed with them, sustained liver abuse and finally a desperate dash across much of the northern hemisphere evading their own vivisection. But now... both were surprised how at home they felt here. Exactly which twists and turns had brought them to the Meadow, and how long ago, neither could quite recall. But no matter.

thud swirled the juice and ice around his glass. “Tell ye what though. I was surprised when yon whole ZOXXON thing blew over.”

~~It certainly was big-hearted of them to give up all their claims on me as their intellectual property.~~

“Just out of the blue like that, aye. Who says multinational energy corporations have to be ruthless and cut-throat?”

~~And when we finally went back to Parodopolis, everyone was so nice about it, you know? I thought disappearing without a word might have put a few noses out of joint, but they were really understanding.~~

“That had been my worry. But here we are, you with your career writing modestly popular Regency romances under the name Phyllis Meldrum...”

~~...and you with a fulfilling creative outlet in compiling your 100 Buildings To Jump Off Before You Die. Not to mention embracing a macrobiotic lifestyle.~~

thud raised his glass in appley salute. “What can I say? My body is a temple.”

~~To be honest, I can't remember a time we were ever so at peace with the world.~~

It was at this point that thud became aware of a figure by his elbow. He turned to find a pinstriped office drone with a clipboard. The stranger's face was grey and puffy; his voice was smooth and oily. “Do I have the pleasure of addressing Mister dull thud?” He didn't wait for an answer. “I do hope you'll forgive my intrusion.”

“Nae bother pal,” said thud warily. “Just engaging in a wee bit taking stock.”

“Jolly good! So how are you enjoying your Happy Ending™?”

“Fine so far, aye.”

Cressida cut in. ~~Wait,~~ she sent. ~~Was that happy ending, or Happy Endingâ„¢?~~

The stranger assumed a professional smile. “The lady Cressida. It's an honour. Madam, sir, I represent Shashboot Cordoba Metaphysical Holdings. You are currently experiencing one of our range of Afterlife Solutions.”

~~Our what? Your what? Afterlife?~~

thud scrambled to his feet. “Are you saying we're dead?”

“No! Goodness no! You're alive and well. That's the issue. Were you dead, you'd have full rights of occupancy. Rather, you have been... parked. Your narrative simply came to a halt and the Powers that Be needed a parallel space to keep you ticking over, as it were.”

It's difficult to share a look of bewilderment with someone lodged deep inside your lower intestine.

“This particular Happy Ending™,” he continued, “is one of several acquired yesterday by Shashboot Cordoba following their leveraged buyout of Associated Nirvanae.” A look of distaste crossed his face. “Associated were sitting on a potential goldmine here - but then they always did have a weakness for cases such as yours. We, however, run a tight ship! This leaflet will explain everything. Your statutory rights are unaffected, though the same cannot be guaranteed for your status quo. Take also this claim slip.”

“Wait,” said thud, “I'm lost. What's this for?”

~~I think we're being evicted.~~

The stranger waved his clipboard. “Shashboot Cordoba hereby exercises its rights of ownership over this area of unreal estate. We cannot be held accountable for any plotline resolution, personal growth, coming to terms with It All or any other form of closure which upon return to your original reality is discovered not to have taken place.” Then he vanished.

thud stood looking at the leaflet in his hand without really seeing it. “Cress,” he growled, “did we just get it stuck to us by The Man?”

~~Perhaps,~~ she admitted. ~~And you know all of those good things that happened recently?~~

“Aw, for f - ”

The bottom dropped out of the world.

And this time dull thud wasn't hurtling towards the foot of a major landmark, nor throwing himself onto Canadian Nightmare's head, nor even dropping towards Jock's Burn where he'd first learned to plummet years before, but down past Happy Endings™ stacked one atop the other like some infinite tower of narrative lay-bys. Here and there he glimpsed dimly familiar faces, passing faster and faster until they became nothing but a blur. He continued to accelerate through the sound barrier, through the relativity barrier, through the reality barrier…

He landed with a bump.

He looked around. They lay in the gutter of a street they recognised at once.

~~There's no place like home,~~ said Cressida.