By Rhys Hughes
TOO MANY CHARACTERS
A pig, a waffle, a box, a chump, a resentment, a caterpillar, a gift, a loom, a cuttlefish, an aurora borealis, a duvet, a chair, a sunken continent, a cup that runneth over, an ancient paradox, a snivel, a bone, a toothless cog, a piecrust, a passionate kiss, an aching thigh, a broken window, a phantom, a cat, a bathtub, a chimney clogged with twigs, a forced laugh, a chewed pencil, a beetroot stain, a vague feeling, a hovercraft, an argument, a dog, an example of jargon, a butterfly, a solecism, a grotesque fiend, a coconut shy, a confident papaya and a thousand other things had gathered together in a restaurant for a celebratory meal.
The waiter came over to their table and shook his head.
“It’s off, I’m afraid,” he told them.
“But that’s nonsense! We haven’t ordered yet!”
The waiter smiled and said, “I didn’t mean the food, I meant the moral. There’s no way you’ll make a decent fable out of this situation. There are far too many characters in the story.”
THE IMPROBABLE VELOCIPEDE
A rich and powerful madman clapped his hands and said, “See that tall mountain over there? I want you to remove it from its base and set it on two wheels; then I want you to connect the back wheel to a system of gears and pedals, so that a climber sitting on the summit of the peak can make the whole thing trundle along.”
“That’s a really big job,” people warned him.
“So what? I’m rich and powerful and I can easily afford it. Do what I say with minimal delay!”
Six months later it was ready. As the madman pedalled the mass of rock and ice along, sounding his alpenhorn at pedestrians, he chuckled to himself. “I’ve always wanted a mountain bike.”
THE SEA SERPENT AND THE ROWING BOAT
A sea serpent fell in love with a rowing boat. “I love you. Do you love me in return?” asked the sea serpent.
“Yes, I think so,” replied the rowing boat.
“Despite the enormous age difference? I mean, I’m a living fossil from the Jurassic period but you were constructed in 1959; and the trees from which you are made aren’t older than a hundred years. Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer a younger monster?”
The rowing boat dismissed her anxieties.
“Don’t be silly,” he said. “It’s my design that matters, not my building materials. And that dates back several thousand years at least. So put your mind at rest and let’s get smoochy!”
The sea serpent was happy to be formally courted by the rowing boat. Every day he brought her a little gift, usually a human being that she was able to devour in one tasty gulp.
One afternoon the rowing boat turned up with a man dressed in a frock coat and top hat. This man struggled with the oars but he wasn’t in control and had to go where the rowing boat wanted. Then the rowing boat cried out, “Look honey! A saint for you!”
The sea serpent surfaced at that point. “A saint?”
“I thought it was time we got properly engaged. That is how much I love you! It occurred to me that a saint’s halo could be used as a ring. It’s up to you whether you accept or not…”
The sea serpent examined the occupant of the boat.
“It’s a very sweet idea,” she said, “and of course I would accept. But I don’t think this fellow is a saint. He looks more like an industrialist. And he doesn’t have a halo, just a top hat.”
“He’s in disguise. His halo is beneath the hat!”
“So it is! How odd! Yum!”
THE LOST FABLE
A fable that was lost burst into tears. “I don’t belong in this collection of postmodern fripperies. I’m a decent fable, not a facile whimsy, and I was originally part of a traditional collection with real morals and everything. This Rhysop fellow has debased the form with his travesties and I want no part of his despicable project.”
A passing crow asked, “What’s the issue?”
The fable told him and the crow replied that he knew a clever earwig who could easily solve his problem.
So the fable set off on a long journey and eventually reached the cave where the earwig lived. When the earwig asked him what the matter was, the fable said, “Can you take me out of this set of facile fables and put me into Aesop’s collection instead?”
“Are you sure about that?” the earwig asked.
The fable nodded, so the earwig went to consult one of his books of magic and then he waved his legs in a special way and the fable vanished from sight. “What a strange request!” muttered the earwig to himself, as he went back to playing scales on the zither; he was learning the zither in his spare time. Why the devil not?
The fable opened its eyes and found itself wedged among dozens of used napkins and handkerchiefs. “This isn’t the middle of Aesop’s Fables! Where are the hare and the tortoise and all the other favourites? All I can see are snot rags and stained bibs!”
Across time and space floated the voice of the earwig. “The historical Aesop was a slave. He didn’t actually write down his fables. And he didn’t have enough money or opportunity to indulge any normal hobbies, so he made do with collecting bits of discarded cloth. This is the only collection Aesop ever had in his lifetime…”
“Now he tells me!” groaned the fable.
THE SCARED GHOST
There was a ghost who was scared of life. “But you’re already dead and the danger is over,” pointed out a skeleton.
“D-d-d-d-don’t tempt fate!” shivered the ghost.
“What is it exactly about life that alarms you so much?” the skeleton asked. The ghost turned elap and began…
“One moment!” cried the skeleton. “What is ‘elap’?”
“The opposite of pale,” answered the ghost. “Living men and women turn pale when they are scared; so it follows that a frightened ghost will turn elap. That’s logical, isn’t it?”
The skeleton waved a bony hand. “Fair enough. Continue.”
“I’ve forgotten what I was going to say…”
“It can’t have been important, in that case,” said the skeleton.
The ghost shrugged. “Maybe not.”
“What are you doing tonight?” asked the skeleton.
“Are you hitting on me?”
“Yes, I am. I’ve fancied you for ages.”
“As it happens, I’m free. What did you have in mind?”
“How about the cinema?”
“I don’t know. What are they showing?”
“A romance. It’s all about a man and a woman who meet on a train and fall in love and kiss each other with lips. Then they get married and dwell happily ever after in a nice house.”
The ghost recoiled. “No! I hate horror films!”
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
A ghost once used its entire deathtime’s savings to purchase a mainframe computer, to make possible the calculation of some of the parameters of the afterlife, I don’t know which ones. But after operating for many hours at a frantic pace, the device froze.
“Bother!” exclaimed the ghost. “It must be jammed on the inside. I had better find out what the trouble is.”
The ghost was the romantic partner of a skeleton and didn’t want to be the victim of sarcasm when it became obvious what a waste of money the machine had been. “I ought to try and fix it before ‘Bones’ gets back,” the ghost said to itself in desperation.
So it floated through the computer and ended up on the inside, but one of its wisps got snagged on a diode and it couldn’t get back out. When the skeleton returned from work and heard the cries for help emanating from within the mainframe, it was astonished and thought there was some deep symbolic meaning in this incident.
“I didn’t know computers had souls!” it gasped.
DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY
An antibody met a germ and said, “How do you do? I am very happy to make your acquaintance. Would you like a cup of tea? May I fetch you a small cake? If you require anything to improve your comfort, please let me know and I’ll do my best to provide it. I like your colour, shape and other physical characteristics. You are cool. You are grand. What a fine germ you are! I admire you so much.”
“Well, that reaction wasn’t what I was expecting!” cried the germ. “I came here to infect this bloodstream, but I don’t think I’ll do that now. I am too charmed by your kind words.”
“It’s a new style of resistance and I’m glad it seems to work. It’s called diplomatic immunity,” said the antibody.
TURNING THE OTHER CHEEK
A monkey that had more than two cheeks on its face was sprawled on the ground when a clever sage who knew everything there is to know about religion, philosophy and ethics happened to pass by. “Why do you look so sad and angry?” the sage enquired.
“I imagine it’s because I keep getting insulted,” said the monkey, “on account of my utterly freakish visage.”
“And that’s why you are lying in the dirt, is it?”
“Yes, I’m prone with hairy despair.”
The sage snorted and answered, “Whenever someone hurts you, turn the other cheek. That’s all you need to do. Try it and you’ll go far, believe me. I’m a sage and full of wisdom.”
The monkey considered his advice.
“Fair enough, I will,” he said.
And because he needed the practice, he started turning the other cheek immediately; but because he had so many of them, and because they went right around his head, he began rolling along the ground. He went faster and faster as he kept turning them, accelerating like a horizontal tornado that stank of banana juice and peanuts.
Soon he had vanished over the horizon. The sage smiled.
“I said he’d go far, didn’t I?”
GOOSE WRITING ADVICE
“Hey, what are you doing?” cried a goose as it waddled past a man who was brushing tar all over the manuscript of an unpublished book. “Why are you coating that tome with the sticky thick residue of the petroleum industry? That is peculiar behaviour!”
“I’m pitching my new novel,” came the answer.
“You fool!” cackled the goose. “You’re supposed to proofread it, not waterproof it. But the real issue is that you’re supposed to pitch the idea to a publisher first, not the actual book.”
“Pitch the idea?” frowned the man.
“That’s the way it is usually done,” confirmed the goose.
“But the idea is contained in the manuscript, embodied by the prose I have employed to tell the story that occurs, so by pitching the book I am also pitching the idea within, aren’t I?”
“You employed prose? What wages did you pay it?”
“Don’t try to be hilarious, bird!”
The goose said, “Well, pitching a novel is no use if the idea is smeared over and thus can’t be appreciated.”
The man considered this. “I see your point. Luckily the idea still exists in my head. I keep a copy there. So if I pitch my head, but leave a gap so the idea can still be viewed from outside, I’ll stand a better chance of my novel being published. Is that right?”
“Yes. It works for me,” replied the goose.
So the man began coating his head with tar and eventually only one of his ears jutted out from the black mess.
THE GLOVE
“I wish I could fly!” sighed a glove. “It’s true that I enjoy surfing waves; but waves only occur when the person who waves me lifts their hand and makes a gesture meaning hello or goodbye. Flying is surely superior to surfing or any other activity. I wish I knew the secret of rising into the air and staying there.”
“I’ll teach you to fly,” offered a hot-air balloon who happened to be drifting past. And he did exactly that. He showed the glove how to fill itself with hydrogen gas and seal itself at the wrist. Away flew the glove and thanks to a bizarre meteorological phenomenon involving the lower atmosphere acting like a magnifying lens, the flying item of handy fashion appeared much bigger than it really was, dominating the whole sky. You know what they say:
¶ Glove is in the air: everywhere you look around.
EDUCATED SHAPES
A myopic triangle that had gone to university to study economics became friendly with a segment and one day said, “Will you come dancing with me tonight? Then maybe we could go for a walk in the moonlight. I like you very much, to be perfectly candid.”
The segment blushed. “I must reject your amorous proposal for the simple reason that we’re not compatible.”
“What do you mean? We are both young triangles.”
The segment shook its head. “I’m not. You must be very shortsighted indeed. One of my sides is curved. I’m a segment, part of a circle. In fact I came to university in the first place to graduate as a complete circle, but it’s taking a very long time, I’m afraid.”
“Pardon my mistake!” cried the mortified triangle.
“I have been at this university for a hundred years already,” sighed the segment, “and I probably won’t leave for another century or two. I have studied so many subjects I feel sick!”
“But why can’t you graduate sooner than that?”
The segment answered sadly, “Because to become a proper accredited circle I require exactly 360 degrees.”
Rhys Hughes has lived in many countries. He graduated as an engineer but currently works as a tutor of mathematics. Since his first book was published in 1995 he has had fifty other books published and his work has been translated into ten languages.
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