The Tellmenow Isitsöornot

Rhys Hughes seems almost the sum of our planet's literature... As well as being drunk on language and wild imagery, he is also sober on the essentials of thought… He's as tricky as his own characters... He toys with convention. He makes the metaphysical political, the personal incredible and the comic hints at subtle pain. Few living fictioneers approach this chef's sardonic confections, certainly not in English. — MICHAEL MOORCOCK

It’s a crime that Rhys Hughes is not as widely known as Italo Calvino and other writers of that stature. Brilliantly written and conceived, Hughes’ fiction has few parallels anywhere in the world. In some alternate universe with a better sense of justice, his work triumphantly parades across all bestseller lists. — JEFF VANDERMEER

Quirky and fantastic and sometimes quite twisted, Rhys Hughes is a treat for those in the mood for something utterly different. — ELLEN DATLOW

Hughes' world is a magical one, and his language is the most magical thing of all. — T.E.D. KLEIN

Rhys Hughes is an accomplished player with words, plots, effects, relationships, sensibilities; you name it, Hughes tries to stand it on its head. More often than seems attributable to mere chance, he succeeds. — ED BRYANT, LOCUS

The

Tellmenow Isitsöornot

A collection of 100 stories

by

Rhys Hughes

Published By Gloomy Seahorse Press at Smashwords

Copyright 2011 Rhys Hughes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

The cover of this ebook was created by the artist Adele Whittle.

This is the second edition of The Tellmenow Isitsöornot and the contents have been slightly adjusted and (in my view) improved. See the very end of the book for full details, and also for a special offer on one of my other Smashwords ebooks.

"Having had occasion, lately, in the course of some Oriental investigations, to consult the Tellmenow Isitsoornot, a work which (like the Zohar of Simeon Jochaides) is scarcely known at all, even in Europe; and which has never been quoted, to my knowledge, by any American — if we except, perhaps, the author of the Curiosities of American Literature; — having had occasion, I say, to turn over some pages of the first-mentioned very remarkable work, I was not a little astonished to discover that the literary world has hitherto been strangely in error…"

EDGAR ALLAN POE, The Thousand-and-Second Tale of Scheherazade

Table of Contents:

Author’s Foreword

A Little Light Darkness

Romance with Capsicum

The Doom Doctors

The Skeleton of Contention

The Strongest Monster

Oddments and Leftovers

Fables of Yearning

The Early Worm Outwits the Bird

Author’s Afterword

Author’s Foreword

The stories that follow are a mixed bunch. Many are very short; most tend to come from the early days of my writing career, but ‘early’ is a relative term. I began the composition of short stories when I was 14 years old, way back in 1981, three decades ago, and I have continued writing ever since. For many years I never submitted anything for publication; I simply didn’t know where I should send my material. The first story I wrote was called ‘The Journey of Mountain Hawk’ and it was quickly followed by dozens, hundreds of others. I have no idea how many I wrote in total.

Those juvenile tales are all lost, though I have reused titles and plots and my memory of some of them is fairly clear. Then in 1989 I began again from scratch, but this time I took greater care to preserve my work, to add each new tale to a growing list that soon turned into a story cycle in which every piece was linked to every other. When starting again from scratch it is wise to be aware of the exact nature of the itch.

The truth is that I can’t stop writing; and yet I have set myself a goal of creating 1000 stories, one (or perhaps two) short of Scheherazade, and then stopping for good. My current estimate is that the whole grand project will be completed in the year 2026. Let’s see!

Little of what I wrote before 1989 exists; the most substantial relic being the opening of ‘The Indigo Casbah’ which dates from my student days, 1986, a year of sombre daydreaming (that tale is included in my book, The Brothel Creeper). Such questions of chronology probably don’t interest anyone else as much as me; nonetheless I have dated each story that appears here. As I have already stated, there’s a bias towards earlier work, stuff from the 1990s, when I was no more naïve than I am now.

For the record, my oldest surviving complete tale dates from August 1989 and is entitled ‘Raindancing’. It can be found in this e-book collection, as can my first published story, ‘An Ideal Vocation’, which I wrote at least twice, in 1988 and then again in 1991. I lost the first version, a common problem with me. I always seem to be rewriting lost tales. ‘An Ideal Vocation’ was inspired by the short pieces of Kafka; I was moved by his nightmarish, coolly intense tone. When I saw the printed version of my tale, I was irked to be confronted with a text that was rife with typographical errors; for reasons known only to themselves, the editors had tried to alter the tense of my story but had done an incomplete job, so the end result veered alarmingly through time. In short it resembled the breakfast of a small dog.

And yet that first published tale opened the floodgates inside me. I began writing more feverishly and sending my work remorselessly to publishers, to little magazines, to shady editors who knocked up a publication on a kitchen table and sold it via mail order to about 150 subscribers. Eventually I had my first book published; but before then I put together a chapbook, a sample of fourteen pieces in pamphlet shape. That chapbook was called Romance With Capsicum and is now much sought after by collectors. It was issued in 1995 by the extremely obscure Wyrd Press. It is included here in slightly different form. Other chapbooks followed, including The Skeleton of Contention, also issued by an obscure press in a tiny print run.

So I have arranged the following tales into eight sections and each section corresponds to a chapbook, though none of those exist in print apart from the two I have just mentioned. Most of these stories appeared in publications so flimsy and ephemeral that it can hardly be asserted that they were ‘published’ at all. Others have never been published. Rather than keeping them in a box for the rest of my life I have decided they deserve an airing. If they wither as a result of the exposure, I offer my apologies!

A Little Light Darkness

Three Friends

The three friends were mountain climbers who had trekked to the roof of the world. They had encountered many dangers on the way and each had taken it in turns to plunge down a crevasse. Bound together by ropes as well as friendship, it seemed they had all escaped death by the narrowest of margins. One by one, they had praised their luck and had agreed that teamwork was wonderful.

After the end of one particularly difficult day, as the crimson sun impaled itself on the needle peaks of the horizon, the three friends set up their tent on a narrow ledge. The first friend, who had survived the first crevasse, boiled tea on his portable stove and lit his pipe. Stretching his legs out as far as the ledge would allow, he blew a smoke ring and said:

The wind whistles past this mountain like the voice of a ghost, shrill as dead leaves. The icy rock feels like the hand of a very aged corpse. Those lonely clouds far away have taken the form of winged demons. Everything reminds me of the region beyond the grave. I suggest that we all tell ghost stories, to pass the time. I’ll go first, if you like.

Huddling closer to the stove, the first friend peered at the other two with eyes like black sequins. "This happened to me a long time ago. I was climbing in Austria and had rented a small hunting lodge high in the mountains. Unfortunately, I managed to break my leg on my very first climb and had to rest in the lodge until a doctor could be summoned. Because of a freak snowstorm that same evening, it turned out that I was stuck there for a whole week. The lodge had only one bed. My guide, a local climber, slept on the floor.

Every night, as my fever grew worse, I would ask my guide to fetch me a drink of water from the well outside the lodge. He always seemed reluctant to do this, but would eventually return with a jug of red wine. I was far too delirious to wonder at this and always drank the contents right down. At the end of the week, when my fever broke, I asked him why he gave me wine rather than water from the well. Shuddering, he replied that the ‘wine’ had come from the well. I afterwards learned that the original owner of the lodge had cut his wife’s throat and had disposed of her body in the obvious way…

The first friend shrugged and admitted that his was a very inconclusive sort of ghost tale, but insisted that it was true nonetheless. He sucked on his pipe and poured three mugs of tea. Far below, the last avalanche of the day rumbled through the twilight. The second friend, who had survived the second crevasse, accepted a mug and nodded solemnly to himself. He seemed completely wrapped up in his own thoughts. Finally, he said:

"I too have a ghost story, and mine is true as well. It happened when I was a student in London. I lived in a house where another student had bled to death after cutting off his fingers in his heroic attempt to make his first cucumber sandwich. I kept finding the fingers in the most unlikely places. They turned up in the fridge, in the bed, even in the pockets of my trousers. One evening, my girlfriend started giggling. We were sitting on the sofa listening to music and I asked her what was wrong. She replied that I ought to stop tickling her. Needless to say, my hands were on my lap.

I consulted all sorts of people to help me with the problem. One kindly old priest came to exorcise the house. I set up mousetraps in the kitchen. But nothing seemed to work. The fingers kept appearing on the carpet, behind books on the bookshelf, in my soup. I grew more and more despondent and reluctantly considered moving. Suddenly, in a dream, the solution came to me! It was a neat solution, and it worked. It was very simple, actually. I bought a cat…

The second friend smiled and sipped his tea. Both he and the first friend gazed across at the third friend. The third friend seemed remote and abstracted. He stared out into the limitless dark. In the light from the stove, he appeared pale and unhealthy. He refused the mug that the first friend offered him.

The first two friends urged him to tell a tale, but he shook his head. Come on, they said, you must have at least one ghost story to tell. Everybody has at least one. With a deep, heavy sigh, the third friend finally confessed that he did. The first two friends rubbed their hands in delight. They insisted, however, that it had to be true.

Oh, it’s true all right, replied the third friend, and it’s easily told. But you might regret hearing it. Especially when you consider that we are stuck on this ledge together for the rest of the night. When the first two friends laughed at this, he raised a hand for silence and began to speak. His words should have been as cold as a glacier and as ponderous, but instead they were casual and tinged with a trace of irony. He said simply:

I didn’t survive the third crevasse.

(1993)

Death of an English Teacher

We stood on the crumbling road and howled at the storm. When lightning tore the clouds apart, we threw back our heads and laughed. When icy buttons of hail clattered about our ears, we stamped them to dissolution.

The road curved around the hillside and down into the night. Our machines lay on their sides, headlights piercing the gloom. Before us, the railings sang in the wind. Far below, the village was in darkness.

Reeves flapped his arms against the chill and grinned. We were not alone. He pointed to a figure struggling to keep its balance in the gale.

Look! Isn’t that Mrs Robinson?

Indeed so. I nodded benignly and flexed my joints. My parched leathers steamed and creaked. The frosty rime on my shoulders glittered like the dandruff of a giant.

I wonder what she’s doing here?

I shrugged. Same as us, probably. I rolled my eyes and poked out my hideous rasher of a tongue. Watching the storm…

She doesn’t look too happy about it though.

No, I agreed facetiously. She looks old, haggard. Depraved might be the right word. Or is it deprived?

Dishevelled, Reeves corrected. She was never a decadent. Poetry for her was never a gamble. She abhorred those who cast their words onto the baize of the experimental. She tolerated only those who stored their lyrics in a Savings Account. Safe and reliable. Cowper, Tennyson, Wordsworth. Certainly no Baudelaire, Rilke, Ginsberg. Not even the Lord whose club-foot she shares.

Deus misereatur! I intoned, breaking the seal of another bottle and taking a long draught. She is indeed very ugly.

Not to be outdone Reeves added: Quis tumidum guttur miratur in Alpibus?

I wiped my mouth with my sleeve and gazed at the pitiful object of our discussion. My heart, what was left of it, went out to her. I recalled classroom bungles, frolics in the storeroom.

Yet an English teacher with a conscience, I said.

Of course. A shaving from the hardwood plank of honesty. As firm in colour and texture as the original, but curled up tight like a spring. Reeves scowled, evidently dissatisfied with the simile.

Foetus, I suggested, but Reeves shook his head. I tried again: The spiral path of a falling leaf in autumn.

Falling? Yes, she appears to have lost her footing. The road there is very slippery. Here we are more sheltered from the fury. Soon I shall even attempt to roll a cigarette.

I finished the last of my drink and hurled the bottle far out into the void. A peal of thunder answered my insolence; an enormous belly rumble down in the valley that echoed and re-echoed, overlapping itself until it seemed that all the trolls in the gulf were banging on their gongs.

What has she been doing lately? I wondered aloud. Does she still teach? I was, in truth, not at all interested in the answer to this question, but it seemed a point useful enough to puncture the melodramatic bubble of the thunderclap. Does she still write?

A biography of Mary McGeeney, replied Reeves. By all accounts, he added quickly, to cover himself. Poor lamb.

I giggled and snorted with delight as a huge blast of wind suddenly billowed up under Mrs Robinson’s voluminous skirt and lifted her like a puppet high into the air and over the railings, letting her down on the other side. She had the presence of mind to clasp the frozen metal as she dropped and clung there, suspended over the yawning chasm.

And who, pray, is Mary McGeeney? I asked.

The biographer of Samuel Perkins. Who was the renowned author of a life of E.F. Fitzgerald. Who was the biographer of D.B. Hobson. The same Hobson, I might add, who wrote a life of Boswell. Who of course is famous for writing —

Spare me. I raised a gloved hand and glowered with suitable menace. Impatiently, I ground my heel into the ice. Lightning, I hoped, would soon pound a hole in the road near to where we stood.

Listen, Reeves said quietly. Perhaps we should offer her some help. She was, after all, my favourite teacher.

Mine also. I was astonished. But is that reason enough to aid her? Should we not, rather, let her take her chances with nature? Besides, I do not believe that she deserves our help.

Who are you to judge? Reeves demanded.

"Who am I not to judge?" I returned. My standard answer to that rotting chestnut, that tarnished gem.

Reeves smirked. Though he loved to play the Devil’s advocate, he had realised that there is a time and place for everything. I acknowledged his smirk. We adopted sombre postures and practiced rude gestures.

While we cavorted, Mrs Robinson began to lose her grip. She opened her insidious rectum of a mouth and started to scream. Her scream was a shrill and bitter thing. Down in the village, when it reached them, the cowering inhabitants crossed themselves and said, Satan is doing his rounds tonight. The little children carried their candles to bed and did not dare blow them out while they kneeled before the white-bearded God and implored him to show them mercy…

I suppose I could give her a hand, I muttered ruefully, or even more. However, I will require a good reason to do so. Personal affection is not enough.

You are impressed by her tenacity, Reeves observed. I had no choice but to admit the truth of this. Though she now held onto her insignificant life by her fingertips alone, she refused to accept her fate. The wholeness of her body, it seemed, was actually important to her.

That is correct. Yet I still require intellectual motivation. I still demand a good reason.

Reeves tapped his nose meaningfully. You still bear a grudge, he said, because she confiscated your William Burroughs and replaced it with a Jane Austen. She used your Kerouac as fuel for her pot-bellied stove and gave you a Bronte in desperate lieu.

George Eliot. I spat. Or was it Hardy? I shuddered at the memory. Weavers and windmills, merchants and mayors. I took a deep breath. I still have no adequate reason, I said coldly.

Reeves was enjoying himself. She consistently replaced all your beloved texts with conventional ones. Richardson for Robbe-Grillet, Bunyan for Borges, Nathaniel Hawthorne for Nathanael West. Do you remember?

A reason! I hissed. Where was the lightning? A bolt of electricity could solve the problem for me. The railings were wrought iron.

By all means. Reeves placed his mouth close to my ear and whispered shyly, "She made all those staid, conventional writers interesting."

I gasped. Reeves, in making this confession, had shown courage immeasurable. There were now no barriers between us. Suddenly hysterical, he cried: "Why deny it? We both know the truth. She made them enjoyable."

I smiled a thin smile. Reeves had won. I moved out from my vantage and, with a resigned step, crossed the treacherous ground towards Mrs Robinson.

I arrived at her side not a minute too soon. Somehow, she had managed to claw her way back to a relatively secure position. She blinked when she recognised me. There was unaffected joy in her eyes. I blew her a kiss in return, no longer constrained to shirk my responsibilities.

As Reeves had suggested, I gave her a hand. I prised her fingers off the railings, one by one. But I did not finish there. Determined to initiate at least part of the necessary catharsis myself, I adopted a different method for her thumbs. I used the toe of my boot.

By the time she fully understood what was happening, it was too late. She seemed to hang in space for a moment and then disappeared in a giddy spiral. Her second scream, more musical than the first, rotated away with her: a mellotron drone fading into the night.

Without talking to each other, an awkward empathy between us, we mounted our machines and followed her. But we took the long way down. As we descended in an exhilarating helix, the spiral path of a falling leaf in autumn, a foetus, a spring, I stole a glance at Reeves. He appeared to be chuckling his approval.

And in the hovels of the village, as Mrs Robinson crashed through the belfry of the local church, her second scream terminating in the dull boom of a bell, the inhabitants crossed themselves again and said, The Devil was doing his rounds tonight, but now he’s found a victim and flown off with them to the depths of Hell. And the little children blew out their candles and were glad in their hearts that Satan had not chosen them.

(1992)

Reflections of a Brass Head

I began to talk as soon as they entered the tower. To be perfectly honest, they paid little attention to my mutterings. They were more concerned with looting the treasures of the dark chambers. And yet, as their work neared completion, they began to find more time for my anecdotes.

In the evenings, they became genuinely interested in my pithy observations. We discussed politics, poetry and metallurgy. I was a well-travelled head, having sailed on ninety-nine seas and passed through as many hands before falling into the possession of my most recent master.

And where is he now? they all asked. I could not deceive them: I replied that he flew off on the back of a wyvern. They frowned at this. They did not understand why anyone living among such wonders would choose to leave.

I explained that his destination was a parallel dimension, an amplified version of familiar reality, where everything was bigger, better and brighter. They sought to deny the actuality of such a world. They thought it highly unlikely that any realm could be more magnificent than our own.

Our dreams, schemes and constructs cannot be surpassed, they argued. Their sheer scale precludes any improvement. They often cited this very tower as an example. The limits of grandeur had been reached here, they insisted: a tower carved out of a single tusk of a giant catoblepas.

Before departing, they usually discovered the wine cellars and drank themselves into a stupor. They toyed with the notion of forcing some vintage on their new friend, but I declined on the grounds of corrosion, and they did not press the point.

Tell us more about your strange master, they cried. They remained intrigued with the tale while doubting the facts. I had to oblige. My will was a very small thing, located in my long-lost torso.

The name of that world is Memirir, I said. It is a mirror image of ours, but a fabulously magnified one. My master tried everything in his power to reach it. He was not successful until an itinerant magician sold him a certain book.

And what sort of book was that?

A grimoire bound in human skin and inked with the ichor of fruit bats. It contained formulae designed to open gateways to parallel spheres. The text explained that the different dimensions intersect at various points. A number of alternative presents are accessible, Memirir among them. My master carefully studied the incantations until he found the appropriate one.

They shook their heads at this, as if to express their profound disapproval. I knew what they were thinking: they still imagined that my master was a fool to forsake the marvels of this tower.

He did not leave it unguarded, I told them, with a wink. He set a mantrap at the entrance. The trap was not intended to crush thieves, merely to hold them fast until they died of starvation.

But here they clutched their bellies and laughed, offending me so much that I was suddenly incapable of saying anything more on the subject. They did not leave me to sulk alone, however, but sat by my side, bleary eyed and happy. They assumed that my fictions had run dry.

How could I relate the whole story without a molten tear trickling down my cheek? Not only did my master abandon me but also he gave away my very own Melinda. She was my only pleasure in life. We gazed at each other for long hours and practised counterpoint together.

The itinerant magician had been blind. He had offered the book to my master because he could not appreciate its secrets himself.

There is much knowledge in that tome, he had said, but it has been useless to me since an afrit ran off with my eyes. I will gladly exchange it for the return of my orbs.

I cannot give you back your sight, replied my master, but I can offer you an animated brass head which will see for you and whisper descriptions in your ear.

And so the deal was struck and the blind magician went on his way, clutching Melinda. She began to howl dolefully at being separated from her lover and I answered her with such a discordant litany in sympathy that my master was forced to gag my mouth with imported cloth woven from the souls of drowned mariners.

And shortly afterwards, he too left me.

Slowly, over the years, I watched the treasures of the tower disappear until only the shoddy, the worm-eaten and the threadbare remained. I was a tarnished head; I could not lure with a mouth full of gold teeth or flash diamond eyes from my shadowy recess. Thus I too lingered behind.

They came then simply to hear my musings. I never tired of educating new pupils. I revealed the sound of one-hand clapping; I enlightened them on all the gravest questions mortals have conceived. I even explained the forty-seven different ways of cooking a catoblepas. Paradoxes were resolved, riddles unravelled, enigmas sprung from their boxes and paraded naked. Before their eyes.

There came a thief more thorough than the others. His cartwheels crushed the prehistoric bones that lay scattered around the tower. He had found the mazy path through the treacherous swamps with surprising ease. Perhaps he had a nose for tricks.

Naturally he was disappointed to discover that he had been preceded by so many of his fellows. Nevertheless, he took most of what was left. I tried to engage his attention with a discourse on conic sections, gyroscopes, the stars of Orion. But he seemed to have little need for such knowledge.

Yet when I mentioned parallel worlds, he raised an eyebrow and rested from his toil. Encouraged, I began to relate the adventures of my master.

On the back of a wyvern? He could not repress a giggle.

The spell summoned the beast. They flapped over rivers, bogs and bridges. They soared high over an ocean where gigantic waves crashed down on each other. They swooped through a dark forest whose trees seemed to transfix the clouds.

Such things are the norm in our land. His voice was slurred, but he was not content. Only the sour wine had been untouched. He had had to grimace to imbibe it and now his face seemed set in an expression of disgust. Trifles even.

Indeed so. But as they flew on, they reached a point where this landscape changed dramatically. The healthy towering trees became small and stunted, the jagged mountains became eroded hillocks and even the oceans became poor analogues of those he had previously seen, with waves barely capable of smashing the flimsiest caravel to driftwood.

Now that is odd, the thief admitted reluctantly.

What puzzled him most was the neat line dividing the former landscape from the latter. He tugged at his long crimson beard in deep thought. When the wyvern alighted at his own tower and flapped off again without him, he found cause for grave concern. In Memirir, his tower should have been grander than before. Instead, it was a rickety affair put together out of rotting wood.

The thief pondered over this, forming his own opinion. My master, he suggested, did indeed pass into Memirir, but instead of everything being bigger, better and brighter, it was smaller, meaner and duller.

He had mixed up the attributes of the two worlds, he explained. He was pleased with his theory. As a common reaver, he was eager to find fault with anyone of a scholarly disposition.

You are mistaken, I replied. Memirir is indeed a fabulous land, an enlarged mirror image, so to speak. However, it occurred to my master that the world he had formerly inhabited was really Memirir and that the one he now stood in was the miserable reality.

I paused to stifle a yawn and ask the thief to rub my tired eyes. He complied, though perhaps a little too roughly, and I continued:

"Stepping forward, he remembered his trap and recoiled. But it was too late. The jaws seized him. In Memirir, this trap should have snapped him like a twig. Yet he found that it could not even hold him. He was able to prize the jaws apart with very little effort.

"Inside the tower, he discovered that his brass head was a crude ornament barely able to groan. The grimoire he had used was where he had left it, but now it was a ridiculous and decadent version of the original. Most of the spells did not work and when he did finally manage to summon a wyvern to take him back home, the beast was such a lame and pathetic creature that it was incapable of bearing his weight. He was stranded.

"He understood then that it had been his counterpart in this dimension, and not himself, who had succeeded in crossing over into Memirir. As the two worlds were linked mirror images of each other, he had been forced to take his counterpart’s place in this mundane dimension. He had, in essence, duped himself.

Resolving to make the best of a bad thing, he exploited his great strength over the fragile, twisted and stunted inhabitants. Indeed, he eventually took to eating them and so gave birth to the legend of the troll.

Patiently, I waited for the thief’s reaction to my tale. I was hurt and bewildered when he denounced all brass heads as liars. I started to protest, but he silenced me with a snarl.

How could you possibly know? he cried. You did not follow your master. You remained here.

Hastily, I began another yarn, about a magician that ran off with an afrit’s ears, but he had grown bored or angry with my ceaseless monotone. He gagged my mouth with imported cloth woven from the souls of marinated merchants.

How could you possibly know? he repeated.

He cleared out everything onto his cart, leaving the tower completely bare. He saved me for last, throwing me onto the top of the pile, where I settled amongst whistling imps in jars, howling roots and dancing bones, dented somewhat by the force of impact. He promised to melt me down into ingots.

As he turned his mounts away onto the road, I gazed back at the tower with mixed feelings of regret and bitterness. I was more than a little annoyed. The evidence for my knowledge was there for all to see.

Crushed to death in a mantrap, snapped like a twig, lay the decayed corpse of the very first intruder. A painfully fragile, twisted and stunted fellow with a scraggly crimson beard.

(1992)

Be Like You

At the iron gates, he paused and closed his umbrella. The rain had turned the path to mud. The smell of damp earth was overpowering. He checked his watch and turned his gaze toward the house.

When the dark shape returned to the highest window, he moved forward. For once, he had the sensation of being followed. Obviously his mind had finally chosen to play tricks. He resisted the temptation to look back.

Reaching the house, he rang the doorbell twice and breathed deeply. The house was in the final stages of an almost vegetable decay. It seemed ready to split open at any moment and crumble to dust before his eyes.

While he waited, he relived in his mind the circumstances that had led him to his present position. It had taken a long time to summon up the courage for this final confrontation. But desire had finally tipped the scales.

Eventually, the bolts were drawn back and the door swung open.

Yes? Her voice was even more sibilant than he had imagined. Her large, soft eyes belied the cruelty of her mouth. She held aloft a lantern. He took a step closer and said:

I know exactly what you are.

She sighed and retreated into the hallway. He entered and followed her down a corridor. She led him into a study and poured him a glass of wine. The pale flame of her lantern provided the only illumination.

Oh yes? And how do you know? She stifled a yawn and rubbed her eyes. He laughed. The wine was as thick and salty as clotted blood. A foretaste of the pleasures to come?

I have been watching you for some time. He allowed a little of the wine to dribble down his chin. We often travelled through the city together. You did not see me, but I was there. I know what you are capable of.

She frowned as he touched her lightly on the arm. She pulled away with a grimace. But how did you first discover me?

He could feel an erection already stirring. He moved closer and stroked her hair. And icy thrill ran through him. I was passing one night. It happened to me the right time. I saw you leave.

Of course. She lowered her voice an octave. So what exactly do you want?

What do you think? Slowly he bent to kiss her neck. He could feel her chill breath prickling the hairs on his scalp. The musty odour of dust and roses.

She shut her eyes tight and gasped, You are mistaken. We don’t do that now. There are too many dangers. Diseases of the blood. Our kind was almost wiped out. We had to adapt.

I know. You are all vegetarians now.

Not quite. It was her turn to laugh. Let us just say that we restrict our nocturnal activities to closed circles. A simple precaution. Her laugh became a bitter sob. Don’t try to force me. I can still kill you in a dozen different ways.

He shook his head. Like you, I have taken a precaution. He reached inside his jacket and pulled out a bundle of notes. This is a copy of a manuscript I left with a friend. I told her not to open it until noon tomorrow. It’s a detailed account of all your movements. She works for a particular kind of magazine, you see.

So?

Readers may not believe in you, but they will be interested enough to investigate. They will make your life, if I can call it that, a misery. Of course, if I see my friend in the morning and tell her that I have changed my mind…

Then you leave me no choice. Lowering her gaze to the floor, she slipped off her chemise, leant forward and blew the lantern out. In the darkness, his pulse was a jungle drum and his mind raced across the red-blood sea of forbidden lusts to the island where the sun never rises.

And finally he felt her hand fall away from his own. He lurched and stumbled across the room for his lighter. He dimly perceived a silhouette by the window and then there was a sudden rush of cold air and the figure was gone.

Finding his lighter, he struck a flame. The window was open.

There was a scraping along the whole length of the roof, a crash behind him and something heavy landed on the floorboards. Slowly he looked back over his shoulder. The human face, he realised, is capable of many expressions. But not as many as some.

And now, she said, very softly, it is your turn.

It was nearly dawn when he returned to his flat. He still felt the power growing. Practice was essential, of course. He had travelled back the long way: on foot.

He began to take his key out of his pocket, but stopped short when he discovered that his door was already open. The lock had been forced.

He entered without caution. The flat was dark but not empty. He found the intruder lying in his bed. He frowned in recognition.

Laura! What are you doing here?

Fascinating story, Peter. I have already forwarded it to my editor, re-sealed naturally. I think he will like it.

You idiot! I told you not to open it before noon!

That is also what I told my editor. Don’t worry. It’s not too late for me to get it back. If you let me, that is.

What do you mean?

I read it last night. I was intrigued by your thesis. I have been following you. I could have got there before you, but there was always the chance that you were wrong. Who would have imagined that they would fall victim to a human disease?

An occupational hazard. Slowly he stretched his young limbs. But as the left hand of dawn touched the sky, sending a pallid sliver of light through a gap in the curtains, he felt suddenly very weary. Now I have what I wanted, I suppose you want the same? You should have got it off her.

You have a dirty mind. Laura licked her moist lips. What an interesting situation! When they roamed free and easy, sucking mortal blood as they pleased, they were things to be avoided. Now they have curbed their nocturnal activities, out of necessity, and we seek them out. The human condition, I suppose.

I can still kill you in a dozen different ways.

Yes, I know what you are capable of. But remember the manuscript. Your story would generate as much interest in yourself as in your new lover.

There is little time. I grow weary. But you leave me no choice.

Exactly. Laura smirked. Come now, I will say it simply. The same way you said it to her. She threw aside the sheets, exposing her lithe and sensuous body:

I want to be like you.

(1993)

Something About a Demon

Steven Karlsen had one peculiarity, and that was his inability to understand sarcasm. Because the punch at Mondaugen’s annual party had been jokingly recommended, he had helped himself liberally to the foul brew. As a consequence, he had spent five whole days wandering the streets of London in a high state of delirium.

Where he had been in that time, what he had done, he could not say. All he knew was that his pockets, once full, were now empty and that his knapsack, once empty, was now full...

As the trance finally began to wear off, he was delighted to find himself in the environs of Covent Garden. Feeling more than a little thirsty, he made his way to the Punch & Judy, hoping to prevail upon some kind stranger to buy him a drink. Entering the establishment, he had the good fortune to recognise Alan Griffiths, an old friend, sitting at a table near the door.

Adjusting his knapsack and pushing through the crowded drinkers, Steven reached his friend and promptly sat down next to him. But the friend was not pleased. He tried to hide behind his drink, holding it so close to his face that Steven thought he must be trying to climb into it head first.

Well! Steven slapped his friend on the back. What a surprise!

Alan said nothing. He continued to pour the creamy liquid down his throat. Steven found himself forced to address his friend’s oversized gullet, a particularly repulsive part of his anatomy. Fancy meeting you here, of all places!

It was inevitable. Alan slammed his glass down and wiped his lips with his sleeve. Covent Garden is the hub of the Universe and as such, all mortal souls are eventually drawn to it by its irresistible gravity.

Really? Steven blinked in surprise. I never knew that before. In that case, it is not so odd after all.

Sarcasm, Alan explained with a grimace. He lit a cigarette and blew smoke at Steven. In the half-light of the dissolute tavern, the smoke writhed like a pale and weary ghost.

You are alone? Steven glanced around into the heaving mass of humanity. I am not interrupting anything?

I’m waiting for someone, Alan replied. He spat contemptuously: The most gentle and considerate woman in the world.

Oh yes? Steven raised an eyebrow. Then I would very much like to meet her.

Alan was exasperated. Sarcasm, he growled.

Ah! Steven nodded sagely, but he was completely bewildered. I do not understand sarcasm. He lowered his gaze and twiddled his thumbs.

There was an awkward pause then. Alan cleared his throat and pretended to be absorbed in reading the back of his matchbox. Eventually, Steven summoned up the courage to ask him for a drink. If it’s not too much trouble, he added.

Of course not! Nothing would give me greater pleasure! Alan scowled with a viciousness that surprised even himself. A bottle of the best champagne, perhaps?

Oh dear, no. Steven shook his head. A lager shandy will suffice.

Alan sighed. He realised that even the bluntest sarcasm could have no effect on Steven. He decided to take advantage of the situation. Have you lost all your money then?

Used it up, Steven answered. My pockets were full five days ago, stuffed with notes, but somehow I have managed to spend them all. I dimly recall entering a succession of shops and purchasing various items. I remember nothing more. He indicated the knapsack, slung over one shoulder. They are all in here, I presume.

Tell you what, Alan suggested. If you have anything of interest, I will exchange it for this. He held up his half-empty glass and swirled the soapy contents around.

Steven licked his dry lips. Certainly. You are a good friend, Alan.

Come then. Let us see what you bought. Alan snatched Steven’s knapsack and emptied it onto the table. A torrent of mouldering junk clattered out before them. Well, it seems that you have been visiting every antique shop in the City. Antique spelt J-U-N-K.

Is it all worthless? Steven was disappointed.

Heavens, no! Rarely have I seen such a magnificent collection of fine and tasteful pieces. Alan sifted through battered brass ornaments, cracked and chipped statuettes and rusty candlesticks to pull out a broken clock, rotten frame sprouting springs. Marvellous. Superlative. Exquisite.

It is yours. Steven beamed gratefully. And take anything else you fancy.

Alan laughed. It was a gruff howl of a laugh. The clock slipped from his fingers back onto the crest of the pyramid of junk. Sarcasm, you fool! Are you completely stupid? I would not give a toenail for this mechanical analogue of horse manure!

Sarcasm? Steven scratched his head. I am sorry. I thought...

I mean, look at this! Alan held up a dusty blue bottle and waved it under Steven’s nose. What on earth possessed you to buy this?

Steven peered closer at the bottle. He blinked. He thought he glimpsed a dim and fitful shape moving in the depths of the opaque glass. He grappled with thin wisps of memory. A dark and evil-smelling antique shop down a particularly obscure alley in a part of London he had never visited before. An old man with young eyes and a white beard. An aura of menace and an arcane secret concerning the bottle. Something about a demon and a single wish?

Alan pulled the stiff cork out of the neck of the bottle and sniffed gingerly. He wrinkled up his face and retched. He closed one eye and tried to peer into the bottle. There’s something in here. I cannot quite see what it is.

If it is nothing of interest, Steven ventured, perhaps you will buy me a drink for old time’s sake?

Old time’s sake? Alan was aghast. His lower jaw began to chatter. Abruptly, it ceased and he bent forward, still clutching the bottle. What exactly do you mean?

We are friends. Steven kept his eyes on the floor. We were very good friends once. You told me that I was your best friend. You said that you admired and respected me for my intelligence, humour and compassion.

Alan curled his lips back in a snarl. Sarcasm, you fool! I was joking. I always hated you. I thought you were the most mindless cretin I ever had the misfortune to meet. And you are not going to touch a single drop of my drink!

I don’t understand sarcasm. Steven fought back tears.

At that moment, a tall, auburn-haired woman entered the tavern and, spotting Alan, made her way over to his table. Steven was impressed with her elegance as she wove through the masses, a skill that had always eluded him. She stood before them with a winsome smile and Steven instantly rose to offer his seat to her.

What time do you call this? Alan placed his foot on the