The Secret at The Centre of The Universe

Analgesia by Mirriyuula

“When space and time are curved, telling a story non-sequentially hardly matters” …….. incompetent PA editor

I walk into the Bats Droppings. It feels soft underfoot and aromatic, er, um, the pub that is. Michael the publican gives me a warm greeting “Welcome Father, pint?” “Thanks Michael, where’s that accent from?” I ask. “It’s Welsh Father. It’s a Welsh publican’s voice from the village of Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.” “Pardon!” I exclaim foolishly, “Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch” says Michael, “It means St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of white hazel near a rapid whirlpool and the Church of St. Tysilio near the red cave.” Oh for fuck sake, some people just can’t grip reality, I mean wouldn’t something like Woodville be easier on all an sundry.

There’s a poster on the wall, ‘Playing Saturday nite Dave Oarsfield, singer, songwriter, historian and anthropologist’ “So what’s this Dave guy like?” I ask Michael. “He’s good Father, plays a few tunes and will have a chat to anyone willing. Does all of the good Beatles songs” says Michael. Oh well that will take all of two minutes. “Yes, Belinda and I will have to come over, but Michael, you’re all droids aren’t you? I mean how long are we in space for? The food and stuff how do we get that?” “So many questions, so little time” jokes Michael. “Now let’s see. The ship is self-sustaining. We need to get water sometimes but virtually everything is made on board. I’ll get one of the droids to take you to the farm bio, it’s up the river. Yes, all droids last time I looked” Michael laughs heartily as he feels his crotch. I like this droid, er, um, guy.

“B, b, but?” I stutter trying to take in the enormity of it all. “Well” injects Michael “ We have evolved over millions of years. Gordon brought in the basic building blocks and programmed us to evolve into what we are today. Each generation of droid builds the next generation and so on. The droids are programmed to respond to your movements as part of the SNAP program, you know to make you feel as normal as possible.” Acronyms Jesus Christ I am sick of bloody acronyms

So after a few pints and a lot of thinking time I head back to the manor. George answers the door “Dinner will be at 1930 hrs Sir, oops Sandy. The ladies are in the sitting room”. “Wow Belinda, you look fabulous, well done Helvi” I spurt. “It’s easy when you have someone wonderful to work on Sandy” Helvi says. “Helvi?” “Yes Sandy” “Look George said before that the ship had 299 droids on board, I mean why not go the whole hog and add one more for 300?” I muse. “Well there is a 300^th droid Sandy but we left him on Earth.” Helvi replies. “Why is it so?” I ask doing my Jules impersonation. “Well, if I tell you, you must promise not to tell anyone” Belinda and I nod impulsively wanting to know more. “Well” Helvi continues “The droid is filling in for a person while that person is carrying out some very dangerous work”. “And who and what is that?” Belinda prompts. “Come close you two and I’ll whisper it to you” Helvi says as she draws us in and her eyes narrow. “It’s psst psst psst psst and he is doing psst psst psst” “What? You’re joking” I exclaim unable to control myself. “Merv is a droid and the real Merv is Malcolm Turnbull’s image consultant…..”. And so the plot thickens.

Gordon sees danger… “What’s that ? A head ?”

Initial Massage by Wirruulia

Drinking at the Bat’s Droppings is great. Michael the publican has a real larrikin streak in him and Dave the guitar man plays all my favourites, once I programmed him with my disc, Band-in-a-Droid. Michael has arranged for me to visit the tropical island bio with two of the crew, the Kipper and his mate Jilligan. They were the strangest looking droids I’d ever seen, cross dressers by the look of them. “Only takes three hours” said the Kipper while Jilligan just smiled and looked goofy.

We set off from the village. Belinda said she would go another time as her and the Helvi-tastic were going to see a chick flick at the cinema. So along with Zeb I boarded the SS Nimmow. Some of this stuff seemed so familiar it was spooky. As we headed up the river I could hear the Kipper humming a tune. “What tune is that Kipper?” I enquired. “Oh, it’s just a song I like to sing when we are out in the boat, I made it up” the Kipper replied. “Sing it for us, go on, its only us lads and the dog” I prompted. “Okay then Sandy it goes like this”.

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,

A tale of a fateful trip

That started from this village port

Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,

The Kipper brave and sure.

A passenger set sail that day

For a three hour tour, a three hour tour.

The weather started getting rough,

The tiny ship was tossed,

If not for the courage of the fearless crew

The Nimmow would be lost, the Nimmow would be lost.

The ship set ground on the shore of this, bio desert isle

With Jilligan

The Kipper too,

A bag of hair and a knife,

A muesli bar

A compressor and jerry can,

Here on Jilligan’s Isle.

Hmmm, hardly reassuring but vaguely familiar is some strange sort of way. Jilligan approaches me “Here Sandy, you and Zeb will need these”. Safety lines, what in the fuck will we need these for? “When we hit the tube it gets pretty rough and then there’s the membrane”. “The membrane?” I ask. “Yeah, the membrane holds the river water from the sea water, you know, Glad Wrap” smirks Jilligan.

As we approach the tube the current starts to accelerate. The pace of the boat quickens along with my pulse. I double check our lines and I can see the top of the tube is clear. I can see the stars as clear as a bell then suddenly, bang! The pace is electric. Waves of water pound over the bow. I am scared out of my wits. The nanobots in my jocks will be working overtime tonight. “Prepare to come about” called the Kipper. What the fuck does that mean? The ship groans under immense pressure. I hear the keel scrape against the membrane and then thump goes a pole into my head and I drop to the deck, unconscious.

I wake up on a beach. Zeb is licking my face and the SS Nimmow is prostrate up on the sand. I can smell bacon cooking and the aroma of coffee meanders through the air. The Kipper sings out “C’mon Sandy, breakfast is ready”. Breakfast,  last thing I remember was scrapping the membrane. “Sorry mate a mast broke and you got hit on the head. Henry is sending the rescue party but Belinda is dirty as you were on a promise, whatever that means, wanna see the engine?” the Kipper blurts. Engines are about as interesting as cricket but I go along with it plus the bacon sarnie and coffee is hitting the spot. “Yeah, sure, where is it?” I ask.

The Kipper takes us along a track into the island, so this is Jilligan’s Island I think to myself. The Kipper points to a tunnel. “That’s the Urethra” he bellows, not so loud mate me head hurts. “You go down the Urethra and you find the WEE”. Hang on a minute, is he having a lend of me. We enter the tunnel and it’s rather short. At the end of the tunnel is a hatch and we enter. It opens into the top section of an huge building. We must be twenty stories high. Whoa I am feeling a little wonky. At the bottom of the building is a very large white box shaped object with some indescribable objects attached to it. “That’s the WEE” says the Kipper “The Wireless Electric Engine”. He points to the attached objects and says “That’s the Gizmo and that’s the Thingy. In combination they propel the ship at very high speed”. So a gizmo and a thingy couple with the wee to go fast, oh dear, not very scientific I suppose. “This is complex fiction” I reply finding it hard to come up with anything useful to say. Looking around I see all these tubes and ladders running up and down the inside of the building. I point them out and ask what they are. “Gee Sandy, what rock have you been living under. The tubes are called Snakes and the Ladders are just that, I mean haven’t you ever heard of the transport system called Snakes and Ladders?” replies a smug Jilligan.

…….No, it was Warrigal all along … who did the digital mischief

O’Way hurtling through shallow space

Dirigible Warrigal by Mischief

So, we have been in space for weeks now. The ship can’t go very fast when it’s inside a solar system and Henry has to work hard avoiding things. There’s a tollway just the other side of Pluto and that’s where we’re heading.

Life in the village is idyllic. The crew, well the droids but we refer to them as crew now as they are so human and friendly, create a great ambience of English rural life. Mornings are taken up with breakfast in the court yard. I usually read the paper, The Intergalactic Times, which is beamed to the ships computer everyday. I don’t understand much of it but I’m learning. Belinda chats away about her plans and then her and George set off to the shops to pick up the daily groceries.

This gives me time to reflect. I was born at the Matworth Base Hospital right on change of shift which immediately put me of side with the staff. I was Chinese and my parents called me Nick, Nicolas Xavier Wong. My dad, Walter, a very wealthy man, was a watch maker and he was proud of his shop “Walter Wong’s Watches” being displayed across the front in large letters. “One day all this will be yours Nick X” he would say. My elder sister was Penny, Penny Wong. We would play for hours every day in a creek that ran past the back yard. Penny used to love to tell me “One day me and you are going to control all of this water Nick X”. My family always called me Nick X. I think it was because I didn’t look like them and couldn’t master chop sticks very well.

My dad was always looking to get richer. He used to tinker with computers and one day at a large family gathering my Dad said “You know, one day computers will communicate with each other via the phone line, the information will be broken up into packets and reassembled at the other end”. “Preposterous” came the cries and the next day men in white coats came and took my dad away. Not long after that the police arrived.  My mum was feeling bad because she missed dad and the policeman said “Mavis” that’s my mum’s name “Mavis you’ve brought home the wrong child from the hospital” “Yes, that’s right the Wong child” replied mum in her broken English. “No the wrong, wrong child” emphasised the policeman “He’s a Wong” said mum “No wrong, w.r.o.n.g. child meaning Nick isn’t yours” and so I was taken away to my new family, John and Olive O’Way.

My new parents called me Alexander Leonard Lyndhurst O’Way, yes an acronym, that’s why I hate them, and as you know, everyone calls me Sandy. My new family were poor. They didn’t eat fish and rice like the Wongs but lamb and potatoes instead. My dad was a university professor and my mum was a farmer’s daughter. This was all very different and it took me a long time to adjust.

Then I met Trevor. Trevor lived next door and loved cricket. We played cricket all day and into the night until our mum’s would come and get us. In the park on weekends the Test match was on. Me and Trev would always play on the same team, usually with Jules and MJ. On the other team were always Glenda and some of her sisters. Glenda had eight sisters Juanita, Jacinta, Melinda, Rosita, Edwina, Sophia, Cassandra and Belinda but man Glenda was awesome. She would tonk you all over the park and was a good bowler as well.

Then things changed. Trevor had to move away as his dad got a job in the mines. All the gang would come over to my house “C’mon Sandy, you’re the only one that can get Glenda out” they’d cry but to no avail. I lost my interest in cricket from that day forward.

Many years later I attended the Sow End High School for Boys with Criminal Records where I met the Bish. Billy Bishop. Billy told me a story one day about wanting to become a priest. Billy said they feed you, provide you a house and all you have to do is wear a funny gown and listen to people’s problems. So Billy and I joined up. Billy wanted to get up the ladder and moved on but running a parish was good enough for me. So that’s how I ended up at the parish of St Generic, St Generic Brand, in the good old inner west of Cyberia, pub regular at the Pigs Arms and now on a spaceship headed for the planet Joon to report on a cricket game. Work that one out.