Beneath the streets of London are several stations of the London Underground that are no longer in use. Some were never completed, some were found redundant due to changing patterns of demand, and one, Mornington Crescent, was reopened after many years of closure. But there is one that will never, ever be brought back into service: British Museum. Far below even the lowest and most secret of the basement levels of the institution for which it is named, rumours have surrounded it since its construction in 1900. Its sudden closure in 1933 has never been satisfactorily explained.

In 1976, the Swiss artist H. R. Giger visited London, with a view to seeing some of these “ghost stations”, as they are called. Colleagues in the London art world arranged an introduction to London Transport, who provided a guide, one Henry Cottonwood, a long-serving member of staff who had worked at some of these stations when they were still in use.

Cottonwood found Giger a disturbing individual, but with good grace showed him around Down Street, Trafalgar, and others. But on their final foray, to British Museum, something happened of which he would never speak. Following an episode of “nervous exhaustion” he took early retirement, and refused ever again to travel on the Underground.

Three years later, the first “Alien” film came out, whose eponymous monster and its hideous life cycle were famously designed by Giger. When Cottonwood caught sight of an advertising poster, witnesses said that he screamed, “They’ve escaped!” and fled headlong into the traffic. He was fatally run over.

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A shorter version of this story appears at Lawrence Simon’s 100 Word Challenge for 1 January, 2023.

Image: DALL·E, prompted with
“The British Museum underground station, painted by Giger.”

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Once upon a time there were two farmers, Mr Sudgeon and Mr Dudgeon. Their farms lay next to each other, separated by a well-worn cart track. Come harvest time, they sent their produce out to markets in the nearby towns. Both of them used the common track, but it was narrow, and it would happen from time to time that their heavily laden carts met and could not pass.

They were stubborn men and neither would yield, and they would even come to blows. Being stout and hearty, each as strong as the other, their altercations might leave the road blocked to everyone else wishing to pass, for half a day. Neither man would agree to widen the track, for each insisted that the other must lose a cart-width strip of land from his own farm.

It came to pass at church one Sunday, that the spirit of the Lord moved each to perceive the folly of their situation, yet still they could not see their way to a solution. So they spoke together and decided to ask some wise person to advise them. But all of the villagers and townsfolk that they knew would favour one or the other of them, depending on who they did more business with, and they bethought who might settle their argument without favour to either.

At last Mr Sudgeon suggested Judge Gruthvensborough^[1], “for,” he said, “ he sits at the head of the court that gives justice to all the county, and will have no reason to favour either of us.” Mr Dudgeon agreed, although, he warned, “Surely this is too small a matter for someone so high to involve himself.” Mr Sudgeon replied, “Let us wear our best clothes, and invite him to lunch at his favorite inn to discuss a confidential matter. This will put him in a good mood, and a lunch costs less than a lawyer.”

They did as they thus planned, and explained their predicament. Judge Gruthvensborough, full of steak and good wine, laughed and said, “This is a small matter, that I might dismiss out of hand. And as each of you has given as good as he has got in your fights, you have no cause of action against each other that could be tried in court. A penalty for breaching the peace would leave the situation unresolved. But I will give you my judgement at once, here and now, providing that you both agree to abide by it, whatsoever it may be.”

Seeing no other possibility of resolving this matter, they readily agreed.

Judge Gruthvensborough pronounced, “Because of your great obstinacies in refusing to give up a single inch of your land, each of you shall surrender a full cart-width to make up a new path at your own expense, one on each side of the old. Let the earth removed to level the new paths be piled on the old to divide the two from each other, and grass and hedge let to grow there. And all who use this road in either direction shall take the left-hand path.”

And so it was done, and that was the invention of the dual carriageway.

Sudgeon and Dudgeon thereafter became great friends, and two better men you never did see.

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[1] Pronounced “Groby”.

Image location.

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The Inventions of Pizza

I

Pizza is not popular in China, and imported Western pizza chains have met with indifferent success. This is despite the fact that pizza was first invented there, more than two thousand years ago, during the Qin dynasty. It was eaten by all classes of society, high and low, and every village would have its own communal pizza oven and characteristic recipes.

But one day, at a great state banquet, one of the guests suddenly picked up his pizza and flung it, frisbee style, at the Emperor. The circular blade concealed inside by a treasonous cook decapitated him.

Pizzas were henceforth banned throughout the Middle Kingdom, pizza ovens and recipes were destroyed, and the very word was expunged from the language.

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II

Once upon a time there was a baker. His genius was not content to bake the same loaves every day, and he experimented with every conceivable method of baking bread, and baking every foodstuff into it: aubergine bread, sardine bread, pistachio marzipan bread.

Once, he had a surplus of unsold bread, that would go stale. He broke it up and baked it into a new batch, creating the renowned “pane del pane”, or “bread bread”.

His greatest invention was to bake a layer of cheese onto a flatbread, and embed therein a variety of vegetables and meat. A fad for this novelty swept through his city, which thereafter gave its name to the dish: Pisa.

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Shorter versions of these stories first appeared on Laurence Simon’s 100 Word Story Weekly Challenge.

404: A Christmas Story

Marley’s web pages were dead: to begin with. No sooner had Scrooge returned from the funeral than he had deleted every page of Marley’s “blog”, for which he had begrudged every kilobyte.

But that night he awoke from uneasy sleep to find a ghostly figure in his bedroom chanting “404! 404!”

“You don’t exist,” said Scrooge testily. “You’re that piece of cheese I had for supper.”

But the figure only said, “Come!” and Scrooge found himself compelled to follow as it drew him beyond the walls of his house and across the earth.

“The Library of Alexandria!” it declared, and Scrooge found himself amidst its burning. “404!”

“Plays and poetry!” retorted Scrooge. “Stuff and nonsense!”

It spoke again, “The archives of the Medici Bank!” and Scrooge was surrounded by workmen carting away stacks of old ledgers as waste paper. “404!”

Scrooge shivered with fear.

Finally, it said, “Ebenezer Scrooge!” and there was nothing but “404! 404! 404!” and Scrooge awoke.

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Darwinium

Darwinium was accidentally created in the search for stable superheavy elements. Its atomic number is 288, and it has at least fifty isotopes with half-lives of more than a microsecond. That may seem a short duration, but in its brief life it is able to catalyse the combination of ordinary heavy elements to form more darwinium and other superheavy darwinides whose properties vary in many ways, and which can induce each other's transmutation or disintegration. The resulting intense process of natural selection, with upwards of 100,000 generations per second, has resulted in the rapid creation of entirely new forms of matter, faster than human understanding can keep pace with.

Fortunately, it has not yet evolved the ability to digest any of the lighter elements. The few samples in existence have been isolated in aluminium containers, within which the finite resources cause the evolution to eventually peter out. The samples now appear to be quiescent, but there is no known way of destroying them. They have been able to absorb all the high-energy particles we have bombarded them with.

Theoretical calculations suggest that the introduction of as little of 1 gram of the heaviest ordinary elements might allow darwinide to evolve the ability to digest every element down to hydrogen. Some argue that it is our moral duty to release the darwinide so that it may progress to transmute the entire planet and beyond into new life-forms beyond our imagination.

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Querkleyhew

The querkleyhew (Querculus arrigiosus) is the pride of the tree-lined avenues of London. It sheds its boughs wherever they extend more than a few yards from the trunk, and at a certain height, the upthrusting members terminate themselves similarly. The exposed wounds heal into lumpy nodules that host nitrogen-fixing bacteria. It is the only tree known to do this. Every spring it grows clusters of thin shoots from these terminations, shedding them in autumn.

The nodules exude resins which are harvested for use in incense. In former times they were also, by the mediaeval doctrine of signatures, favoured as a salve for amputees. The shoots would be gathered by basketmakers and woven into charms against wounds in battle.

The uninformed mistake this curious habit of growth for over-zealous pruning.

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Image: Querkleyhews on London streets, not far from the Tate Britain gallery.

Tant con je vivrai

Grey fingers of dawn opened the sky. Dew lifted from grass into drifting mist. The body of a man, three crossbow bolts protruding from his armour.

More bodies, hundreds, scattered over the meadow.

One lay against a tree. He gasped and opened his eyes, grimacing as his hand tightened on his sword. A body lay across his leg, too heavy to shift. 

"As long as I shall live..." he began. He paused, drew breath again. "My right hand shall defend thee."

"As long as I shall live, our love shall live."

"As long—"

Above the silent battlefield, the crows began to arrive.

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This was inspired by the song “Tant con je vivrai” (“As long as I shall live”) by Adam de la Halle. The song is about something completely different, but the cold performance linked here fits the mood.

The story has also appeared on Laurence Simon’s Weekly Challenge.

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Image credit: Gunnar Lundström, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

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Watch

Medjool the Watcher stands at the Gate of the World. The centuries crowd there, eager for admittance. But Medjool decides.

In Aegypt, Medjool let a handful of centuries play for three thousand years, then let newer centuries sweep them away. In the Southern Continent, Medjool allowed a single century forty millennia, then banished it to the void.

The centuries come so fast now, that each brings some new wonder into the world. Some say that Medjool no longer stands watch, and the centuries press through the Gate pell-mell. Surely the Fûm is upon us, the chaotic end of all things.

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Furrow

The scholar-cleric with his furrowed brow
That labours long to pierce the ancients’ thought
Whose learning’s but a library of scrolls
And never once the truth of things has sought;
Who reads one argument and sets it by
Another passage arguing against,
Then other fragments brings from other books
And writes a new work patch’d from all the old,
Yet never steps outside to see the things
Of which these authors wrote—such dullards all
Know nothing of entangling with the Real:
Such is the only road to knowledge sure.

Better to make one observation new
Than endlessly debate about the True.

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Wait

“Americano and a croissant,” I said. The barista started working her arcane magic with the espresso machine. Then the telephone rang behind the counter. She listened a while, then replied, “Well, you need to speak to Sue about that, although if I was you I’d leave it until— no, don't bother Steve, he'll just say no, but if Sue isn’t in today ... yes, I see what you’re saying, but then it would have to go through Julia in Accounts, but it’s not really her job, and the supplier was really annoyed that they couldn't handle it last week, so if I was you...” and I stopped listening.

The espresso machine hissed and popped and clicked and shut down. The coffee began to cool. The sun set and rose and set again. I fainted from hunger and thirst. My corpse mouldered and was eaten by feral cats. Civilisation fell. An asteroid impact brought on an ice age. Humanity devolved into bands of apes roaming the tropical tundra. After untold aeons the climate warmed again. Intelligence was once more kindled. The new humans invented fire, agriculture, metallurgy, science. Civilisation rose. Coffee was rediscovered, and cafes and espresso machines reinvented.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” said the barista. “Have an extra stamp on your discount card.”

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Dug

“Dug” is the past tense of the noun “dog”. Something which was a dog, but is so no longer, is now a dug. An example is canine transmissible venereal tumour, which used to be a dog, but is now a cancer of dogs.

The much subjunctive mood of “dog” is “doge”. So amaze.

The ipsapudessive case is “dougal”, but although this has a theoretical existence, there is no situation in which it is correct to use it. This is the significance of Dougal’s name in “The Magic Roundabout”.

The superlative counterfactual is “dragon”.

The affirmative mood is “dig”. A dig is something that certainly is a dog.

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Partner

None fare well in the Queue who queue alone. One must have a partner, to hold one’s place if one steps out for a moment, and you will do the same for them, allies in the Great Wait. And when you grow old and infirm in the Queue, to support each other, and if it comes to it, drop out of the Queue a while for their sake, supporting them even if you must lose a hundred places, or a thousand.

For greater love hath no man than this, that he lose his place in the Queue for a friend.

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Rain

God, what was I supposed to do with the giant lizards? No way would they fit on board. And about the unicorns, sorry, but after forty days and forty nights we’d run out of food. Tasted of horse, if you want to know. You ask me, we’re better off without. Wicked temper and a big dagger on their heads.

If you want them, why don’t you just make some more? You can’t, can you? Well, well, how are the mighty fallen. Created all of this in six days and now you can’t do any more than piss on us all.

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Image credit: Phabolais, a build by Squonk Levenque in Second life, June 2016.

27%

After global warming, the oxygen crisis. We learned in school that the atmosphere’s 21% oxygen, right? Twenty years ago it was. It’s 22 now. So old folks get to breathe a little easier, nothing wrong with that? At 24%, you can’t fight city fires. At 26, you see long-term health damage: blindness, strokes.

No-one knows why it’s happening. Humanity’s grown so big, everything we do bumps up against something, like Alice in the White Rabbit’s house, but we still know almost nothing about how the world works.

At 27%, it’s the end. All the vegetation will burn until it’s gone.

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Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction, including the imaginary science.
Any resemblance to actual facts is coincidental.

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Image credit: Cameron Strandberg, 2009

Adult

I love adult entertainment. Intellectual conversation over a dinner of impeccable good taste, with incidental music from a baroque chamber ensemble. Philosophical lectures delivered to enquiring minds. Performances of the latest improvised conceptions of an up and coming young pianist. A private opening at an art gallery, for a select group of connoisseurs. A stroll through one of the great museums of the world, accompanied by a fellow expert on some singular piece of history.

But judging by the garish flashing neon sign, and the ladies standing alluringly within the red-lit doorway, I don’t think that’s what this establishment offers.

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This piece also appeared in Crap Mariner's 100 Word Challenge, January 2019.

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Concert for flute with Frederick the Great in Sanssouci

Adolph von Menzel  (1815–1905)

Source: Wikipedia

Social Media

If on a hot summer evening in Japan, you lean out of the window of your stifling apartment, often you will hear a whistle-humming like that of high-voltage electricity pylons. But it is actually millions of insects, all calling to each other.

And if on that hot summer evening in Japan, you lean out and hear only the distant silence of the city, and you jingle a bunch of keys, the insects will call back to the ultrasonic rustle, and then call back to each other, and they will keep going all night, calling to each other because they are calling to each other.

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May 1998. A street in the old merchants' quarter, Nara.

A fragment

On a Sunday, by the sea
My last girlfriend said to me...

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Sharp

“Sharper on table 4,” said my colleague. He showed me a replay. “You can't see anything,” he said, “but something’s off, I can smell it.”

The cameras run at 200 frames per second, and I had to single-step to see it. Dealing from the bottom, under the top, peeking at the corners, faster than the eye could see.

Faster than human fingers could move.

“Android or just bioenhanced, we’ll need a SWAT team to handle this one if he doesn’t leave quietly,” I said.

Sometimes I think we should give up and let anything sit at a poker table. They did that in sports years ago.

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Le Morte d’Arthur

(abridged)

There was a knight of Arthur’s band
Who did great deeds by strength of hand
But no wise would he be content
Till Guinevere lay in his tent.

Disloyalty was his downfall
Without which he had had else all.
“If only I had Guinevere”
Quoth he, “There’s nought else I hold dear.”
But all men know how that turned out
In Caxton’s book of Arthur’s Morte.

If Lancelot had not been false
Then things had not come to this pass.
But even in the courts of kings
Man’s fatal defect evil brings
And that’s why we can’t have nice things.

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This story also appears in Crap Mariner’s 100 Word Weekly Challenge.

Endings

It has been told how when the gods were young, they created the Universe, and the Multiverse, and Man, and how they amused themselves with their creation.

Man came and passed, and his existence was as the briefest, tiniest spark of light in the vastness of his Multiverse, which was but a single grain of sand amongst the things that the gods would create, each vaster and more magnificent than what came before, things whose name alone would take a thousand years to say.

But at last, the gods themselves grew old.

“All that we can do, we have done,” lamented one.

“All that can be, has been,” said another.

But the god who in the beginning had studied what was, before the gods, remained silent.

And so they came to an end.

*   *   *

“Look, how pretty!” said the little girl. She pointed at a jewel that had grown overnight on the tree.

“Yes,” said the Gardener. “It is perfect.”

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A shorter version of this story will appear, or has appeared,

on Crap Mariner’s 100 Word Story Challenge.