The crate is encrusted with angry stickers; the bits of original labelling that MacGuffin can read say “Ap it r in.” Its presence in his office is an engineered marvel, given that its bulk is a good two feet wider than the door in any direction. Its footprint is also larger than the available floorspace when his desk is in place, which is perhaps why someone has thoughtfully moved said desk onto the window-washer’s platform creaking back and forth outside.
“Beagle,” he says, “have I won or lost some sort of contest?”
His secretary, with utter absorption, files his nails.
Ape, with Tangerine arrives in London with tags marking it as passenger luggage from the nonexistent China Moon. An overenthusiastic cargo master misdirects it onto a train bound for Cornwall. Before reaching that destination it is seized, marked as salvage, fraudulently claimed, transferred, seized again, rejected, quarantined and finally shelved in the physical equivalent of “I’ll think about that on Tuesday:” a warehouse in tax distraint. All this before the statue is even uncrated.
It is not until the complex and unhappy responsibilities befalling one Mr. P. F. MacGuffin cause him to retrieve Ape, with Tangerine that our story properly begins.
of entry. These are indicated by a series of glyphs, like so: *** Work on the text has proceeded slowly. Humans are, after all, accustomed to narratives with a beginning and an end, however arbitrary; even our systems of measuring circles (degrees, radians, longitude) assume a zero point for reference.*
* One may recall here the debate over ordinality in year-naming circa the millennium. For his commentary then, and consultation now, we are deeply indebted to—though surely his name will be redacted—one Mr. D******. The key theory we are bringing to bear is that the text is cyclical, with multiple
It’s so far in the future that the sun glows red, like a dying incandescent bulb, they might say, if light bulbs still existed. Instead they use glowworms on sticks or something.
They still speak English.
“Life on Earth is extremely full of despair,” observes Helgrin, riding his camel-bat. “Indeed, I wonder if there is any symbol of renewal or rebirth to be found.”
Meace gasps. “Look! A single green shoot, coiling hesitantly up from the scorched soil!”
But evil raiders with black hoods are menacing the leaf!
“I’d stop them,” sighs Helgrin, “but what’s the use of fighting fatalism?”
“This is going to be awful,” says Hedda, chewing her lip.
“What? Why?”
“She’s about to get off the plane and we’ll be sparring inside five minutes and I’ll lose, because I’m the protagonist–”
“Everybody thinks they’re the protagonist–”
“–And this scene has to illustrate our driving tension,” Hedda says. “And I hate it! I just want to see my mom.”
“So change the story.” Jens nods. “There’s a machine right over there.”
Hedda blinks. “Oh. Okay!”
So she walks over to the storybox, swipes her credit card and makes everything fine, which I just want to say is total bullshit.
Radiane is breathless and pale outside the headmaster’s door when they emerge.
“Ah, Miss Theodorakis,” he says. “Did you need something?”
She hands him a note.
“Withdrawn?” says the headmaster. “Hold on here, Mrs. Macnair.”
“What?” says Proserpina’s mother.
“It’s notarized,” says Radiane, her eyes never leaving Proserpina’s face. You have betrayed me, they say. I can’t do this alone. I took everything you gave me and it isn’t enough and I’ll kill you, don’t go–
Proserpina’s eyes are silent.
“Your daughter,” says the headmaster, “is being removed from this school.”
“By whom!”
“My husband,” says Proserpina, quietly and at last.