SCIENCE FICTION
After years of humans questioning whether they’re out there, it turns out the aliens found us a long time ago, and we’re actually all part of a big human zoo. That’s what some scientists are claiming, anyway.
When I was homeless, sometimes I wished I could have escaped. Only sometimes? It depends on the definition of escape. For the most part while I was on the road, I tried to make the best of whatever I had. The squat became almost an unofficial social drop-in centre for wayward teens and the police alike.
There were many good times, and time spent on the streets brings you into contact with all kinds of humanity. Only once did I try to escape using ‘The Drop’: A crude construction two of us rigged up, with a ladder and some electrical cable. A miscalculation of cable length vs. distance to floor ratio, only resulted in an epic hanging fail on my part. There was much mirth afterwards as it happened: A celebration of failure.
The 25 stories in The Perpetuity of Memory were written in many different places, both physical and personal: Psychological horror when I myself was terrified, and the odd bit of whimsy, when I was comfortable enough in my surroundings to forget things and escape for a while. Master Yehudi’s Flying Circus is one such tale.
Many of my stories cross over into others, and while Master Yehudi was inspired by Paul Auster’s Mr Vertigo, he crops up in a different incarnation in Of Mice and Boys in 1984, from my second anthology, The Unfinished Literary Agency.
MASTER YEHUDI’S FLYING CIRCUS
Master Yehudi could walk on water, and he could fly. He could travel through time and space, in the blink of an eye. Today, Master Yehudi’s Flying Circus was coming to the village.
No-one knew what to expect. Master Yehudi himself was a mystery. His circus and stories of his miracles were folklore and fairy tales, to all but the village elders. According to them, the show would usually arrive with less than a day’s notice, and only remain in one place for a matter of hours.
The flyers heralding the arrival of the circus had appeared overnight, crudely pasted onto walls around the village, advertising what could have been a Victorian circus sideshow, or a 1950s drive-in movie. Large red letters on a yellow background proclaimed:
STRANGE BEINGS FROM ANOTHER WORLD!
MASTER YEHUDI PRESENTS:
THE INCREDIBLE FLOATING ELEPHANT GIRLS!
Underneath were comic book pictures, of Dali-esque elephants, floating in a blue-grey sky above a desert.
The village was busier than usual. Hardly surprising, considering the expectation. All of village life was laid out under an ultramarine sky. The farmer had brought cheese, butter and livestock. The farmer’s wife milked cows and filled small wooden cups with warm milk for the children. The butcher and fishmonger were serving up hot food from a barbecue. The baker had made extra bread, and was doing a brisk trade as families set out picnic blankets on the green in front of the ale house. The innkeeper and his wife served beer and wine, while a string quartet of one family’s children provided the music on sitar, harpsichord, lute and harp.
Everyone wore their best clothes, parents pleading with children to try to keep clean, at least until the visitors had left. Local businesses, some rivals, competed to attract the most custom from the captive audience. Villagers skilled in different crafts set out their stalls, selling elephant girl knitted dolls, sculptures made from wood and clay, drawings and paintings. One enterprising soul was selling the incredible floating elephant girls themselves, his sign shouting:
ADOPT YOUR OWN INCREDIBLE FLOATING ELEPHANT GIRL!
Housewives scrubbed their doorsteps, as though expecting the mysterious Master Yehudi to cross their thresholds. The menfolk mainly strutted, preened, and compared themselves to their neighbours. The mayor surveyed all, as he patrolled with the sheriff and his deputy. Behind them were local councillors from various political groups, jostling for the best space from which to witness the coming spectacle. A small group of protesters had gathered on the green, their hand-written placards held aloft:
LIBERATE THE SLAVES!
THEY ARE NOT FREAKS!
BY BEING HERE, YOU ARE ENCOURAGING THEIR EXPLOITATION!
A lone counter-protester’s banner read simply:
GO HOME!
Mixed youth factions milled around, maintaining an uneasy tolerance to be able to witness something greater than themselves. Purveyors of narcotics traded their wares, under the knowing and receptive noses of the law.
The Creationists and The Atheistic Church had both laid out their stalls, and had a sort of preach-rap burn going on:
“The elephant girls are proof of God’s creation on other planets.”
“The bible says that God created only this planet. The elephant girls are proof that he doesn’t exist.”
And so on.
The general murmur of conversation on the green, punctuated by the occasional raising of voices in protest or merriment, gradually became softer, as a new sound slipped into the arena: a low hum, pierced at regular intervals by a rasping, hissing sound. As the background talk faded, the sound grew louder. The humming became more defined, sounding like helicopters. The hissing grew deeper, like a steam locomotive. But the source of the noise remained unseen. The assembled villagers gazed at the sky; clear, but for the sun and a few thin lines of cloud, like chalk marks on a pool table. The blue sky darkened, taking on an orange hue, then began to ripple like an ocean, as a dark shape materialised and partially obscured the sun.
The object moved gradually, with a whop, whop, shoosh, eventually becoming stationary beneath a spotlight sun. The new arrival was around one hundred yards from the closest observers, and a similar distance above ground. It was about the size of a stable block for four horses. Just as gradually as it had moved horizontally, the object then began to descend, the whop, whop, shoosh rhythm joined by an expelling of air as it touched down.
The main body of the ship – for it seemed logical to assume it to be some form of transport – was made from wood: not constructed of wood, but carved from a single piece. Apertures of various sizes afforded a glimpse of inner workings made of metal: cogs, pistons, chains…It was like a piece of alien driftwood, driven by clockwork and powered ashore by steam.
At the top of the craft were two pairs of spiral rotors, like apple peel and seemingly made of parchment or hide, stretched over wooden frames. Da Vinci’s drawings of flying craft made reality. On each corner of the roof stood a copper chimney, puffing steam as the workings of the machine below them continued to operate. The curious moved closer, while the apprehensive remained behind, and the fearful fled.
“Gather round everyone,” a voice from within the craft requested. “Don’t be alarmed. The creatures I bring to show you today are harmless. They are contained, so they pose no threat to you. In fact, their containment is for their own protection and survival, for it mimics the conditions which they are used to at home. My name is Yehudi. I am a traveller. On my travels, I collect many strange objects and creatures. I like to share my discoveries, and today my travelling show brings you the floating elephant girls.”
The rotors on the roof of the structure began to rotate faster and the soft beat of the steaming chimneys grew louder. Through the portholes, the inner workings of the machine became more urgent, then the front of Master Yehudi’s Circus sprang apart, like wooden shutters hastily thrown open on a hot day.
Behind the wooden doors was a glass-fronted wooden tank. It contained no water, yet the creatures inside seemed to be floating. The curious grew more curious still and approached the tank. Some of the occupants of the tank moved closer to the glass front. Now only a few feet away, the creatures in the tank were around the size of a rat. Instead of fur, they were covered in a wrinkled grey skin: they did indeed resemble miniature elephants. They had large ears, which they flapped gently to move around inside the tank. Instead of pachyderm features, the creatures had simian faces: eyes, nose and mouth, like those of the great apes. Some of the mouths were animated, as though breathing the water which was absent from the tank. As one elephant-ape moved its lips, others watched, then some copied: were they talking?
As the villagers grew more fascinated, some moved still closer to the tank. A small group of the elephant girls also moved closer to the glass. They weren’t tethered and floating. They had long, thin legs, like the elephants Salvador Dali painted. One of the village children rushed toward the glass. All eyes on the other side fixed on the child.
“Stop. Please do not alarm them.” Master Yehudi’s disembodied voice came from the circus ship again. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Children. These are the elephant girls. As you can now see, they do not float but they appear to, on their impossibly thin legs. Their legs look they should snap under the weight of their bodies and indeed, in your atmosphere, they would. The atmosphere where these come from, is so thick a collection of gases, that it is almost liquid. The elephant girls swim in the atmosphere of their own world, which I have recreated for them here. I regret that on this occasion, we are pushed for time as we have many places to visit. As such, I’m afraid I shall not be able to entertain questions.”
The circus ship closed its doors and the apple peel propellers span faster, until the travelling show steamed off like a train, panting impatiently to get to its next stop.
Master Yehudi stood up and approached the tank. “So children, that was Earth. I told you it was a curious place and one worthy of visiting only briefly. Humans are an interesting species, are they not? Well, now you can tell your parents that you actually saw some. Where would you like to go next?”
© Steve Laker, 2016.
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Delirium Tremens 