Part LXXII - ARCHITECTURAL ARTICHOKES

Moon Runner turned to Roger. "Have you any ideas?"

"Yeah, I think Jeffrey Chaucer was plaigerising a guy named Willie, and I think there's something real strange about the phone number for Term Night Realtors, and I think The Flatulent Fellows are just a flash in the pan compared to Arglbargl's Armpit Orchestra. Why?"

"I mean about how to get down."

"Oh..."

Just then, a cocktail waitress approached the group from down the hall, carrying a tray of h'ordeurves. She offered them all a cigarette.

Music man scrunched his face and commented, "But we haven't even had sex!"

"And we're not gonna, Shorty. Do you want the cigarette or not?"

"What about the h'ordeurves?" questioned Roger.

"You want to smoke h'ordeurves? You guys are weird!" and she wandered back down the hall from which she came and disappeared through a door labeled "INFIRMARY."

Roger scratched his head. "They must have thrown something weird in the water. I wish I could unload this place."

Down below, the front door opened. "Hello, Roger?" Amber's voice floated up. "Are you here?"

"Oh God. Up here!"

Amber looked up. "Where?"

The four of them waved.

"Where? All I see is reflected light."

"That's refracted."

"Reflected, refracted, you can refrigerate it for all I care, it all looks the same to me, anyway, I'm here because Hooke, Klein, and Sinclair want to buy the house off you, given the current mortgage rates..."

"Uh, Amber, that's great, but could we discuss it face to face?"

"Luv to, babe, but you're way up there."

"Bright one, eh Kimo Sabe?"

"Tell me 'bout it. Stay right there, I just have to find a way down."

"You don't even know the way around your own house?"

"Uh... never mind." Roger looked about, and decided to follow the waitress. As Roger turned around, he saw what looked to be a man, but instead of a normal head, he had a giant radish with eyes, nose and a mouth. His clothes were dripping with Jell-o and his face was stricken with terror.

"My god, someone really hit him with the horror stick!" Music Man quickly expounded. "But I digress."

The Man or vegetable or whatever approached the group and dropped to his knees, stuttering, "Th-Th-The woman is-ss-s c-c-crazy!!!"

Roger looked at Moon Runner. "If I lived here long enough, I would be too."

"Which woman?" asked Wanderer.

"The one in th-th-the Jell-o!"

"Gee, I've never had a problem with women in Jell-o... What could she have done?" wondered Music Man.

"She's armed to th-th-the teeth!"

"That would make it hard to eat, Kimo Sabe."

"It would make it hard to eat any Japanese dish." said Wanderer.

Roger looked at them like they were from Pluto.

"What?" asked Moon Runner. "I was trying to be humourous."

"I was trying to be international," said Wanderer.

"I'm trying to be insane," said Roger. "And succeeding admirably without your help."

The radish man put his hands on his hips. "Yo, I'm over here."

They turned to him, and he started gibbering again.

"Where is this woman?" asked Wanderer.

"Sh-Sh-She's at the end of this hall and down to the right th-th-three doors."

"Tell you what... Go through that door marked `INFIRMARY' and they'll fix you up with a cigarette," explained Roger.

"Thanks a lot!" and with that, the radish head slimed his way to the door that the cocktail waitress had exited through.

"Fine, let's get outta here," said Roger. "This way." He walked off, then noticed there were no footsteps behind him. "Hey, you guys co..."

He was back in the Library.

Moon Runner and Music Man followed Roger into a fog bank and made a withdrawal. "So, Moon Runner, what do you think gives with this house?"

"I think it's smoking giggle weed."

"Maybe. But maybe it's a warp in the space time continuum, like on Star Trip. Maybe it's a tesseract, like Robert Hindbrain said. Or maybe there's a couple of idiots with nothing to do just writing this whole thing down and laughing themselves silly at the funny things that happen to us as they concoct their sadistic plots to drive innocent people nutty. What do you think?"

A voice with an English accent said, from out of the fog, "I don't know, old chap, I'm just looking for a Lady of the Night." A black-coated man walked past him, carrying a machete and a Motorola beeper.

Music Man turned, looked after his passage, then shook his head.

Wanderer started after the others but slipped on a patch of Jell-o. And fell

fell

fell into a giant vat of Brill Creme. Also floating in the Brill Creme was Mae West.

"Did I tell you to come down and see me sometime?"

"Uhh, I don't think so."

"Then you won't be needing these!" Mae West lunged through Brill and through Creme to cut Wanderer's eyes out with a rusty cerated grapefruit spoon. Wanderer dunked and tickled Mae West as she passed over head. She convulsed, sending waves through the space time continuum.

"Captain, sensor's indicate temporal anomalies in Ten Threewords," said Mister Woof.

Amber waited and waited, then wandered into the kitchen for a snack, and got into a long discussion on quantum physics with the head hunter she found playing solo checkers in the corner.

Roger grabbed a book at random off the shelves, entitled, The End of Cumquats as we Know Them. "Oh well, so much for that idea..."

"What, Salad?" asked Locke.

"No, chaotic organization."

"Hardly the end, my boy. Chaotic organization is the past, present, and future of everything. Discarding it is irrelevant."

"Sure. You ever tried that argument in court?"

"No."

"I thought so."

"Why would I bother? That's the basis for court."

"Wonderful. Remind me never to go there."

"But you have to. Everyone goes to court. It's the meaning of labour relations."

"What?"

"Gesundheit."

"Never mind."

"Never have."

Roger wandered off. "I hope I'm getting rent from all these idiots."

Moon Runner crawled up the hole into the bathroom, followed by a very large cat. He scrambled through the door and pulled a wad of catnip out of his jacket, flinging it behind him. After a few thousand hallways, he was pretty sure he'd lost kitty.

"If my ancestors could see me now," he muttered.

Moon Runner was confronted by a large door, with wooden panels and a riveted steel frame. Feeling somewhat compelled, Moon Runner opened the door. He walked into the countryside where a fat man stood wearing a white lab coat smeared with several colours of paint in brush strokes that were obviously forged; Moon knew the six year old they were supposed to have been made by, and the kid had a much more focused idea of art. A beret was firmly placed on the man's head, and he stared with elation at a large metal structure that looked like it had been recently erected. Moon Runner walked up beside him and stood for a moment. He looked at the fat man, then back at the metal structure. They both stared for quite sometime, Moon Runner with a slight edge of confusion and the fat man with a grin of supreme accomplishment. Then Moon Runner spoke to pose the question that still baffles the great thinkers today.

"What is it?"

A quiver of insult passed over the fat man's face. "Don't you know?"

"...No, Kimo Sabe."

Looking a bit more like his very being had been mortally shattered, "It's a steel replica of an artichoke! Can't you see it?"

Moon runner turned his head to the side like a dog when you give it a command that just doesn't register. He looked over at the fat man and realized that he was so hurt that he might pee on the spot. Looking back at the metal structure, he squinted and said, "Ahh... so it is."

"Isn't it wonderful!" The pride and elation swirled back into him immediately.

"Sure... but why, Kimo Sabe?"

"It's an artichoke! Not some Japanese finger food!"

"Yes, but why build it?"

The fat man became very serious and looked around the country side, possibly to assure himself that no one was hiding in the great empty expanse behind a blade of grass, or perhaps he honestly had a concern about someone hearing what he had to say in confidence to Moon Runner, or perhaps he was just paranoid. What ever it was, the fat man seemed assured that no one else was within the ten mile radius of the grass hill that could be seen clearly and he leaned forward to speak to Moon Runner in a quiet tone as he might have been afraid that his voice would carry ten miles to the edges of his visibility on the grassy hill and be overheard by a muskrat that already died at the hands of Gwar, or maybe he didn't want to spit on Moon Runner in his exclamations, or maybe his back was sore, causing him to hunch a bit, but for whatever reason, the fat man was much closer to Moon Runner than he ever was before, and Moon Runner could smell the onions and chocolate sprinkles on his breath. With a brief moment of silence, the man finally spoke to Moon Runner.

"It's those damn Canadians! They thought they could build a giant apple in the tundra outside of Belleville, and damnit... They did. Then, those bloody Americans made a cracked bell an icon of Liberty. Think of it! Shoddy workmanship stands for the American Way! In China, they built a huge wall across a deserted stretch of land to keep the mice from populating too much of the country, but they never built a wall to control their own population. The Russians built the Kremlin with all sorts of beautiful colour and architecture, only to have photographers restricted to taking black and white pictures of it. The Central Americans took a perfectly natural rock formation and turned it into an ancient haven for alien monks that slaughtered themselves to try and stop the sunspots, though they didn't know it was the sun spots they were trying stop, and without knowing that if they had just left each other well enough alone and worn Ray Bans, they'd still be here today. Thus, I had to give France an icon that would carry it into the 25th century. This is the masterpiece! This is the giant steel artichoke that people will be flocking from all over the world to see! This is going to put France on the map for steel icons of liberty and population control!"

"What about the Eifel Tower?" inquired Moon Runner.

The fat man turned his head and spat on the ground. " It is a rusting phallic symbol (or is that Gallic symbol) of a past ideology that no longer exists. This is the future of France's stake in the global icon game."

"Liberty and population control, you say, Kimo Sabe?"

"Yes. This artichoke is the heart of liberty to the agricultural nations, and eating a lot of them will dull a persons sex drive to near seclusion."

"You don't say, Kimo Sabe?"

"But I do say artichoke."

"Gesundheit."

They stared at the steel structure for a while longer in silence. Moon Runner then turned and went back through the door into the hallway, shaking his head. Closing the door behind him, Moon Runner wondered if there was any way of marking it to keep everyone else from being subjected to that bozo.

Wanderer grabbed the grapefruit spoon and errupted from the Brill Creme with a mighty gasp. The fumes almost killed him. Mae West tried to finish the job by kicking him in the crotch; fortunately, she missed, and kicked the Slidoff vessel, which had been cloaked, into the manhole beside Shallow Space 6.66. Wanderer dragged them to the side of the pool and threw the grape fruit spoon into the dish washer. "Y'give?"

"What do you want?"

"A map out of here."

"Why? The ladder's over there."

"Everyone's a comedienne." Wanderer climbed out

into the depths of the Amazon.

Music Man knocked on a door. A thin man smoking a pipe poked his head out. "ello?"

"Yes, I was wondering if you know where we are."

"No, no, I try to avoid that. Are you selling latex desk lamps?"

"Ah, no."

"Good, because I don't want any this millisecond. You might want to try the Amazon Bar down the street, they seem to know what time it is."

"I don't care about the time, I want the place."

"Sure, you can have it for a question."

"What?"

"Sold. Although I must say that wasn't particularly imaginative." The man handed Music Man a deed, put on a hat, and disappeared into the fog. The Deed said `21 Baker Street.'

"Great, now someone's going to want me to solve a mystery."

Someone tapped him on the shoulder.

Roger tapped King Arthur on the shoulder. "Excuse me, your highness, do you know where the entrance is?"

"The entrance to what, pray tell?"

"The house."

"We're in a house?"

"Ah, never mind."

"Never did."

"Heard it." Roger considered asking Genghis Khan, but he seemed to be preoccupied with 'Real Motorcycle Mechanics Don't Work in Spaghetti Houses'.

Your Telephone rang in Roger's pocket. This struck him as odd, since he figured he would have noticed the cord by now. He reached in and pulled out the ear piece, then the big wooden box with the mouth piece. "Hello?"

"Roger, where are you?!" screamed Amber. "I've been waiting forever!"

"What, did you get caught in a time loop?"

"It's a figure of speech, you moron."

"Oh, yeah. Anyway, I'm in the library, and I'm trying to find a way to you..."

"That's easy, go to the south end, climb under the card catalogue, make a left at the ski hill, cut through the casino into the twenty third deck of the baseball stadium, shimmy around the grand canyon, then parachute out of the bomber. That is, unless you want to take the hard way."

"That's the easy way?!"

"No, but all the rest will take a really long time, and I'm on a schedule here."

"I'm sure you are."

"Don't get sarcastic with me, Mister know-it-all-Graduate-Student. I'm here to... what am I here for?"

"Ask a philosopher, I still get lost in my own house. Anyway, I'll be there soon."

Wanderer never knew how close he came to being pirhanna bait.

Raquel and the Pheonix were tired of water skiing, so they took a street car the rest of the way to Joneseytown, which was just beyond the wall to...

"Nice do, Kimo Sabe."

Woof glared and pulled out his Fuzzer. "You are fortunate this an Incorporated vessel. On a Slidoff vessel, you would be dead."

"I'll remember that the next time I walk through a TV. Have you any hash?"

"What?"

"I want you to find the Maltese Gum Drop," the large purple man said again to Music Man. "I'm willing to pay you a King's ransom."

"Which King?"

"The one that first made your friend's house."

"Ah. That explains a great deal of nothing in particular. So what's your name?"

"Rufus."

"Rufus?"

"Rufus."

As the fateful third Rufus was spoken in succession, which had never occurred before within the known universe, it summoned the unknown universe right on to the doorstep of 21 Baker Street. They were now a party to the first aircraft built by the Maybe brothers. It was a rather large, bulky craft, hewn from granite with large, gaping holes in the wings and a massive propeller that must have weighed seven tons and didn't appear to be able to make a complete turn without hitting the ground. It was covered with carvings in the shape of finger nails.

Music Man and Rufus stood in awe at the state of 1000BC aircraft technology. Wandering over to the Maybe brothers, Music Man was curious.

"Nice Statue."

One of the Maybe brothers popped his head out of the cockpit with a hammer and chisel in hand and covered from head to toe in granite dust. "It's not a blasted statue you little twerp."

"Oh. You weren't going to fly this thing, were you?"

"Well of course, you shrimpy idjit!"

Music man looked over at Rufus and then back at the Maybe brother or was it the Iffy brother; he wasn't sure now. "But why is it made out of stone?"

"Don't you know - we're stone masons you stupid fool."

"Oh. I thought you were supposed to be free masons"

"That's only if they elect the loony Lincoln character."

"Right. Have either of you seen a Maltese Gum Drop?"

The second brother broke through the top in a cloud of dust. "Now that'cha mention it, we gots dis silly thing." He threw down a chewy sugar Winnebago.

Music Man turned to Rufus. "That it?"

"My God! No! It's its exact twin!"

"How can you tell?"

"Because it looks just the same."

"No, I mean how can you tell it isn't the right one?"

"Well, it looks, the same, so it must be the twin."

"Oh, Rufus, Rufus, Rufus... holy shit, where am I now?"

"That's my line," said the Phoenix.

They were on a street car named Macluhanism, headed up an endless hill in no particular hurry. Raquel was asleep in Phoenix's feathers.

"Well, where are we?"

"Headed up Mt. Whatsit, looking for Moon Runner Hendrix."

"Oh. Y'know, you're the first concise person I've run into in a... long time."

"Thanks. Who're you?"

"Music Man. I hang out with Moon Runner. Usually."

"Rather convenient you popping out of nowhere then, wasn't it?"

"I guess. I've been popping all over this screwy house for the past while."

"You too? We haven't been popping, unfortunately; we've been slogging through it the hard way."

"I should have taken the hard way," Roger muttered as he strapped on a parachute.

"Where is that moron?" asked Amber.

"Don't know," said the floor tiles. Then they burped, having eaten the head hunter a moment before. Amber didn't appear concerned.

The Kitten finished the catnip and crawled back down into the drains.

The Dark One snickered.

"What are you snickering at?" asked a Voice.

"I'm going to have all the blood on the planet Balldrip! Right here in this ugly palace. What do you think of that Balldrip?"

Balldrip looked up at Lovely Lumpy Linda Lonely, "It will be an ugly mess. Won't it? Please say it will."

"Only if we don't pull up at the exact second upon re-entry," screamed the Nameless One Jr. to the GEM OF KARNATH (some standing music) as their ship plunged into Earth's atmosphere.

"Who cares about exact seconds?" asked the van's ABS system. "We'll stop eventually."

"So that's the rationale behind Chaos Theory?" Wanderer asked the Anaconda.

"I think so. I should ask my cousin; his owner Albert is always jabbering on about this shit."

"Okay, I'll go with that for now. So how do I get out of the jungle?"

"Ask for a door."

"What?"

"No, a door. Stupid humans."

Wanderer frowned, and said, "Can I have a Door?"

A massive oak door fell on his left shoulder. When he got up, wondering how many broken bones he had, he feebly tried to open it.

He found himself on a foggy street. Above him was a sign that said "Amazon Club."

"You vant a what?" Guido asked.

"An Amazon Club sandwich, Kimo Sabe."

"Nevah hoid of it."

"Never mind."

"Never did."

"Heard it." Moon Runner turned and wandered into a super-charged-lift, that took him to

"Bowling for Hedgehogs, the new game show sweeping the country." The country had other things in mind, since being swept by a hedgehog isn't exactly fun. Moon Runner took a cue from his name, and ended up...

In the Sea of Tranquility.

Roger landed on the stained glass portion of the roof. "Jeeze, I wish people wouldn't whack off up here." Roger rolled as Wanderer rubbed his shoulder as Music Man Twiddled his thumbs as the Phoenix bent his toe as the Maybe brothers took off as Raquel sneezed from the feathers she was sleeping on as Moon Runner scrambled for an air tank as Rufus stared in amazement as Nameless One Jr and the GEM plummeted as the kitten licked it's fur as the radish head ran away from the cocktail waitress as Amber got up to leave as Linda poured another bowl of blood into the anteroom and with this violent cataclysm of simultaneous motion... not much was achieved.

Roger pulled off the parachute and looked down from the roof. "Great. Just about where I started." He thought a bit (he was good at this, being a Graduate Student), and hit on an idea. He tied the belt of the parachute to the eaves trough and climbed down the ropes to...

About three stories from the ground.

"Great. Now what?"

"Roger, what are you doing up there?" Amber asked.

"Oh, just hanging around. I landed on the roof."

"That was smart."

"Hey, it was my first time skydiving."

"Sure. Get down here."

"How? Ooops, SHIIIIIIT!"

Roger made a seven point landing on the shrubs. "Jesus Simpson, that hurt!" Roger slowly rose to his feet again and dusted himself off. Removing some leaves and twigs from his hair and the folds in his clothes, he looked at Amber. It might have been the lump on his head or that Roger hadn't been with a woman since second year of undergrad studies or it might have been that he hadn't paid for sex since his grade thirteen biology exam, but whatever it was, Roger was in love.

"Y'know, CWBorysowich, there really aren't any smart people in this story."

"There's us." KDAmery's partner said hopefully.

For the Sea of Tranquility, Moon Runner found it to be anything but tranquil. Of course, that could have been because his lungs were about to explode, along with his eyeballs. He might have tried his Kiss the Sky trick, except there was no air to say it in, and no one to hear in any case. Death hadn't bothered him especially before, but the idea of exploding in the Sea of Tranquility didn't seem like a very spiritual way to go. It just didn't turn his crank.

"Should I let it happen?" asked the Dark One.

"What?" asked a Voice.

"Hold their necks still, you twad!" screamed Linda at Balldrip, while Queen Elizabeth looked in through the third story window.

"Hey guys," said Bob the Quantum Mechanic, "What if we try the Observer Based Reality system?"

Niels and Beepo looked at each other. "Why not?"

"Okay. What shall we observe?"

"Several dozen pornos?"

"Sounds good."

"Give me my noose."

"Oh no you don't, Beepo. And lay off the OJ. Let's see, think bodies... Holy SHIT!"

Moon Runner crashed to the pavement, unconscious.

Niels said, "That wasn't the body I was observing."

Beepo scrambled for a razor blade, as Bob lunged to rescue the X-Acto knife from Beepo's grasp.

"Give the man some air," screamed Niels.

"We seem to be trapped in a weird flux of the time continuum space," claimed Bob.

"What?"

"I said that the space time continuum is fucked," screamed Music Man over the roar of the street car.

"Tell me about it, we've been in every corner of the Earth in this stupid house and still haven't found Moon Runner," reported Raquel.

"Where did you get that microphone?" asked Phoenix.

"Shut up, you silly bird, I just want to find Moon Runner."

"Who?"

"Moon Runner... Moon Runner can you hear me?" asked Niels

"What?"

"I said should I let it happen?"

"Too late, he's back at those stables."

"What? How the... Did you do that?"

"Did who do what?"

"AAAaaarrrrrghhhhhhh!"

"Don't scream," said the GEM OF KARNATH (totally pointless music drowned out by purplish cheetahs in Siberia) as Nameless One Jr. pulled back on the control stick.

"Why not?" asked Raquel.

"I told you, I'd like to hear out of both ears," said Pheonix. "Besides, we found his buddy, so how far away can Moon Runner be?"

"Knowing this house, it could be anywhere," said Roger as he and Amber searched for her hand bag.

"But," said Voice, "since nobody knows the house, it can't be anywhere."

"Does that mean it's nowhere or somewhere?"

"Who are you talking to?"