The Fez Journeys On by L. T. Hewitt
“Most people are getting ready to go to the good universities like Dogsbridge or Llamafoot,” Clint and Clein’s mother justified.
Krakennorm’s studies also suggested the university argument was quite a popular one.
“Yes, mum, we’re going to uni.”
“I told you not to use sarcasm on me,” she said sternly.
“We’re sorry; we thought you might have been being sarcastic at the time.”
The twins’ mother was dumbstruck and stopped to ponder how one can ever be certain all others are not being sarcastic, during which time Clint and Clein shuffled closer to the door.
The children’s father entered the room, drinking a cup of tea. He looked the same as Clint and Clein, except he wore glasses and had a similar, though slightly less extreme, stuck-up hairstyle. He was in his late forties. He said nothing.
“Tell them, Calvin!” his wife screamed at him. “Tell ‘em they’re too young to leave!”
“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be, mum.”
“It didn’ have to be hard at all. It didn’t even have to happen. Going away to waste your lives as hitch-hikers. You’re the only children we’ve got!”
“You’re the only children we’ve got,” Calvin repeated simply.
“Look, mum, we’re just going away to fulfill our dream.”
“You’re teenagers. Yeh’ve a new dream ev’ry few moments. You’re not meant to run away because of them.”
“That’s the great thing about dreams,” Clein said. “You can follow them. An accomplished dream is the only worthwhile kind. You’ve never had a dream, so you wouldn’t understand.”
“You’re not the only ones who can dream!” she shouted in an explosion of fear, more inwardly than outwardly, bursting into floods of tears and sinking in her grief more quickly than she could conjure the words to throw. Calvin put an arm around her and acted as her support against the crushing feeling of their children departing. She got up the courage and postponed her vocal disability sufficiently to speak again. “I always wantid to run away an’ be a sing-ger. But I didn’. I stayed an’ lookt after you.”
“That’s great. Now you can leave and fulfil your dream as though you never had us.”
“You know that’s not what I meant.”
“No, by all means go off and become a singer. Get a group together and tour around with them wherever you go – although, with a voice like yours, I don’t think you could ever succeed. Just make sure you take all our other possessions with you. We left them for you. If you go off on a crazy adventure and leave the house forever, that’s fine, but take our stuff with you.”
“You can’t be serious.” Her heart sank at the thought that her own children had taken her seriously. They honestly expected her to leave forever.
“Bye,” said Clint, “bye,” said Clein.
And with that final word, Clint and Clein left their house and stormed off into the world, never looking back. Their dad joined their mum at the door as she watched, with bleary eyes, her children leave their home and enter the world.
“Can I be one of the musicians?” Calvin asked.
When one reaches an emotional state wherein it becomes difficult to stand upright – that most basic of tasks deprived – any words of mild comfort become a cure for distress. Pet names come out and a reminiscent nostalgia for modernity is born. “O’ cause you can, Hawky my love.” She still looked understandably worried and Calvin could see this.
“They have managed on their own before,” said Calvin, although he too was worried. “It’s nothing new to them. And this is their dream.” He said the last word with such conviction that he convinced himself at the same time. “Come inside. I’m certain they’ll be fine, Oprah.”
Chapter 5
A tremendous loneliness surrounded the Fez. The Space Chicken and his acquaintances had spent so much time and effort making it to this vast being that their sudden departure left him lonely and isolated, in perpetual fear of the strangers around him. He had Fred Jr to talk to, but was thankful when Quack rang up. It was a great relief to think that Someone wanted to speak to him.
“I have another idea,” the god said.
“Oh, Chicken Foot.”
“Please don’t blaspheme to My face.” Quack paused. “Hey! Don’t blaspheme because you don’t think I have good ideas. I do.”
“Name one.”
“I was just about to: you need to give something to Clint and Clein that will help them on their journey.”
“Why, where are they?” asked the Space Chicken. Why do people move? he thought. It was enough trouble moving when one has to (as is the horrible situation of being a prophet), but why anyone would voluntarily transport themselves from their home to somewhere that wasn’t their home was beyond the prophet—beyond any prophet.
“They’re in Gord, on their way to the Fez.”
“What‽” The Space Chicken stopped and thought logically. This was a popular hobby in Britain, though not on as many planets as you might have thought. The Space Chicken’s theory in response to his thought ran thus, in as many premises:
1: Clint and Clein have already been to the Fez.
2: They’re seventeen-year-old boys: they’re lazy.
3: They wouldn’t want to walk to the Fez again.
4: My hearing is limited.
5: I’m attempting to communicate across dimensions: it can never be fully accurate.
Conclusion: Therefore, the only rational explanation is that I misheard Quack.
“Sorry, Quack, could You repeat that?”
“Clint and Clein are going to the Fez again.”
“What‽”
“Also,” Quack continued, ignoring the Space Chicken’s interjection, “your logical calculus is invalid. It does not necessarily follow that if the five premises are true the conclusion will also be true.”
“What‽”
“Just because there is reasonable doubt that you heard Me correctly, it does not mean that there is unfalsifiable evidence that Clint and Clein are not going to the Fez.”
“What‽” the Space Chicken reconcluded. “Why are Clint and Clein heading towards the Fez again?”
“They’re intrigued by the concept of opening it. Just the same as last week.”
“But they know they can’t open the Fez! David Gratton’s going to open it, and they’re well aware of this.”
“Actually, you never mentioned anything about David Gratton in front of them.”
“Of course I did.” The Space Chicken paused to reassess his statement. “Right before they left, I shouted at Dave. Dave Gray, that is. I called him David Gratton. Clint and Clein must have heard that.”
“They’d already left.”
The Space Chicken paused in thought once more.
‘What was it that You would like us to accomplish?’ Fred Jr asked.
“You just need to give them something to help them on their journey. Not much. No hard work.”
“What?” asked the Space Chicken.
“Well, since you have no need for the Speedvan...”
Chapter 6
He landed. A big thud on a theatrically carpeted hallway. Where am I? he thought. If everybody gets sent home when they don’t open the Fez, then I must be... Unless I opened the Fez and this was what was inside. I could believe that. No, I definitely didn’t open it. So... I must be home. But I‘m not. Or am I? Where in which world am I?
“Right, we need ‘at velvet cushin on that chair, Hawky. And I thinks we should ‘ave ten— Who is that?”
“Oh – hm – sorry to intrude. I’m Dave Gray, nice to meet you.” Dave stood up and extended an arm. It was traditional in his culture, for whatever irrational reason, to have it shaken in response.
“How’d you get in aw ‘ouse?”
“I think he probably used the door behind him,” said Calvin. “The Solid Oak Door we spent so much on will be far better at keeping intruders out when it arrives.”
O
Dave was shocked at what he was hearing and also at himself for somehow breaking into the house. “I assure you,” he said. “I didn’t break into your house.”
“We know. You just used the door. We really should have locked it.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Chimney, whatever. I guess we were naïve and didn’t think that our society would mean people breaking or opening or climbing and entering in broad daylight.”
“No, no.”
“Perhaps we should give him a chance to explain himself, Oprah,” Calvin said.
“Oprah? Wait,” said Dave. “Have we met somewhere before?”
“Not to my knowledge. That’s besides the point: explain yourself immediately.”
“I was just – I opened – I pressed a button on the Fez and—”
Oprah pricked up her ears. “The Fez? Oh come – sit down,” she told him, urging him to a seat. “Make yourself at home.”
“So here the plan:” said Quack, running it by the Space Chicken one more time, “I want you to get the Spaceboat for Oprah and the Humnian Musicians.”
“O HM.”
“You can buy it from Gary’s Vehicles in Gord. They’re a great bargain in there, you know—” he began.
“I don’t fall into Your advertising schemes! You should know that by now.”
Quack let His hopes and expectations dwindle. “Okay,” He said. He sighed. “You buy the Spaceboat and exchange it with Oprah for the Speedvan.”
“Right. Why do we need this?”
‘To give to Clint and Clein so they can more easily travel from Carpe Yolu to the Fez.’
“Thank you, Fred,” said Quack.
“Fred Jr,” the Space Chicken corrected. “It’s always Fred Jr.”
‘All correct. We shall purchase the vehicle once it has been constructed.’
“It’s already made,” said Quack. “I think someone else ordered it.”
The Space Chicken still had his head down the toilet of confusion. “Just a quick question: I gave the Speedvan to Oprah.”
“That is correct, although it’s not a question.”
“Then I’m going to get it back from her and give it to Clint and Clein. But I got the Speedvan from Oprah in the first place, back in Wales.”
“Any questions yet?”
“Yes. Where did Oprah get it from?”
“Good question. Well, adequate at most. I guess Oprah must have gained it back from Clint and Clein. We can always have the twins give it back to Oprah in the past when they’re done with it.”
Just then, a loud, searing alarm screamed on Quack’s end of the phone. When it eventually stopped, Quack said, “Sorry about that. It’s just an alarm I set to stop myself from causing paradoxes. Apparently the Speedvan going round in a loop of time like that would result in the vehicle infinitely aging.”
“And that’s a problem because...?”
“That’s a problem because any object gets damaged with any contact with the universe. Think of every piece of dust that will wobble an atom on every journey it goes on. Supposing the Speedvan meets only one small clump of particles in the period of time between Oprah acquiring said Speedvan from Clint and Clein until the moment when Clint and Clein go back in time to hand it to her. That one piece of dirt will cause an unnoticeable amount of damage, but it will cause damage none-the-less. And the cyclical nature of a time-loop will mean that this small damage will repeat itself an infinite number of times. And any damage, no matter how small, will demolish its opponent. It’s the small wears and tears of life which go to the greatest effects.”
‘So if the Speedvan gets struck by a piece of dust an infinite number of times, the vehicle will wear down until there is no Speedvan to be struck by dust.’
“Indeed.”
‘So, within a time-loop, a great many laps of the infinity of time must have presented themselves.’
“Yes. Every time someone creates a minor time-loop, that will cause the whole of time to go round and round again.”
‘So, are we stuck in one particular loop? Has the universe already been around several times? Have there already been several versions of us? Are there more to come? Is this life just the same as one reading of a book, which may be reinterpreted with a second, third and fourth reading? Where are we? And are we all the versions or just one out of a thousand? Am I the only me, or am I only a fraction of myself?’
“I cannot answer that. I cannot answer any of those questions. I can never know whether a person feels life an infinite number of times or only one out of an infinite number of times living it. Every time somebody creates a variable – a man-made variable, not a natural one – another version of the universe will have to happen for all the potential outcomes, happening again and again.”
“Like the multiverse?” asked the Space Chicken.
“No. The multiverse supposes an infinite number of existences happening concurrently. I’m saying the universe is one world happening over and over again. The trouble is, I don’t know what’s ‘natural’ and what’s ‘man-made’ anymore. I don’t know how many times this universe happens, and many times you feel it.”
“So which time is it happening now? The first? The last? I can’t remember this happening before, but I can’t feel most of the universe happening.”
“You don’t have the cognitive processing capabilities of a god. Those who claim to know of gods or know not of gods can’t know they know this. They lack the brain for it. They are stunted by the physical universe.”
‘Which world are we living? And which time are we living it? Which Glix do You see?’
“I see all of them at once. I see every inaccuracy of time. Some I must let remain, for I lack the capacity to change the inevitable changes. But when a problem prevents itself becoming a problem, I must prevent it becoming a problem in the first place, which is a problem. I can see every paradox of Glix. It looks like two opposing events interacting to destroy each other. Both succeed: scenario A demolishes scenario B before scenario B destroys scenario A before scenario B beforehand, which happens anyway. I can’t let this happen. It’s not just that I don’t want this to happen, it’s that I simply have no option but to prevent this. Humans never have this. There is always an alternative. In eating, you may claim to have no option but to eat, but there is always the potential to starve. An unpleasant one it may be, but the option is there. When one is ‘too full to eat any more’, there is always the ability to force food down one’s throat until one chokes or vomits and/or dies. In fighting, there is always the option not to fight. In war, no matter what the ‘alternative’ may be claimed to be, there is always the option of peace. Humans can never experience having no alternative: there is always one there, hidden though it may be.”
“I’m incredibly confused,” said the Space Chicken, attempting to peck out his own eyes.
“Good. Then you know that you don’t know what it means to see as a god.”
‘In the case of the speedvan paradox, there is no option to face an infinite regress; we cannot have a speedvan which destroys itself; the alternative we suppose is that there would be no speedvan to begin with, but this is never really a potential, only an impossibly impossible hypothetical.’
“And there you have a smashing example of a paradox.”
“I see,” said the Space Chicken. “That’s out of the question, then. How about we give Oprah the Speedvan brand new at the same time we give her the Speedvan. In the next week, we’ll give her a new Speedvan, thus starting the life of the Speedvan, which will go back in time, go round the loop once and then continue, but never get stuck in an infinite regress.”
Quack thought about this. “But Oprah needs the Speedvan in the past, in order that she may give it to us in Wales.”
“The Oprah we met in Wales was evidently an Oprah of the future w
‘We always see her.’
“It was the Oprah after we gave her the Spaceboat (and potentially the Speedvan too), but it was an Oprah of the time before the time after we hypothetically give her the Spaceboat.”
‘That is no guarantee that Oprah shall take the Speedvan back in time,’ Fred Jr pointed out.
“It’s not a guarantee, you’re right, but we already know that she has been going to definitely do so.”
The Space Chicken didn’t understand, so he naturally accepted the statement to be true. “All right. We’ll have to try that, then.”
“It’s not an experient or trying,” said Quack, “if we already know it will work.”
The Space Chicken looked directly at Quack. As Quack was a being talking on the telephone in another dimension, the Space Chicken closed his eyes. “As a good friend, would You mind talking nonsense for a while, so I don’t have to think anymore?”
“Certainly I can,” said Quack. “Have I ever told you about the set of holy grails I received from a Bull who’s my brother?”
Chapter 7
When you’re old and wearied, it’s endlessly thrilling to recount the tales of your past. When you’re young and angstuous, it’s less than thrilling to hear them.
And the youthful and angry are usually those who grow up to become the old and nostalgic. For these are the kinds of people who look back upon a condensed life. An elderly adventurer looks back at a thousand days of venturing out in the harsh, damp terrain of wild mud beaches in the unexplored depths of Parrugee with a smile at the thought of every sunny day when they reached the caramel waterfall at the end, and a smirk at the memory of every ground owl they encountered on the way. A youth experiencing the same life attempts to look back at memories that haven’t yet been created, so is forced into looking forward at soggy trees.
The youths of sorrow are those who have reached a point where their satisfaction of gained intelligence is outweighed by the strength of emotion at a renewed, enriched and expanded concept of the largeness and intensity of the physical universe and traces of a potential, hypothetical and theoretical world beyond; and so the minds of the sorrowful youths are distressed and depressed at being overfilled with an understanding of just how much there is to understand and the understanding of their lack of understanding.