|
|
|
 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| I met him in the local supermarket You’re suggesting we climb into that thing, press the tit and hope for the best?” “Crudely put, but essentially accurate I am unfamiliar with your language “I think they’re between the voltmeters and the pickled cabbage Knobs and dials and VDUs were everywhere The Prof set the controls for home and the wobbling lasted longer ” “Limited intelligence often goes hand-in-hand with limited imagination, Jonty Once we enter the T We’ll just have to go and see The Professor had grabbed one of the few tables and was sitting waiting for me on his head I don’t know if he thought I was one of the supermarket drones or whether he just thought I might be the type to know because he suddenly lunged towards me What I really want to do is be a critic, write reviews of the other acts ” And he did “Ah, I see you are looking at my Temporal Interface Terminal I was mighty grateful to see that we were back in the Prof’s workshop as we staggered out of the T Anyway, to cut a long story shortish, he caught me gawping at him and fixed me with his eye I finished my shopping – typical bachelor – ready meals, deodorant and several bottles of wine, and made my way to the coffee shop T It was a combination of chrome and chintz It’s not the BBC We may then choose to journey either forwards, backwards or sideways, as it were I remembered then why I always avoided the place like a lazaretto He looked like nothing so much as an oven-ready vulture He told me that his name was Professor Gerald Humphreys, formerly Head of Quantum Physics at the local university I like the look of young Jonty No, they’ve got the wrong island entirely I could hear him talking as we approached deferentially: “So the actress said to the High Priest, ‘I’m not sure what you’re doing with that sheep, but it doesn’t look like much of a sacrifice!’ Ha ha!” The young men around him fell about laughing ” I shrugged ” “And why did you leave?” “I was too pissed to stand in for someone who was too pissed to show up You said you didn’t know whether we would go back to ‘our’ past or some other parallel universe There was no door apparent but somehow we kind of glided through the outside and I found myself staring at the strangest ‘room’ I have ever seen I was almost incoherent anyway, but he wasn’t listening or he couldn’t understand my slobbering attempt at an explanation The closer I looked at it, the harder it was to see, somehow ” “Sideways? You mean like to a parallel universe?” “Crudely, yes Have you ever been there? It’s a dreadful place, full of Nancy boys ” “Greetings, Lady The wobbling stopped and the deep hum returned They will be described as Sapphic, even I could feel the hair on my forearms standing on end and experienced a weird tingling sensation all over my skin, like ants crawling all over me I figured he was potty anyway and I might as well earn a couple of quid as sit around watching daytime TV What little floor space there once had been was taken up by a large silver dome-shaped affair Allow me to explain I said I didn’t mind where we went as long it wasn’t Thebes L T “Right, Jonty I got one hell of a shock ” “Multiverse?” “Yes, of course The cultural epicentre of classical civilisation I shoved the headphones into my ears and turned it on I was only having a laugh So much so that women who, um, prefer women, if you understand my drift, will be known as Lesbians “You cunt!” “I do wish you’d stop using these abbreviations Now bugger off, if you don’t mind, I’m trying to do a gig Then we were outside again Now all we need to do is find Socrates He was his usual picture of sartorial elegance clad in a green brocade smoking jacket, threadbare jogging pants and flip-flops I did research, read traffic reports and weather forecasts and stood in when someone was too pissed to show up The Professor looked on enviously as she hurled herself against me and tried to probe my tonsils with her tongue while her hands did delicious things inside my jeans It looked a bit like one of those Buddhist dagobas you see in the Far East and was emitting a low humming sound that was almost, but not quite, below the human audible range ” I was on the verge of backing out of this little game but he grabbed me and propelled towards the machine Anyway, all I said was that he asked questions about the human condition We had obviously just arrived while they were on their break You have to turn your hand to anything It was slightly disconcerting I didn’t really want to be a comic It’s Naxos you want for the rug-munchers N Do you believe in time travel?” I shrugged He put his liver-spotted hands on his scrawny hips and thrust his wattled chin towards me The battered case still bore the Sony lettering ” “Sappho? Not THE Sappho, the great lyric poetess?” “I suppose so There was none of that reassuring mechanical retching noise you always got with the Tardis and no whistling theme music ” “Right, Jonty in silence You see, I have done all the laboratory testing but, well, I haven’t actually attempted a full voyage as yet ” “Not at my expense, shagnasty I was just wandering around in an alcoholic stupor when the producer grabbed me No fashion plate, then, our Professor Plato wrote of you!” “Oh, that explains it The Professor was shaking head, a man clearly in a state of shock ” We walked away with a disconsolate Plato See what I mean? And it never fails to crack me up when I see some crusty old Colonel buying sheer stockings It’s so hard to think up original material and I don’t want to do what he does – nick other people’s best jokes and re-work them Allow me to present my companion, Jonty I could tell he was appraising me with his one ruly eye Well, now I believe we know the answer We were more into PSE Its unruly partner was now carrying out a detailed survey of the inside of his head I “Hello, strangers/guests” A slightly built woman with a pile of dark hair was sitting in the garden of the villa ” “Oh, him He grabbed my arm with a scrawny claw and dragged me through to his workshop T kind of wobbled and I felt faintly sick “Where are we, Professor?” “A more apposite question might be when are we, my boy ” “Fair enough Get up there now and introduce the dignitaries Take this Compact Universal Neural Translator “Jonty, Big Mel hasn’t shown again A red-blooded girl can’t get herself laid if she stands naked in the agora “Why did you do it? How could you write such things about that horrid old man?” “The old bastard was asking for it ” “OK then, Professor Are you sure he can understand me? Hey, Jonty, I’m horny as bitch in heat, d’you fancy a quick tumble before Cholon gets back?” I will draw a veil over what happened next Now I’m one of these people who can’t help but look at what other folk are buying Can you tell me where I might find the other one, the great philosopher?” “Someone’s been pulling your plonker, stranger Unfortunately, we have a malfunction in the Combined Location In Time array I ” The Professor’s education did extend to ancient Greek, even if he had missed out on PSE After lunch we took our leave of the fair Sappho ’s fucked I used to work for the local radio station The surface of the machine appeared to swirl in and out of focus leaving me with an impression of what I was looking at, rather than an image His last words to me were: “They don’t sell rheostats in supermarkets ” He laughed In fact, there was no noise at all Voyage One - Going Greek The Professor was quite mad, of course You don’t know where or when we are Behind us was a neat villa with lime-washed walls ” He doesn’t speak your tongue but can understand it, thanks to that C On your chariot, matey, and take these two barbarians with you ” “The what? Forgive me ” “Oh, right “Where do they keep the rheostats in this place? Can’t find ‘em anywhere!” I was now rapidly forming the opinion that the old boy was off his trolley, despite the fact that he was clearly pushing one Do you speak ancient Greek?” “No, sorry, they didn’t teach it my school The sensation seemed to last for a few minutes yet the second hand on my watch registered less than fifteen seconds And, Zeus! Where did you learn to speak Greek, in an Egyptian knocking shop?” “My apologies, sir, I appear to have got the wrong Socrates Bottled water, about a dozen packs of needles, tins of beans, chocolate, fuse wire, frozen fish fingers, a disposable camera in a sickly shade of yellow, athlete’s foot powder and that stuff for sticking your false teeth in so tight you can bite into a crisp apple without the embarrassment of leaving the old gnashers embedded while your gums slap together I am Sappho, wife of Cholon, the Merchant and into the bright sunshine ” We found the great philosopher without difficulty He’d worked on it for over thirty years and now it was finally ready ” “But I don’t understand ” “That’s comforting He needed an assistant, mainly to act as an objective observer but also to do any heavy donkeywork “You must think I’m mad,” he said “You mean to say, people will think I fancy other girls?” “Yes, of course Meet me in the coffee shop in ten minutes We were on a low promontory overlooking the proverbial wine-dark sea ” I honestly tried to get out of it This is my daughter “Spot on, my boy I What do you do for a living?” “Not a lot, at present My face must have given me away because he made the farting donkey noise again One of the perils of live broadcasting with a stand-in presenter who is absolutely mullahed He considered this wasn’t too bad in the circumstances It provides an interface – a gateway, if you will – between the present and other parts of the temporal multiverse ” Sappho burst out laughing A kind of cross between a rusty gate and a flatulent donkey I was just about to ask for a re-match when the Prof grabbed me and pushed me bodily back inside the T U I T ” “What did he say? Oh, never mind Beautiful, isn’t it?” It was certainly unusual We decided to go and ask the occupants precisely where we were The other kind of kept wandering off to survey the shelves or the ceiling He’d retired two years before and had spent the intervening period perfecting a time machine There was the usual crowd of aged crones sucking the ersatz cream out of sticky buns and mothers with small jam-smeared children that howled when denied another donut ” “You what?” “I said, I would like to hire you Under normal conditions we are totally unaware of their existence Two probes rammed through my eardrums and slammed into my brain Why?” “Because of your poetry in adoration of women, of course I believe he was an archetype rather than a stereotype but ‘what the hell, Archie,’ as Mehitabel was wont to say The old man looked up at us and said: “What are you two gawping at? Fuck off!” “Pardon me , sir, but are you Socrates, the world’s greatest philosopher?” For some reason this had everyone in stitches all over again ” “I think that news is going to burst a bubble or two, Prof You are renowned throughout the world as a great teacher and scholar He was pacing the aisles muttering to himself ” We made our way back to the T A little posy of flowers sat in a glass jam jar on top of part of what looked like an old mainframe computer, complete with ticking magnetic tape spools My dad’s going to kill me, getting fired again He had the regulation number of eyes but only one of them seemed inclined to obey him Unfortunately, so did the Mayoress – well, she couldn’t have missed it – and the owner of the station, who just happens to be her husband Her slaves brought us lunch, goat’s cheese, bread, olives and wine You don’t need to understand how or why it works; you need only accept that it does Jesus Henry Christ! It looks like a very bad set design for ‘Doctor Who ” The wobbling started again and, this time, lasted only for the time it takes to draw breath I I’m the only Socrates in Athens and I’m a stand-up comic He’d even bought me a cup of the unidentified brown fluid that was the speciality of the house “What does it do?” “Exactly what the name suggests, dear boy I made the mistake of showing it, though The pompous old trout had got up my nose but I hadn’t realised that my mike was still live when I muttered: “Shut up, you old bat, and show us yer tits,” in the middle of her toe-curling opening speech A kind of cross between a 1950’s coffee bar and a down-at-heel Victorian country house “Where to now, Prof?” “Athens, my boy I didn’t contradict him I fitted his bill The whole effect made me dizzy The Prof turned to Plato Has my fame spread so far, then? I’m honoured The air in the workshop seemed charged with electricity ’ Are you absolutely sure it works and I’m not going to end up with my head in tomorrow and my todger back in a week last Tuesday?” I’ve always had a real horror of having my atoms scattered about the space/time continuum ” “What does that mean in English?” “The C ” “How hysterical!” “Hysterical, but why?” “Code, sir, code! I have to put women’s name in the verses so that old goat I’m married to doesn’t catch on , we are stepping outside this version of reality ” “Doing what?” “Bits and pieces Two overstuffed armchairs slouched on a moth-eaten fake Turkish Carpet and one wall was covered in the most tasteless flock wallpaper ever seen outside of an Indian Restaurant T Now sit down and shut up or fuck off out the way, you’re putting me off I bet he’s a wow down at the club! The Professor’s trolley was full of unrelated odds and ends I was also a sceptic, which made me ideal Plato kicked the cobbles and mumbled to himself, something about the old git having no sense of humour Schrodinger’s cat, my boy T one final time The Professor made some quick calculations and decided that we’d missed his target, which turned out to be Athens, circa 390BC, by about 230 years and a few hundred miles ” It looked like a Walkman Um, what is this place called?” “Which place?” “Where are we?” “Oh! This is the Island of Mytilene, also called Lesvos ” “What on earth is that?” “Buggered if I know, Prof, I used to skive off It was no good protesting that I wasn’t even supposed to be working that afternoon All right, then let’s go He was sitting in a shady spot at the edge of the agora, a bunch of young guys at his feet Looks like I’ve got a vacancy for an apprentice ” “My apologies, Lady ” I still don’t really know why but I agreed ” “Oh, that was you, was it? You’re the one who invited the Lady Mayoress to show you her tits at the Agricultural Show! Ha, haven’t laughed so much in ages ” We made our way outside and I experienced that weird sensation again as we passed ‘through’ the wall of the T With nothing better to do I agreed “What’s your name, boy?” “Jonathon, although most people call me Jonty Healthy scepticism, that’s what I like to see and that’s just what I need T What happens when you go back in time? Do you go to back to ‘our’ past or one of these alternates?” “I’m sorry to admit that I really don’t know, my boy Back to the Professor: “I would like to hire you Odd, thigh-length socks and Jesus sandals completed the ensemble There is an almost infinite combination of reality states, each one slightly out of phase with the next I thought it would be less disorienting for you to have a few familiar touches Would you be so good as to tell us where the railway station is? No, bugger! Wrong word “Quite right The T We parted company at the door I was young, fit and pretty well built ” “Uh, thanks, Professor A small girl sat in the dirt by her feet, playing with clay animals I The pain was excruciating T I just kind of thought that this was it, if you know what I mean ” “Whoa! Are you saying that you don’t know if this thing works?” “Of course not! It works but I haven’t yet made the maiden voyage, that is all He told me to dress for travelling, whatever that meant, and to be at his place at seven am sharp ” “Lady, this may be hard for you to understand but we have travelled back here from far in the future You don’t seriously imagine that this is the only reality, do you?” “I’ve never been that strong on quantum theory If you must shorten it, call it ‘the translator,’ if you please “What a weird accent! Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to be rude ” “Approximately, we are somewhere in ancient Greece, sometime around the end of the 7th Century, BC or possibly the beginning of the 6th I decided to humour him ” “Oh really He was wearing one of those khaki safari shirts on top of a pair of ancient, faded blue shorts that reached just below his knees I can’t be entirely sure Well, that’s history now; and so was I thirty seconds after my last live broadcast ” “No matter Sappho was a gracious hostess in more ways than one “Philosopher? What the fuck’s one of them? I’m Socrates all right and you’re interrupting the matinee performance It fires my imagination sometimes Are you shipwrecked, then, to not know where you are?” “In a manner of speaking, Lady We arranged to meet early the following morning I presented myself at the Prof’s pad at seven the next morning, as instructed “Sorry, boss ” “Now hang on a minute If he doesn’t speak the language he can’t tell, can he? Do you mind looking after the brat for a bit, Prof, is it? Strange name You see some little round housewife type with two bottles of gin and a tube of KY jelly hidden among the cornflakes and already you can envisage the party to come “Sappho, well I could vaguely understand, Jonty, but Socrates! How could the world be so wrong about him?” “I think I can explain, Prof More than two and a half thousand years from now, you will be still famous Sappho assured me I would be equally popular there, which wasn’t the best news I’d heard that day If he hadn’t looked like a Mad Professor I would probably have just dismissed as some old fart living on his own I have a proposition to put to you, my lad Three thousand odd attendees and all of our dozen listeners heard this little aside Don’t concern yourself It was a Walkman, or at least it had been It wasn’t a pleasant sound I looked around It was the kind of laugh that you hear from someone who isn’t used to finding anything funny Suffice it to say my mother taught me never to refuse a polite request from a lady I Plato, you young bastard, have you been taking the piss again?” A thickset, spotty youth peered guiltily at the great man from the back row Just this gentle wobbly feeling “Fuck a rat! What is this supposed to be?” “Oh, just a few home comforts ” “No need for sarcasm, Jonty He gave his donkey fart laugh again and told me to take a seat while he twisted dials, turned knobs and thumped keyboards Mind you, there have been times when I’ve resorted to a bit of sisterly affection with one of my pals, but that was when we spent a year in Thebes ” I had nothing to add |
|
| ©2008
Bound4Love.com - All profiles are subject to change without notice - Link
Exchange By viewing any of Bound4Love.com pages you agree to our Terms of Use - 2257 - Privacy Policy Please note we have 4 different domain names that could be used interchangeably:
|
|
|
Send
a Message
