Orpheus on the Underground and Other Stories by Rhys Hughes

Author:Rhys Hughes [Hughes, Rhys]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Tartarus Press
Published: 2015-01-01T21:00:00+00:00

Yes, it is true. Ootoo appeared in person. One of the Old Ones. He was just a massive, gruesome and monumental head. I’m sure he was more than that really, much more, intolerably more, but nothing else was visible. I could see only a head so large it filled the square entire. It pushed against the buildings that framed it, so that we had to retreat quickly to avoid contact with the glacially cold lips which were at our end.

‘That is Ootoo,’ said Emyr.

‘I took that for granted,’ I answered boldly.

‘And now we will give you to him; he will devour you and swallow you and digest you and excrete you. He is Ootoo, and what Ootoo wants, Ootoo gets . . .’

‘But he is a minor old one?’

‘Perhaps, but even the least significant old one is far older and far more of a “one” than the most important potentate on this planet. Ootoo and you; that is the nature of this scene.’

‘But why did you summon him?’

‘To replenish our flagging spirits, to inject us with higher purpose. Can’t you see how faded we are? We are characters from rarely-read books, hardly well-enough known to be forgotten. There is no fire in our veins, We go through the motions, never feeling or tasting anything. We care not if whole populations are annihilated, that is not our concern. We want to be alive again!’

I felt an abrupt desire to strike back:

‘I doubt that your fading can ever be reversed.’

‘We shall see. Goodbye forever, boneshaker!’

‘My name is Sadulsor . . .’

As if responding to my cue, Ootoo opened his mouth wide, jaw gaping to an even greater extreme than that of Perfectly Frank, so that the god resembled a serpent preparing to devour a serpent who already is gaping as wide as it can.

The gathering of spectral villagers moved closer to me, intending to hurl me into the mouth. But I had no intention of being a victim; I would embrace my destiny in my own way. I accelerated forwards, heading straight for that maw!

‘What a rascal!’ shouted Emyr.

‘He’s no son of mine,’ grated Mondaugen.

Ootoo’s cakehole loomed huge.

And into it I went, jumping over the front teeth, landing on the tongue and hurtling down the throat, ducking to avoid striking my head on that dangly pink and fleshy clapper that is like the teat of an oral udder that can be milked only for sounds.

I was racing along the windpipe and still accelerating, when something peculiar began to happen. Organic anatomy changed into something more geometric and hard, into a labyrinth with an impossible number of diverging passages. I selected my route at random, like a daytripping Theseus, my handlebars gleaming in the phosphorescent light of pulsing walls, seeking a Minotaur who was nothing but a case of indigestion somewhere in the endless turns of this gastric maze. And—

I came to a doorway and rode straight through it. I found myself in a familiar office facing a man I already knew. He

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