East of Ealing by Robert Rankin

out to secure it to a frescoed pillar. The two inebriate sub-earth travellers shrugged and followed the pale man as he strode forward. “It was never like this for Jerome K Jerome,” said Pooley.
    The strange edifice was, if anything, a work of inspiration. Marble pilasters, cunningly wrought with carved tracery-work, soared upwards to dwindle into a high-domed ceiling which glittered with golden mosaic. Above, tapering gothic spires lost themselves in the darkness.
    “Here it is,” said Soap. The two wonderers halted in their tracks. In the very centre of this Victorian folly stood something so totally out of place as to take the breath from their lungs. It was a cylinder of bright sparkling metal, but it was of no metal that any man of Earth had yet seen. It glistened with an oily sheen and swam through a spectrum of colours, reflecting mirror-like. A broad panel of what might have been glass, but probably was not, lay set into a section of the cylinder’s apparent lid, and it was over this that the three visitors to this sunken marvel craned their necks.
    “Strike me down,” said Jim Pooley.
    “By Michael and the other lads,” said John Omally.
    “Good, eh?” said Soap Distant.
    “But who is he?”
    Beneath the glazed panel, reclining upon satin cushioning, his head upon a linen pillow, lay the body of a man. He was of indeterminate age, his hair jet-black and combed away behind his ears. He had high cheek-bones and a great hawk of a nose. The face bore an indefinable grandeur, one of ancient aristocracy. From what was immediately visible, he appeared to be wearing a high wing-collared shirt, dark tie affixed with a crested stud, and a silken dressing-gown.
    “He seems, almost, well, alive,” said Omally.
    Soap pointed towards the gowned chest, and it could be clearly observed that it slowly rose and fell. “Indubitably,” said he.
    “But this thing? Who built it and why?”
    “Best thing is to up the lid and ask him.”
    Pooley had more than a few doubts upon this score. “He looks pretty peaceful to me,” he said. “Best to leave him alone. No business of ours this.”
    “I think somehow that it is,” said Soap, and his tone left little doubt that he did.
    “This thing doesn’t belong,” said Omally. “It is all wrong. Victorian mausoleum all well and good, but this? This is no product of our age even.”
    “Herein lies the mystery,” said Soap. “Give us a hand then, thirty quid for a quick heave.”
    Pooley shook his head so vigorously that it made him more dizzy than he already was. “I think not, Soap. We are tampering with something which is none of our business. Only sorrow will come out of it, mark my words. ‘He that diggeth a pit will fall…”
    “I know all that,” said Soap. “Kindly take hold of the top end. I had it giving a little.”
    “Not me,” said Jim, folding his arms.
    “Jim,” said John. “Do you know the way back?”
    “That way.” Pooley pointed variously about.
    “I see. And do you think that Soap will guide us if we do not assist him?”
    “Well, I…”
    “Top end,” said Soap. “I had it giving a little.”
    The three men applied themselves to the lid of the glistening cylinder, and amidst much grunting, puffing, and cursing, there was a sharp click, a sudden rushing of air, and a metallic clang as the object of their efforts tumbled aside to fall upon the marble flooring of the
outré
construction. Three faces appeared once more over the rim of the metal sarcophagus.
    The gaunt man lay corpse-like but for his gently-heaving chest; his face was placid and without expression. Then suddenly the eyelids snapped wide, the lips opened to draw in a great gulp of air and the chest rose higher than before. A cry arose from his mouth and three faces ducked away to reappear as a trinity of Chads, noses crooked above the coffin’s edge. The occupant stretched up his arms and yawned loudly. His eyes flickered wildly about. He snatched at the coffin’s side,