‘They are
affecting my metabolism, I find myself leaning towards the sun.’
‘Get a
fire going,’ said the zany. ‘Unless you would prefer to eat them raw.’
‘Outrageous.’
A pale
shadow, cast by the troubled sun, fell across the zany causing him to look up
from his parsnip-sorting and offer a curt, ‘What of you?’
The
owner of the shadow inclined his head and grinned a cheersome grin. ‘Pardon
me,’ said this body, ‘but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.’
‘You
are pardoned,’ said the zany. ‘Now be on your way.’
‘The
name is Carrion,’ said Carrion. ‘Max Carrion, Imagineer.’
The
zany looked Max up and down. ‘You look like a beggar man to me and you twang
like a cow’s behind.’
Max
examined the soles of his substantial boots. ‘Pardon me once more,’ he said,
scraping something smelly from the left.
It had
been a month since Maxwell’s unfortunate encounter with the followers of
Varney. An instructive month, and one which had determined him upon a course of
action.
Maxwell
had travelled north, seeking refuge where he could amongst the hamlets he
chanced upon. He earned victual and shelter by entertaining his hosts with
antique songs of the ‘doo wop’ persuasion and tales of days gone by. The story
telling was well received and with an unlimited fund of movie plots to draw
upon and the entire Walt Disney catalogue at his disposal, Maxwell had left
more than one farmstead with a well-stocked rucksack on his back and a tuneless
rendition of ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ harassing his ears.
He had
learned to avoid the use of words which provoked looks of stupefaction and
bafflement. Among these were ‘electricity’, ‘telecommunications’ and any
reference to the internal combustion engine and what was now considered its
improbable applications.
As he
moved from place to place, Maxwell sought to tease from his hosts what
histories had been passed down to them, regarding the time of the great change.
Those who would speak muttered only of terrors and tribulations that were
better left beyond the reach of memory. They then demanded to hear once more
the adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Maxwell’s
wanderings, though ever north, were aimless and he was irked by the lack of
purpose. Although in his former life he had been content to summer his time
reading fantasy in the public library, now he was an adventurer himself, cast adrift
in a fantastic realm, and he just wasn’t making the best of it. He had to find
some goal. Some raison d’être.
Some
noble cause.
Any
noble cause!
And so,
in search of this, Maxwell’s wanderings had brought him at length to Grimshaw,
the largest town in the principality.
Grimshaw
was a market town, home to some nine hundred souls, and raised in the
nouveau-medievalist style which prevailed everywhere. Maxwell had seen little
or nothing in the way of extant twentieth-century architecture and he surmised,
correctly enough, that without electricity, most twentieth-century habitation
soon became uninhabitable.
In
Grimshaw Maxwell determined that he would set himself up as Solver of
Problems Supremo, accepting any challenge that would offer him scope to
flex his mental muscles. Discarding modesty and bashfulness with the ease of
one casting out those nasty advert enclosures that clog-up the pages of a new Radio
Times, Maxwell envisioned himself as some kind of twenty-first-century
consulting saint. A cross between Sherlock Holmes and Gandhi, slicing through
Gordian knots, bringing succour to the downtrodden, deftly defogging the most
mysterious of mysteries, innovating social reform and, in short, sorting out
all the problems of the new world.
Having
made scrupulous checks that he infringed no local bylaws, Maxwell set up a
booth of bartered canvas in the town square. This served him as business
premises and sleeping quarters and before it he hung a sign which read, simply:
MAX
CARRION
IMAGINEER
ALL PROBLEMS
affecting my metabolism, I find myself leaning towards the sun.’
‘Get a
fire going,’ said the zany. ‘Unless you would prefer to eat them raw.’
‘Outrageous.’
A pale
shadow, cast by the troubled sun, fell across the zany causing him to look up
from his parsnip-sorting and offer a curt, ‘What of you?’
The
owner of the shadow inclined his head and grinned a cheersome grin. ‘Pardon
me,’ said this body, ‘but I couldn’t help but overhear your conversation.’
‘You
are pardoned,’ said the zany. ‘Now be on your way.’
‘The
name is Carrion,’ said Carrion. ‘Max Carrion, Imagineer.’
The
zany looked Max up and down. ‘You look like a beggar man to me and you twang
like a cow’s behind.’
Max
examined the soles of his substantial boots. ‘Pardon me once more,’ he said,
scraping something smelly from the left.
It had
been a month since Maxwell’s unfortunate encounter with the followers of
Varney. An instructive month, and one which had determined him upon a course of
action.
Maxwell
had travelled north, seeking refuge where he could amongst the hamlets he
chanced upon. He earned victual and shelter by entertaining his hosts with
antique songs of the ‘doo wop’ persuasion and tales of days gone by. The story
telling was well received and with an unlimited fund of movie plots to draw
upon and the entire Walt Disney catalogue at his disposal, Maxwell had left
more than one farmstead with a well-stocked rucksack on his back and a tuneless
rendition of ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’ harassing his ears.
He had
learned to avoid the use of words which provoked looks of stupefaction and
bafflement. Among these were ‘electricity’, ‘telecommunications’ and any
reference to the internal combustion engine and what was now considered its
improbable applications.
As he
moved from place to place, Maxwell sought to tease from his hosts what
histories had been passed down to them, regarding the time of the great change.
Those who would speak muttered only of terrors and tribulations that were
better left beyond the reach of memory. They then demanded to hear once more
the adventures of Winnie the Pooh.
Maxwell’s
wanderings, though ever north, were aimless and he was irked by the lack of
purpose. Although in his former life he had been content to summer his time
reading fantasy in the public library, now he was an adventurer himself, cast adrift
in a fantastic realm, and he just wasn’t making the best of it. He had to find
some goal. Some raison d’être.
Some
noble cause.
Any
noble cause!
And so,
in search of this, Maxwell’s wanderings had brought him at length to Grimshaw,
the largest town in the principality.
Grimshaw
was a market town, home to some nine hundred souls, and raised in the
nouveau-medievalist style which prevailed everywhere. Maxwell had seen little
or nothing in the way of extant twentieth-century architecture and he surmised,
correctly enough, that without electricity, most twentieth-century habitation
soon became uninhabitable.
In
Grimshaw Maxwell determined that he would set himself up as Solver of
Problems Supremo, accepting any challenge that would offer him scope to
flex his mental muscles. Discarding modesty and bashfulness with the ease of
one casting out those nasty advert enclosures that clog-up the pages of a new Radio
Times, Maxwell envisioned himself as some kind of twenty-first-century
consulting saint. A cross between Sherlock Holmes and Gandhi, slicing through
Gordian knots, bringing succour to the downtrodden, deftly defogging the most
mysterious of mysteries, innovating social reform and, in short, sorting out
all the problems of the new world.
Having
made scrupulous checks that he infringed no local bylaws, Maxwell set up a
booth of bartered canvas in the town square. This served him as business
premises and sleeping quarters and before it he hung a sign which read, simply:
MAX
CARRION
IMAGINEER
ALL PROBLEMS
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