FUGU

- an epic short story starring

  The Icelandic Love Corporation

By Francis McKee

1

Sunday and Sunday rain, falling in gray sheets

from a low ceiling of dull gray clouds. Joni

looked out across the lane and could see no

signs of life. She stepped out of the house and

walked down to the street. The watchtower

loomed above the parked cars and wet

pavements. An array of electronic eyes swept

over her and Joni shivered. High on the

platform, amid the barbed wire and green

camouflage, she thought she could see a human

blinking in the shadows. Zero contact.

She kept moving - down past the train station,

through the tunnel and up into the dark green

parklands of the hospital. Now she was alert,

looking for small signs, the telltale marks of a

shy recluse. Joni wasn’t hopeful. The sky was

getting darker by the minute and the rain kept

pouring down. She thought of Sigrun and Eirun

back in the flat, dry and warm, more than likely

listening to Gram Parsons and making toast.

Meanwhile, every bone in her body was damp

and chilled, rainwater flooded through the

gutters and there were no obvious trails to follow.

She had already decided to turn and head for

home when she heard the singing.

"Roll, roll, roll ... Roll me over and turn me

around ..."

It was coming from the bin area behind the

ambulance depot. A high-pitched whine

masquerading as song - "this is nummm-ber five

and the bee is in the hiivvve!" Joni approached a

dustbin that was shaking in time to the music

and looked in. The fox, stretched across a black

rubbish bag, looked back and immediately

stopped singing.

"Joni!" he shouted, "How are you?" Soaked, with

her hair clinging to her forehead, Joni appraised

the fox carefully.

"You’re still looking for Mort aren’t you? Still

trying to get your revenge for what he did to

you?", she said.

"Could be. You’ll catch your death here – let’s

get out of the rain."

Climbing out of the dustbin, the fox led the way

to a dry spot under the concrete supports of the

hospital.

"We heard Mort’s in town," said Joni. "He’s been

seen hanging around the Shambles."

"Clouds a drifting across the moon ... Cats a

prowling on their beat ... Spring's a girl in the

street at night ..."

"Pay attention! Aren’t you curious enough?"

snapped Joni. "Eirun heard that you should look

for the leopard man. None of us know what that

means but we thought you might. Now I’m going

home – it’s too wet to stand here listening to you

croak."

The fox watched as she splashed off across the

grounds of the hospital, a bedraggled figure

vanishing into a cold, watery world. He started

singing again as he made his way back to the

bins, "Dirty old town ... dirty old town".

2

"It’s called A Memory of a Geisha. It’s really

interesting."

"But this is something that is supposed to be a

secret or what? It’s a kind of a secret world?"

"It’s not a secret world, but a closed world."

"And how old do you have to be? Can you start

training at any age?"

"They start training the girls when they are six

years old. And they go to schools to learn to play

instruments and dance. And to serve tea – a

special way of serving tea."

"Yeah, but we are also learning to play

instruments and serving tea and coffee. And we

dance –" Sigrun and Eirun stopped as Joni burst

through the door. "I went all the way to see that

– that MONKEY BRAIN! And he just sat there

singing stupid songs and not listening to a

word!" She grabbed a towel and started to dry

her hair furiously.

"I think we need some more toast," said Sigrun,

wielding the breadknife.

"And some jasmine tea," added Eirun.

3

The fox stood outside the locked door of the

Weasel Inn pool hall. This was a long name for a

building that was nothing more than a fortified

shoebox, wrapped in corrugated iron, squatting

in the shadow of one of the area’s largest

watchtowers. A slot in the door opened

cautiously and two eyes peered down at the fox.

"What?"

"Here to see the leopard man," replied the fox.

"Speaking." The eyes moved back from the slot

and revealed a face tattooed with spots and

shoulders with the same markings.

"I was told you can get me to Mort Greaves."

"Could do. Heard you’re a bit of a singer. How

about a few bars of Jolene?"

"Not now. Just give me Mort."

"West Nile and 3rd. Green door, second floor.

And don’t hurt him just because you can."

The fox sighed. People just couldn’t resist. He

turned and walked away from the pool hall.

Above him the electronic eyes of the watchtower

swivelled to track his footsteps. Behind the

corrugated door, Mort stepped down from his

box, shed the tattooed skin and dialled a number

on his mobile.

4

"Are you sure this is the place?" asked Sigrun,

staring up at the black windows of the building.

"It looks completely shut."

"This is the address on the invitation card and

this is today’s date. It must be the right place"

replied Eirun. Joni set off around the side of the

building to find another entrance while Sigrun

tried dialling the number on the card. It was the

answering service for the Nokia sales department.

Eirun, meanwhile, was pressing all the buttons

at the entrance. Suddenly the door buzzed open,

yawning into the darkness. When Joni returned

they entered the building together and, once

they found the stair lights, they headed for the

second floor. The corridor was tiled pale green

and the whole building had a vaguely institutional

air about it. The door to the exhibition space

was open and even from a distance the girls

could see the beam of a projector flickering. So

that explained the darkness from outside. In the

room itself, the projector illuminated the scene

perfectly. Svana was sprawled across the floor,

her throat wide open and a pool of blood haloed

behind her head. The fox was hunched over the

small chicken’s body and at their arrival he

turned – surprised – a feather held aloft in his

paw. It was all terribly simple.

5

Mort folded the newspaper repeatedly until it

was a small, thick square he could easily grip in

one hand. Only the crossword remained visible

and he scanned it expertly, smiling to himself as

he read the clues, filling the boxes with a script

as illegible and coded as a series of scrawled

hieroglyphics on a discarded counting stone,

answering questions that seemed to ask for

more than replies in a daily cryptic quiz: ‘1

across – Is it used to pick out junk in the dark

(7,7)’; ‘25 across – Radioactive element at Etna

is volatile (8)’; ‘7 down – Herds free to roam can

be renewed (9)’. Mort, managing the world

effortlessly, shaping fates and patterning the

future. He paused for a moment and then, with

what seemed particular relish, attacked the final

clue: ‘11 down – dying animal, once upon a

time (7, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 14, 15, 16)’.

6

Smoke filled the air and the fire alarm was

emitting a deafening squeal. The television,

having exploded a moment before, was still on

fire, its tube radiating a blue wave of light that

enveloped Sigrun, Eirun and Joni. The room

vanished in a white burst of flame and then

reappeared, time jumping like a needle in the

groove. The girls inched along the floor of an

ocean, stingrays and sharks guiding their path.

They stood on mountain tops straining for

oxygen before falling through clouds, hurtling

towards the forests below. And, just as suddenly,

they were back in the room, the smoke clearing,

and the alarm fading to silence.

"Does anybody know what just happened?"

asked Sigrun.

"Spleek burrow twintail flash" replied Eirun.

Sigrun looked at Joni.

"It’s ok. She’s just in shock, I think." As Joni

spoke, she moved around the room carefully

collecting the small fish stranded, twitching and

flailing, among the wreckage.

"And what the hell are they?" continued Sigrun,