Cowboys and Dinosaurs - Chapter 5

5. We're Always Short of Volunteers for Isandhlwana

Steve tried to unlock the door with the wrong set of keys. The door opened.

He tapped the lock severely with a finger. "You", he said, "are being replaced, first chance I get."

Inside, the flat was dark. Luckily, there was still very little to bump into. He found the lightswitch after a full minute of groping.

The books had returned.

He stood staring dumbly at them for a full minute more.

There was no mistaking it - they were the same books. The same edition, at any rate, pristine and neatly lined up on the floor, in just the same position he'd scooped them into a bin bag from prior to taking them down to the municipal incinerator. The Trotskyite social reject in charge of the Miscellaneous Waste skip had called him a biblioclast. He was unsure quite what a biblioclast was, but he was sure it was illegal in some states of America.

He turned to the front door behind him and shot the bolt. Then, despite being aware of the futility of attempting stealth after having staggered through the front door like a beaching walrus and actually talked to his own door lock, he padded to the kitchen door and eased it gently open. Nobody was inside the postage-stamp-sized kitchen. Unless - a housebreaking Buddhist missionary pygmy?

Cautiously, he padded to the other interior door. Nobody was inside the price-tag-sized bathroom.

"COME OUT", he shouted at the walls, "WHEREVER YOU ARE."

Perhaps understandably, no-one did.

He breathed heavily for several seconds. Finally, he wagged his finger at the lock.

"You", he said, "are definitely getting replaced, first chance I get."

He hunted around for a fresh bin bag to house the fresh books in. Being a man, he had adopted a multiple random bin bag storage policy, and it took him some time to locate the bin bag that contained his bin bags among the many other bin bags. It took only seconds more, however, to shovel the books in and deposit the bag more or less neatly next to the door.

Then, removing his shoes as a sop to night attire, he laid back on his mattress, squirming around to avoid the one rogue spring positioned to provide impromptu acunpuncture, and went to sleep.

***

"AIEEEEEEEE!"

The sound was exactly the noise German machine gunners were traditionally supposed to make when blown bodily into the air by a hand grenade. It was even spelt correctly. It was followed by a soft, moist THUNK. It was also happening repetitively on Sunday morning.

"AIEEEEEEEEE!"

THUNK.

"AIEEEEEEEEEE!"

THUNK.

Struggling from his sleeping bag, Steve staggered to the window. Some day soon he would remember to buy curtains. For the time being, the lack of curtains was a fine precaution against burglary. From outside the room still looked unoccupied.

"AIEEEEEEEEEE!"

THUNK.

Outside, in next door's garden, a frighteningly tall black woman was standing, in an October drizzle, bare feet, and a bikini, holding a hide shield and what looked very much like an assegai. She was menacing a straw man dressed as a British colonial infantryman. White webbing crossed the straw man's chest; he was wearing a blood red jacket. A dowelling arm stuck out of his side to grasp a balsa wood rifle.

The front of the straw man, where the webbing crossed, already had four assegais protruding from it. Around the straw man, the garden was full of shields, spears and a bolt-action rifle that did not appear to be a replica. Another straw man stood in the flowerbed dressed in a leopardskin; his papier mâché head was chocolate brown rather than rosy pink, and he appeared relieved not to be the current centre of attention.

"Excuse me", said Steve.

The spearwoman looked up. She still held the spear over-arm, ready for throwing.

"Yes?"

"You work at the launderette, don't you?"

"Yes. This is my day off."

"What are you doing?"

She grinned. "I'm a spear chucker."

"I can see that", said Steve. "You seem to be very good at it."

"Thank you. AAAIIIEEEEEE -"

- THUNK. The final spear shivered into place beside its brothers.

"Why are you, er, chucking spears?" said Steve.

"Training", said the spear chucker.

"Training for?"

"Historical battle re-enactment", said the laundry lady. "I am a member of KwaZulu London. We re-enact the Zulu Wars. In two weeks' time we will be re-fighting the Battle of Isandhlwana in North Kensington."

"Gosh", said Steve.

"You should take part", said the lady. "We're always short of white volunteers for Isandhlwana."

"Isn't that the one where the whites were annihilated?" said Steve cautiously.

"No actual annihilation will be involved", assured the lady. "We use safe spears with ball bearings welded on to the end. You really have to go some", she complained, "to do any real damage with them. Unless you hit an eye, or the teeth, or a bollock."

"Were there many lady Zulu soldiers?" said Steve.

"Very many", said the lady. "Around three thousand, recruited in the reign of Shaka, known as vutwamini. In fact, ladies are the only members of KwaZulu at present. We conceived it as a way of celebrating our African heritage and the cause of feminine empowerment simultaneously."

"It sounds very impressive", said Steve. "How many of you are there?"

"Just the twelve at present", said the lady. "We're trying to recruit more men. We need British volunteers for a practice run up at Alexandra Palace on Sunday, in fact, if you're interested."

"Twelve women in bikinis", said Steve.

"Strictly speaking, if we're talking full historical accuracy, we really ought to do it topless", said the lady.

"I have a deep interest in African history", said Steve.

***

Steve emptied the bin liner onto Gonoroid's missile telemetry console. Enlightened New Age literature tumbled out.

"Told you so", said Gonoroid.

"Is it you?" said Steve.

"Is what me?"

"Is it you, sneaking into my room and returning the books. Trying to put the willies up me. Er. You know what I mean."

Gonoroid shook his head vehemently. "Steve, I'm very upset you would even think that."

Steve exhaled like a punched paper bag and sank into the telemetrist's chair. "Well, in any case, I'm having the locks changed next week. Whoever is stealing in will no longer be able to steal in."

"What if no-one's stealing in?"

Steve chewed on his own teeth in disquiet. "I'll cross that bridge when I come to it." He hugged his elbows defensively. "I found my chair across the room by the bathroom door when I came in. I could swear it was in the middle of the room when I left for work."

"There are forces at work in the universe bigger than you or I, Steve."

Steve looked up at the books. "I took all these to the incinerator. I'm sure I did."

Gonoroid patted Steve on the shoulder earnestly. "I'm sure you did."

"I'm not going crazy."

"Well, there's an easy way you can prove you're not going crazy. Pick a page in one of the books, in any one book. Take a biro and doodle in it. Then, if the doodle's still there when the book comes back, you'll know it's really the same book."

Steve looked up, exasperated. "And what does that tell me?"

"It tells you someone is somehow getting hold of exactly the same book you threw away, and returning it, rather than simply replacing it with a new one."

"I'm sorry, Gonoroid, I'm really not sure which of those two alternatives is the creepier."

"And", said Gonoroid, warming to the subject, "you could fix one of your own hairs to the doorframe in the morning with spit."

"Which would do what?"

"If the door's opened by anyone else, the hair falls off, and you know your door's been opened."

"Shit." Steve considered the suggestion. "Actually, that might work. Does it have to be spit?"

"I don't think so. Polyfilla might be noticed, mind you."

Steve flicked one of the books open. "The words of the Immortal Ascended Devasekhara Rinpoche", he quoted.

"Yes. I believe his real name is Quinton Probus. His order have a temple somewhere near here. By a temple, of course, I mean a terraced house with eyes and mandalas painted all over it. They keep getting in trouble with the Council for adding stupas without permission. Samtoshi was one of his faithful."

"I will choose", said Steve, "page one hundred and eighty-three, at the start of the chapter entitled 'WHY YOU DO NOT NEED FOOD'." He pulled a ballpoint out of an inside pocket. "I choose to draw a big cock and balls on that page, out of respect for its content." He opened the front cover of the book and made a slight, almost imperceptible tear in the page. "I shall also mark the book so that only I know which one has been specially improved. Now we shall see", he continued, "who is imagining things."

"Chapter seven says God is imagining us", said Gonoroid. After Steve glared at him severely, he added: "Mind you, it also says we're imagining God. It doesn't allow itself to be tied down by conventional logic."

"You read it?"

"Know your enemy. Let Your Enemy Be Your Teacher, in fact. That's the title of chapter three."

Steve scowled at Gonoroid.

"I suspect you", he said, "to be a covert Child of Gaia."

***

It was midnight on Saturday; Steve slept the sleep of the just.

The sleep of the just, unfortunately, was populated with the unjust, who continued to exercise the same influences over the just that they had during normal working hours.

"Do you want to continue your career here, Mr. Simpson? Then bare your buttocks and bend over the desk. Yes, this is all part of standard induction procedure. Julie, be an absolute love and run and fetch the margarine. Yes, the same margarine we put in the canteen sandwiches -"

Steve awoke in a cold sweat. The walls were shaking around him. For some reason, he found himself yelling:

"THE EARTH'S NOT MOVING! IT'S NOT THAT GOOD! THE EARTH'S NOT MOVING!"

The Earth, however, was moving. His few items of furniture were walking across the floor. The dust he'd considered manageable was dancing in a thick moonlit cloud above the floorboards. The roar he could hear was so loud it was almost tangible; the only things he could imagine might be happening were (a) earthquake, (b) Concorde landing in the street outside, (c) nuclear war or (d) invasion by giant robot monsters. Given London's distance from any major tectonic plates and the fact that Neot Street was insufficiently long to accommodate jet traffic, this alarmed him enough to make him leap out of bed and gingerly peep around recently acquired curtains. The curtains, after all, were bound to block out some of the deadly radiation outside; they were double thickness, chosen specifically to prevent Russian spy satellites from filming him masturbating. It would be best to expose as little of himself to damaging gamma radiation as possible.

Outside, he could see nothing apart from every bedroom window in the street lighting up, faces peering round curtains and leaning out of windows. Of the source of the sound there was no sign.

Abruptly, the sound ended, and the putty in his windowframe stopped rattling in its socket.

"Is that them bastards again?"

"Facking poofs."

"Facking heavily-armed poofs."

Windows slid closed; curtains shut. Lights went off. Mystified, Steve flopped back onto his recently purchased air mattress, stared at the ceiling, and said to himself:

"The Earth's not moving."