But the fire burned the lions, which ate the snake, which clogged the howitzers, which crushed the spears, which jammed the gas generator, which dissolved the water, which quenched the fire.
Marvin stood forth miraculously unscathed. He shook his fist at Kraggash, slipped on the steel plating, fell and broke his neck.
He was afforded a military funeral with full honours. His widow died with him on the flaming pyre. Kraggash tried to follow, but was refused the solace of suttee.
Marvin lay in the tomb for three days and three nights, during which time his nose dripped continuously. His entire life passed before his eyes in slow motion. At the end of that time he arose and moved onward.
There were five objects of limited but undeniable sentience in a place with no qualities worth mentioning. One of these objects was, presumably, Marvin. The other four were lay figures, hastily sketched stereotypes designed for the sole purpose of adorning the primary situation. The problem confronting the five was, which of them was Marvin, and which were the unimportant background figures?
First came a question of nomenclature. Three of the five wished to be called Marvin immediately, one wanted to be called Edgar Floyd Morrison, and one wished to be referred to as 'unimportant background figure'.
This was quite obviously tendentious, and so they numbered themselves from one to four, the fifth stubbornly insisting upon being called Kelly.
'All right, already,' said Number One, who had already taken an officious air. 'Gentlemen, could we maybe stop beating our gums and bring this meeting to order?'
'A Jewish accent won't help you here,' Number Three said darkly.
'Look,' said Number One, 'what would a Polack know about Jewish accents? As it happens, I am Jewish only on my father's side, and although I esteem-'
'Where am I?' said Number Two. 'My God, what happened to me? Ever since I left Stanhope …'
'Shut up, Wop,' Number Four said.
'My name-a not Wop, my name-a she'sa Luigi,' Number Two responded swarthily. 'I bin two year in your greata country ever since I leetle boy in village San Minestrone della Zuppa, nicht wahr?'
'Sheet, man,' Number Three said darkly. 'You ain't no dagowop atall nohow, you ain't nuttin' but jes' a plain ornary privisional background figure of limited flexibility; so suppose you jes shut you mouf afore I do dat little ting for you, nicht wahr?'
'Listen,' said Number One, 'I'm a simple man of simple tastes and if it'll help any I'll give up my rights to Marvinhood.'
'Memory, memory,' muttered Number Two. 'What has happened to me? Who are these apparitions, these talkative shades?'
'Oh, I say!' Kelly said. 'That's really bad form, old man!'
'It'sa pretty goddamn disingenuous,' muttered Luigi.
'Invocation is not convocation,' said Number Three.
'But I really don't remember,' said Number Two.
'So I don't remember so good neither,' said Number One. 'But do you hear me making a big thing out of it? I'm not even claiming to be human. The mere fact that I can recite Leviticus by heart don't prove nothing.'
'Too right it doesn't!' shouted Luigi. 'And disproof don't prove any flaming thing neither.'
'I thought you were supposed to be Italian.' Kelly said to him.
'I am, but I was raised in Australia. It's rather a strange story-'
'No stranger than mine,' Kelly said. 'Black Irishman do you call me? But few know that I passed my formative years in a Hangchow whorehouse, and that I enlisted in the Canadian army to escape French persecution for my part in aiding the Gaullists in Mauretania; and that is why-'
'Zut, alors!' cried Number Four. 'One can keep silence no longer! To question my credentials is one thing; to asperse my country is another!'
'Yer indignation don't prove a thing!' Number Three cried. 'Not that I really care, since I choose no longer to be Marvin.'
'Passive resistance is a form of aggression,' Number Four responded.
'Inadmissable evidence is still a form of evidence,' Three retorted.
'I don't know what any of you are talking about,' Number Two declared.
'Ignorance will get you nowhere,' Number Four snarled. 'I refuse categorically to be Marvin.'
'You can't give up what you haven't got,' Kelly said archly.
'I can give up anything I damned well want to!' Number Four cried passionately. 'I not only give up my Marvinity; I also step down from the throne of Spain, yield up to the dictatorship of the Inner Galaxy, and renounce my salvation in Bahai.'
'Feel better now, kid?' Luigi asked sardonically.
'Yes … It was insupportable. Simplification suits my intricate nature,' Number Four said. 'Which of you is Kelly?'
'I am,' Kelly said.
'Do you realize,' Luigi asked him, 'that only you and I have names?'
'That's true,' Kelly said. 'You and I are different!'
'Here now, just a moment!' Number One said.
'Time, gentlemen, time, please!'
'Hold the fort!'
'Hold your water!'
'Hold the phone!'
'As I was saying,' Luigi said. 'We! Us! The Named Ones of the Proof Presumptive! Kelly – you can be Marvin if I can be Kraggash!'
'Done!' roared Kelly, over the protests of the lay figures.
Marvin and Kraggash grinned at each other in the momentary euphoria of identity-intoxication. Then they flung themselves at each other's throats. Manual strangulation followed apace. The three numbered ones, robbed of a birthright they had never possessed, took up conventional poses of stylized ambiguity. The two lettered ones, granted an identity they had seized anyhow, tore and bit at each other, flung forth defiant arias and cringed before devastating recitatives. Number One watched until he grew bored, then began playing with a lap dissolve.
That did it. The whole shooting works slid away like a greased pig on roller skates coming down a solid glass mountain, only slightly faster.
Day succeeded night, which succeeded in making a perfect fool of itself.
Plato wrote: 'It ain't whatcha do, it's the way thatcha do it.' Then, deciding that the world was not yet ready for this, he scrubbed it out.
Hammurabi wrote: 'The unexamined life is not worth living.' But he wasn't sure it was true, so he scratched it out.
Gautama Buddha wrote: 'Brahmins stink.' But later he revised it.
Nature abhors a vacuum, and I don't like it much either. Marvinissimo! Here he comes catfooting along, flaunting his swollen identity. All men are mortal, he tells us, but some are more mortal than others. There he is, playing in the backyard, making value judgements out of mud. Having no respect, he becomes his father. Last week we revoked his Godhead; we caught him operating a life without a licence.
(But, I have warned you often, my friends, of the Protoplasmic Peril. It creeps across the heavens, extinguishing stars. Shamelessly it survives and flows, uprooting planets and smothering the stars. With damnable insistence it deposits its abominations.)
He comes again, that seedy juggler in an off-beige skin, that monstrous optimist with the stitched smile! Killer, kill thyself! Burglar, steal thyself! Fisher, catch thyself! Famer, harvest thyself!
And now we will hear the report of the Special Investigator.
'Thank you, ahem. I have found that Marvin is the one to have when you're having more than one; that stars fell on Marvin Flynn, that one should praise the Lord and pass the Marvin Flynn. And I have also noted: Darling, as long as you're up, get me a Marvin Flynn. Marvin Flynn is actually better than the higher-priced spread. Promise her anything, but give her Marvin Flynn. You have a friend at Marvin Flynn. Let your Marvin do the walking through the Yellow Pages. Drink Marvin – it satisfies! Why not worship this week at the Marvin Flynn of your choice? For the Marvin Flynn that prays together stays together.'