Web Site Story

'Say it,' said Kelly. 'Who cares? Say it.'

Shibboleth shrugged at the wheel and said it. 'Nothing but my genius,' he said.

'Most original, sir,' said the guard. 'That's the first time I've heard that, today.'

Shibboleth grinned, unsheepishly.

'I'll make a note of it,' said the guard. 'I believe that the millionth person to say it is entitled to a free T-shirt, or something. So, do you have any illegal drugs, laundered money, unlicensed firearms or explosives to declare?'

'None,' said Shibboleth.

'You won't last long in there then,' said the guard. 'Would you care to give me your wristwatch before you go to your certain doom? Only I'm saving up for a unicycle, I want to run away with the circus.'

Shibboleth parted with his wristwatch. 'If we make it out of here later, I want it back,' he said.

'Fair enough,' said the border guard. 'But I might not be on duty when you return. I go off at three when another guard comes on to relieve me. It's not the same guard who came on at three yesterday morning, that's another guard altogether. The one who came on at five the day before.'

'Wasn't it six?' asked another border guard, arriving on his bike.

'Oh, hello Harry,' said the first border guard. 'I didn't think you were coining on relief until ten tomorrow morning.'

'It's a very complicated system,' said Harry. 'Do you want me to take charge of this chap's watch? Only I'm saving up for a milk float, I want to run away with the circus.'

'Do they have milk-float acts in circuses?' asked the border guard that was just about to be relieved.

'Did I say circus?' asked Harry. 'Naturally I meant to say trampoline.'

'He works too hard,' the first border guard explained. 'Sometimes he has to relieve himself, if somebody doesn't turn up.'

'Can we just go through now?' asked Shibboleth.

'I don't know,' said the first border guard. 'I'm not on duty any more. You'll have to ask Harry.'

'Don't ask me,' said Harry. 'I'm just clocking off".'

Shibboleth drove through the night streets of Mute Corp Keynes. He avoided the stingers and deadfalls with the bungee spikes, the landmines and the tempting hedgehogs, which, Shibboleth told Kelly, were loaded with nail bombs. And various other obstructions.

'You seem to know your way around here,' said Kelly.

Shibboleth turned the steering wheel of his automobile. It was a Ford Fiesta. It was Derek's Ford Fiesta. 'I've lived here all my life,' said he. 'I know everything that goes on here.'

'The border guards didn't seem to know you.'

'I didn't know them. There are a lot of border guards. It's a very complicated system.'

'But if you lived here, why did you give them your watch?'

'It wasn't my watch,' said Shibboleth. 'Ah here we are.'

Ahead, through the mostly darkness, shone bright lights. Bright and neon lights. A bar. And a dangerous-looking bar. All concrete front and no windows. Low and ugly. Shrapnel-pocked and needing a coat or two of paint. Or better still demolition. The neon lights blinked on and off the way that such lights do. They spelled out the letters that spelled out the words, which spelled out the name of the place.

the tomorrowman tavern.

All that spelling spelled out.

'You'll like it here,' said Shibboleth. 'Well, actually you won't. But there's worse places to be than this, although I've never been to them.'

'And the chapel?' Kelly asked.

18

Shibboleth ambled off to the bar, leaving Kelly to muse upon the wisdom of her being here. The jukebox stuttered and cut out and the patrons made their feelings felt by pelting it with bottles. Whilst a potman laboured to restart the ancient Wurlitzer, a canny Scotsman, in a kilt and war bonnet, entertained the disgruntled patrons with an exhibition of standing on one leg.

A shaven-headed woman with a padlock through her nose leaned close by Kelly and whispered at her ear. 'That's our Kenny,' she said in a hushed and reverent tone. 'When it comes to the standing upon the single leg, there's none that do it better than him.'

'Is he self-taught?' Kelly asked.

The woman looked at Kelly as if she were quite mad. 'Tish no,' she said, shaking her baldy head and rattling her padlock on her silver-painted teeth. 'He spent ten years in the Potala Tibet, studying under the Balancing Lama, and then another five years in the Monastery of St Timothy the gimp, they're a hopping order there, so he learned that as well. Then he was with the Unipedarian Church of South Korea, they have their right legs amputated, which frankly I think is cheating. Then he served an apprenticeship on the Spanish main, road-testing wooden legs for retired pirates. And then…'

'Here's your red wine,' said Shibboleth. 'They had no pork scratchings, so I bought you twenty Lambert and Butlers instead. You don't have to smoke them, you can just chew the tobacco. It's scented with camomile, or so the landlord told me.'

'The landlord is jealous of our Kenny,' said she of the eggy head and padlock nose furniture. 'He'd give his right leg to do what our Kenny can do.'

'What can he do?' asked Shibboleth.

'He can stand on one leg,' said Kelly. 'That's him over there.'

'Is he hoping to run away with the circus?' Shibboleth asked. 'Or perhaps hop?'

'He ran away from the circus,' said the hairless female with the nasal security-accoutrement appendage. 'Or perhaps he hopped. I never asked him. There are some things you just don't ask a man with a talent like that.'

'Such as, whyT Shibboleth suggested.

The slaphead with the shiny metallic burglar-thwarting-equipment hooter decoration raised a hairless eyebrow and gave Shibboleth the kind of look that a ferret gives a lump of mouse-shaped feta cheese on a cold and frosty morning. 'I know where you live,' she said.

'There's a couple of seats over there,' said Shibboleth to Kelly. 'Perhaps you'd care to sit down?'

Kelly cared and so they went and sat down.

'This used to be a really decent bar,' said Shibboleth, supping something green in a glass and smiling a lot upon Kelly. 'They used to have real entertainment here on a Thursday night. Proper professional single-leg-standers, many of whom also played the accordion. Some of the greatest names in single-leg-standing have performed here. Arthur Gillette. The Magnificent Norman. Wally Tomlin, Prince of the Pedal-elevation. He did songs from the shows. And…'

'Stop now,' said Kelly. 'Or I will be forced to punch you in the face.'

'It's an acquired taste,' said Shibboleth. 'How are the Lambert and Butlers?'

Kelly pulled a strand of tobacco from her teeth. 'Not bad, as it happens,' she said. 'Although Capstan Full Strength are better. But beggars can't be choosers, as my mother used to say, although choosers can be beggars, if they choose.'