Tales and Imaginings by Tim Robinson Read Free Book Online Page A

I know who consciously obeys the laws of perspective. When your coach leaves, remember to look back; his ‘dwindling with distance’ is unforgettable. What a strange lot we are! What odd names we have! You will have to write about us. Failures of characterization you can disguise as shallowness of character, confused intentions as the intention to confuse; as your co-author I may say such things. The unpublished novella is the most forgiving of art-forms.’
    ‘And if I publish?’
    ‘I fear no one will recognize us. Not even you.’
    Persimmon turned away abruptly, and greeted Midgley with: ‘I’ve given him my parting gift, so what about yours?’ Midgley began to slap at his numerous pockets as if hoping some suitable small parcel might materialize. Then his face cleared; he produced a bulging pocketbook. ‘There’s something here you might care to remember me by; it’s a definition of the word “sky”.’
    I read, neatly penned on a small card:
    SKY: The apparent locus, oblately spheroidal in form, of high-altitude meteorological and visible astronomical phenomena.
    ‘Thank you, Midgley; that’s really very nice. And it makes me feel I should apologize for tearing up that photograph. In fact I wish I had it now.’
    ‘Don’t worry!’ Persimmon interrupted. ‘He has plenty more photos like that; don’t you, Midgely?’
    Midgely turned an anguished, beseeching face towards him.
    ‘Of that girl?’ I asked.
    ‘Of that girl.’
    I looked at Midgely’s moist eye and burning brow, and said, ‘Don’t tell me any more.’
    ‘No, you know just enough‚’ agreed Persimmon.
    Midgley shifted from foot to foot, and changed the subject: ‘And which way do you go from here?’
    Persimmon answered for me, with a voluminous gesture: ‘He expands in all directions, leaving us, it appears, to drown in our own watch-springs. In terms chosen from your well-furnished store, this Time and Space will become a street-corner on an Electron in an Atom of his most inward Nucleus. Come! Those two drunkard magicians have finally settled for the workaday masks of busdriver and conductor; you are about to leave. No need to remind you never to come back; the past is the most unrevisitable of cities. Bow for me before the tomb of your great-aunt! Wave, Midgley, wave!’
    The coach roared and shuddered. Persimmon and Midgley were sucked from me into the vortex. The city folded its petals and sank like a stone.

So and Springrice
    Late in one of the thousand autumns of the Autumn Empire, the family So, lacking in both wealth and learning, entrusted what they had of either to the youngest son and sent him off to find the world and bring it home. How huge that world was, they didn’t know. Between the City of the Emperors and the provincial capital, the highway touched the sky three times and wintered in a desert; to the provincial capital from the little town So had heard named but had never visited was half the length of a river; the way from So’s village to that town which even an Emperor might forget, was choked with many years of leaves. And yet such a distance was a mere step in thought to the grown child with hopeful eyes who was scattering those leaves in his eager striding. Among the leaves, deeply nested, lay a skull. It didn’t sleep; it ached with emptiness where memories used to be. ‘Who was I?’ it wailed, as it did whenever anyone passed by, but its dried-up voice was lost in the rustling leaves. Then So’s foot jolted it from its resting-place. ‘Don’t follow me!’ cried So, seeing it roll and bounce after his heels; but the bubble of bone jumped on a thin wind to his shoulder, and gripped his ear in its teeth. ‘Who was I?’ it hissed. ‘Who am I? If I had my memories I could lull myself to sleep. You must swear to help me, or I shall never let go.’
    ‘I know nothing; how can I help you?’ wept So.
    ‘Swear!’
    So faced each of the corners of the Empire in turn. To each corner he said, ‘May I