Tough, Tough Toys for Tough, Tough Boys by Will Self Read Free Book Online Page A

abdomen, each one of its barbs dripping with Cacharel. She arched still more, bending herself back underneath him. The ovipositor nuzzled his anus; and then the sting oozed up, killing him at the moment of climax.
    Jonathan awoke, his mouth full of glutinous, mucal crud. It was ten thirty in the evening, and he was now living in Flytopia.
    This he realised on entering the kitchen. Silverfish boiled up from the crack at the back of the sink and spread out over the draining-board. Their myriad bodies formed some comprehensible design. Jonathan leant down to see what it was. It was writing; the silverfish had formed themselves into a slogan: WELCOME TO FLYTOPIA . . . it said, the leader dots being, as it were, the fifty or so stragglers who couldn't make it into the final leg of the ‘A’. Jonathan rubbed his eyes and exclaimed, ‘Well, this is a turn up. Tell me – if you can act in this fashion presumably you can understand my speech – what does being in Flytopia entail exactly?’
    The swarm of silverfish fused into a single pullulating heap and then fissioned back into readable characters, spindlier this time, which ranged across the corrugations of the draining-board, as if they were lines on a sheet of paper:
    IN FLYTOPIA HUMANS AND INSECTS LIVE TOGETHER CO-OPERATIVELY. WE HAVE UNDERSTOD YOUR ANXIETY AND REVULSION FROM US, BUT WISH NOW TO LIVE AT PEACE WITH YOU. YOU ASSIST US – WE WILL ASSIST YOU.
    ‘That should be “understood”,’ said Jonathan, ‘not “understod”.’ The silverfish rearranged themselves to correct the living typo. ‘Hmm;’ Jonathan continued to speak aloud as he got a beer from the fridge and opened it, ‘I suppose you want some kind of quid pro quo then?’
    IT WOULD BE KIND IF YOU GOT RID OF THE VAPONAS AND THE FLY-PAPERS – INCIDENTALLY, SINCE YOU WERE WONDERING, THE VAPONAS EMIT A KIND OF NEUROTOXIN THAT PARALYSES US. IT'S NOT A NICE DEATH.
    ‘I'm sure . . . I'm sure . . . but you must appreciate, I don't want to relax my campaign against you until I have more evidence of your goodwill.’
    WE UNDERSTAND THAT. IF YOU CONTINUE ABOUT YOUR DAILY EXISTENCE, WE WILL DO OUR BEST TO ACCOMMODATE OURSELVES TO YOUR NEEDS. I THINK YOU WILL FIND THAT WE CAN BE SURPRISINGLY USEFUL. YOU ARE TIRED NOW, WHY NOT GO AND SEE WHAT WE'VE DONE IN THE BEDROOM?
    Jonathan went upstairs and snapped on the overhead light in the bedroom. The bed, normally a slough of damp and disordered sheets, was not only neatly made, but peculiarly clean in appearance, clean as if burnished from within. A four-inch-wide rivulet of mites was flowing off the plumped-up pillow, down to the floor, across the intervening strip of carpet, up to the window-sill, and out the window itself. ‘What's going on here?’ Jonathan asked, taking a slug of his beer. The back end of the stream of tiny insects quivered, detached itself from the larger body of its kine and began to form characters on the pillow. Within seconds a slogan arranged itself:
    WE ARE THE DUST MITES WHO HAVE BEEN LIVING IN YOUR BEDROOM. IN THE MATTRESS, THE PILLOWS, AND THE CARPET. AS A GESTURE OF GOODWILL FROM OUR ORDER WE HAVE THOROUGHLY CLEANED YOUR BEDDING AND NOW WE ARE DEPARTING. SWEET DREMS.
    ‘That should be “dreams”,’ said Jonathan pedantically, but the dust mites, paying no attention, had already reformed their column and were completing their ordered withdrawal.
    It was the first night of dreamless and undisturbed sleep that Jonathan could remember having in weeks. But when he awoke the following morning the bedroom was humming with insect life. As he opened his eyes he saw that the ceiling immediately above him was carpeted with flies. DO NOT BE ALARMED ! The flies quickly and quiveringly arranged themselves into the words: WE WISH TO ASSIST YOU WITH YOUR TOILET.
    ‘Fair enough,’ said Jonathan, heaving himself blearily up on to his elbows.
    A beautiful flight of cabbage white butterflies then came winging into the room, for all the world