Wiping the expungement from his exceptionally complex and multifunctional chronometer, machined for his ancestors by the secretive clockworkers who had lived in the land of his forbears aeons ago out of rare metals and precious minerals many of which would now have elicited a record reading on the UK border patrol scanners had he not bypassed the checkpoint with a casual wave of the hand, an old trick he’d learnt as a hatchling from a mysterious aunty. He double-checked his frequency before deftly replacing the ornate timepiece in the smaller left-hand pocket of his lurid paisley waistcoat, next to his quantum rationalisation devices and his nanogrenades, a lithe and practised action that betrayed the natural elegance and civility of his gymnastic stature, he shrugged his broad muscular shoulders.
He was reassured by a smothering feeling of warmth and security that swept over him as the portal closed silently behind his back like a sack pulled over his head all the way down to his feet. This interior space was unfamiliar to him, but he knew that the minds behind its construction would have ensured that it was not only germ free and wipe-clean, but impregnable to any natural force at least in this galaxy. There were no corners or seams and as far as he could see and no trace that any earthling had passed this way before. While could sense the distance to his destination lessen, he realised that the destination itself was far further than anyone could have predicted and he wondered whether he'd be the first human to undergo this extreme experience or whether it might finally reveal the answer to his lifelong suspicion of interstellar origins and the strange anomalies in his back story.
He removed his mask and goggles and ran a firm hand through his shapely locks as he considered his options. Looking around he admired the sparse but tasteful decor, there were a few unfamiliar devices bolted onto the walls with peculiarly shaped rivets, elaborate vacuum cleaner-like apparatuses with many trumpets and funnels that he assumed were for automatic deep decontamination - he was glad that he was no longer contagious, his waders had proved up to the task and so his inner garments were dry, thank goodness for hearty galoshes.
Surveying the scene keenly, he cast his glittering opalesque eyes around, scanning with ion-cannonical focus that instantly summarised and catalogued every spec, speck and detail in this unearthly room and depositing them in the epic cavity where he made his cogitations, his mind-mosque. The ghost of a smirk flickered upon his delicate and supple lips, which he licked avidly yet almost unnoticing, cheekily recalling a rather fine repast he'd consumed at a convivial hostelry not far from this lowly alley, and the strange encounter that had changed his perceptions forever with the cephalopodically blessed bargirl among the crates of empties and aluminium barrels in the beer cellar.
He thought back at the bizarre chain of events that had led him from that day to this point, this particular spot and this exact moment in time and space, this very reality that he was about to crack asunder with all of his mighty might and the microgrin slid from his features like the virus moon slipping sweatily into shadow behind a droopy cloud. He was confident that his psychosocial resolve was up to the task, his apprenticeship at the hands of his remote collective had been tough and tested his powers of endurance to the full, but he had come through not only stronger, but more devoted to his cause, his mission, even though he was beginning to understand that the limitations of the briefing he’d been so kindly provided by the enigmatic Dr Eden on top of the space factory might have been caused by not only hidden agendas back at the dojo, which he had long been fully aware of since his capers across the continuum, but also by a particularly perverse spirit that had begun to manifest itself at times of inattention or distraction among his followers, a sort of incompetent indifference that threatened to undermine the entire project and was becoming increasingly detectable in his analyses of the outputs of the amazing contraptions he’d been building in his floating laboratory since the accident.
The wallpaper was beginning to swirl and swim and he wondered to what extent the designs were sigilicious as well as of an intensely tasteless mid-nineties flock in burgundy and burnt orange – they reminded him of the wallpaper in that fateful boozer, that texture began to make the back of his throat itch, he could smell old cauliflower, cigarettes and sanitiser. He swallowed, his ears popped and the wallpaper resolved into a chinoiserie of lotus leaves and unrealistic bamboo, solid but with a feeling of deepness as if behind the foliage there might be a whole jungle enclosing lost cities, large creatures unknown as yet to science, flocks of brightly coloured macaws shouting his name and soaring through a vivid azure sky. He wiped his comely upper lip in anticipation.
In the centre of the humming space, which was lit dimly from an obscure source, he could see what appeared to be a victorian dining table, unlaid, and a white pillar of about waist height supporting a vigorous aspidistra in a plain pot. There were no chairs and nothing to sit on. There was no way out, and when he turned around, he could no longer detect the outline of the door that he'd entered through. He felt like he might be inside an egg.
He knew at once that there would be a riddle here, some way to open up the space that didn't rely on the mundane physicality of regular spatial navigation, such as doors. He pulled his lightly stubbled chin for a moment before a look of mild exasperation on his chiselled features was overcome by one of bored resignation as his mental processes circled and homed in on the clues and he realised that whichever intelligence this bauble was created for was nowhere near his level.
The egginess of his situation interested him intensely, he felt that if at the very least this was not a huge joke, a great yellow punning bubble of dna and metadata, then what might develop could be an evolution in any direction, perhaps he was a tadpole, hungrily devouring all the proteins in order to metamorphose towards an ultimate as yet unknowable form. he was confident that despite the squelching sounds he could make out coming from somehwhere high above, his preparations, the incantations, depilations and annointations would keep him toasty even should things proceed shit-wise.
So somewhat gingerly nevertheless, he crossed the room, pulleing out as he did so a clean white gingham handkerchief from his breast pocket with a little florid letter T neatly embroidered in blue and pink on one corner and laid his fungus gently and affectionately upon it in the centre of the table, and after first carefully straightening then lighting a pungent cheroot that he pulled from the brim of his battered hat with his very last match struck on his glistening right canine tooth, sucking in a cloud of smoke that emerged from his hairy ears and nose as a series of smoky geometrical shapes of diminishing size and opacity the purplish vapours softly dancing towards some invisible aircon, he addressed the aspidistra:
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