The Fez Read online

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yeah, I think, but my back hurts, and I think I’ve got a headache.”

  “Oh, I’ll make sure you get proper treatment for that.” She turned to leave.

  “Wait!”

  She paused and turned back. “Yes?”

  “I think I had one of those hallucination-dream-mirage-things. It was about a big, red box that I had to catch. And it was a pyramid,” he added.

  She laughed. “Well I suppose with all the advertising these days I can’t blame you.”

  He pretended to laugh along but he didn’t know why.

  Chapter 4

  Several dull days of hospital life later, Dave got into the driving seat of a new 2042 Dorhar 203 Max.

  “Hi, I’m Calvin and I’ll be your driving instructor,” said a man about ten years older than Dave, who was thirty-four and three halves. Calvin was an unusual man, although Dave had come to expect this of people on Glix. His eyelids were opened so far it looked like he was trying to prove that he did indeed have eyeballs. He did.

  Calvin also had the brown, partially stuck-up hair that Dave had noticed was common on Glix. Dave had even tried the style on his own brown mess with some water back at Monterey Jack General. He wanted to show people that he very definitely was a Glix-ling and that there was absolutely no reason what-so-ever for any other Glix-ling ever to dare suspect him of even being related to one of those horrible traitors from Foreignland, or whatever. Bleugh. It hadn’t really worked. He only ever got the edges of his hair to stick up. Yet still he tried his hardest for an unnecessary period of time every morning, which resulted in his scruffy hair not looking so scruffy unless you were looking at it from above. And Dave hoped that nobody did look at it from above. In moments of great frustration and paranoia (of which there had been many during his time on Glix), Dave wondered if they did have anyone around hired to check everybody had native hairdos. He began to grow suspicious of aircraft.

  “Hello,” was all Dave had to say.

  “I trust you have a provisional driving licence?”

  “Well, no. Am I meant to?”

  Calvin looked at him, horrified. “You don’t have one already?” Dave began to get really worried and was horrified he’d done something wrong. Was I meant to have a licence for myself before I came? he wondered. Oh no, they’re going to realise I’m not from around here. This is going to be another one of my many mistakes to go on the governmental lists of why I should be executed. I imagine they have pits they fill with people like me – traitors. Then they drive cars over us repeatedly until, finally, our dismembered corpses are reminded of the basic rule of Glix’s transport: either you drive over the world or the world drives over you. Oh antimetabole, you are so cruel.

  “Here you go,” Calvin said calmly, handing a blank provisional licence over to Dave. “Now you just fill that in when you want to.” In all his years as a driving instructor, Calvin had never seen anyone quite so horrified at his classic pretend-they-needed-to-have-done-some-paperwork-before-they-turned-up-here trick. “There’s no need to get so worried. I was only joking.”

  “Thank you,” he timidly replied, startled by the man’s sick, sick sense of humour. He set about driving in the same way he remembered from before he came to Glix.

  “No,” said Calvin. “Remember, we drive on the right side of the road.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Dave. “Of course I remember now.” Accidentally thinking out loud, he added, “Just like they do in America.”

  “No. In America, they drive on the left side of the road. Actually, no, I tell a lie, they drive on the right in some parts of East America.”

  “Right…” Dave responded.

  “Right,” Calvin agreed.

  As Dave set about driving – Calvin pointing out all the motoring cultural differences as they went – he looked for either some way of getting back to his real home or just something he recognised. Glinda had told him that he was allowed out of the hospital from that point on, but it was advised for him to return for frequent check-ups if he found himself lost in the ways of the world. Dave knew this would happen, of course, but feared if he went back too often, they’d notice something more was going on. And the idea of letting the authorities know about his illegal immigration didn’t bear thinking about. He had been set free and didn’t have to go back again (and didn’t want to let the hospital staff in on any secrets), but Dave told himself he had to return to have somewhere to sleep. However, if this box from his dream (or, possibly, reality) provided him with a solution, he might be able to get back to his true home yet. He would certainly investigate it anyway (if there really was a box) and that would surely provide him with a way home (if children’s stories did indeed have any relevance in real life) or possibly help him understand what on Glix was going on in his subconscious (if anything was actually going on in there).

  Dave looked at the art of the world as he drove past. It appeared to have meaning only when the entire context was understood, which it currently wasn’t. He had spotted an object that resembled an obelisk or a tall menhir. Across the side of the grey figure was the phrase ‘I am here, and have been since the Dawn of Glix.’ Dave wondered if this was meant to have religious connotations, like most of the sculptures and paintings of his former home town did. Those of his home weren’t coupled with lines of poetry quite so often, though. As Dave’s vehicle drove away from the stone shape, he thought how it could be seen to slightly resemble the object he had encountered in his dream, but decided that it was probably just his overactive imagination.

  “Stop!”

  Dave slammed his foot on the brake, but was far too late to avoid clashing with the rear bumper of the vehicle in front. The car stationed itself anyway, and the bemused Dave spotted Calvin’s foot furiously stomping the alternative brake pedal into the ground.

  Calvin pulled the car into a space along the side of the road, to a chorus of honks and toots from the puzzled drivers behind him.

  “You cannot drift off whilst driving! You will not pass your exam if you keep fading away! Daydreaming is not acceptable behaviour!” Calvin informed him, bearing a striking resemblance to several teachers Dave had been taught by at his primary school. And his middle school. And his secondary school…

  Dave drifted off into further thoughts about the perception and relevance of artwork on the planet. Out of his window, he spotted another image similar to his hallucination of a box. This was on a sign outside what appeared to be a social club. This automatically made it seem unappealing to Dave. Another place to go where he’d end up wishing for a horse. Nevertheless, he examined the art for what it was: a possible solution to some of his problems and hopefully the answer to his box-related queries. The emblem buried itself deep within Dave’s mind. Again, the red trapezium would be entirely meaningless, were it not for the quote below: the phrase ‘FezFans’. Although, it wasn’t just another delusion on artwork. This time there was a place. Whatever, a red trapezium meant to the people of Carpe Yolu, they gathered together in this building to discuss. A red trapezium definitely meant something to Dave, if it were buried within his dreams. He had always been taught that at school: if something’s in your dreams, it’s deep inside your mind. He had also been taught to follow his dreams.

  “Are you listening to me?”

  “I’m so sorry, it must just be hospital life but I can’t take a driving lesson today, my head is just so stressed out. I’m sorry.” Dave ran off, leaving Calvin in the car, and headed straight into FezFans, hoping he would find out something else about his mind.

  “That’s an unusual place,” Calvin said to himself. “I’ve never seen it before.”

  Chapter 5

  Back on his home planet, Dave had occasionally found himself visiting awkward social events where everyone around him claimed to be more successful than him, wealthier than him, or – as he had heard one arrogant young man state – more useful than him. Sometimes, though it was not said explici
tly, the people in their false facades were under the delusion that they possessed all three of these qualities. It was at events like these that Dave found himself quietly uttering the phrases ‘Kill me now’, ‘Why did I even agree to come here?’ and ‘I wish I had a horse.’ On Glix, however, things were very different; he hadn’t yet heard anyone mention a horse.

  When on a foreign planet (or in any foreign place, for that matter), the immediate reaction of the unaccustomed traveller is to get themselves back to a mental state of being at home, despite their apparent hatred of their home and the many reasons for having left in the first place. Dave had already spent a considerable amount of his time on Glix reliving the best times of his past accommodation. And he was already sick of them. Thinking back to all the unpleasant memories of his former home, as he so frequently did when he’d run out of happy ones, Dave realised how trivial all those social events had been, as well as everything else he had done on his home planet. All those people were gone. It seemed unfair that all Dave’s hard-earned achievements were now reduced to dust. Not that it had been any fairer on his home planet. Dave had worked long and hard and had always studied vigorously for any examination that presented itself, yet somehow his small triumphs were overshadowed by the grades of those students whose fathers had money to spare.

  On Glix, people of all walks of life and various backgrounds lived together in peace and harmony. Still, those who had features in common with each other would inevitably gather together. FezFans seemed to attract nutters.

  Dave entered the building and was met by all sorts of odd people. The class appeared to be being led by a big, blonde opera singer in a toga which looked rather like a tablecloth with a head-hole. The FezFans members, all of whom sat on chairs in a curve across the room, looked even odder. There was a 12-foot high troll; an ant; two people Dave was pretty sure hadn’t had haircuts since they were born; a pair of perfectly identical twins; an all-round odd-looking 14-year-old boy; three others wearing tablecloth togas; and a human-sized chicken wearing a fishbowl on his head.

  How odd, thought Dave.

  “But… But… What?!” So many thoughts rushed through Dave’s mind. Is there a massive chicken there? he pondered. Are these people Ancient Romans? Is that person over there… over there twice? Is there a troll sitting in this room? Well, saying that, I am technically an alien over here, so I guess a troll’s not too much of an issue. Did they slip me something funny at the hospital? He had many more questions cluttering up his mind. Well, enough for him to need to sit down and too many for him not to be anxious about what he might sit down upon.

  “Welcome, newcomer!” the leader said melodramatically. “Have we met somewhere before?”

  “Er, no, I don’t think so,” replied Dave.

  “Well it is possible we have met in the future, as we at FezFans all came here on a crazy space boat that fell into a black hole!” Several people nodded, including the ant.

  After that, Dave resolved to sit with the sane people, but ended up backing into a corner with the chicken, the twins and the crazy-looking boy, who was absent-mindedly chomping on a cheeseburger he appeared to have summoned out of thin air. Dave grabbed a chair and sat in the middle of them.

  “Let me introduce you,” the leader said, in a continued state of enthusiasm. “I am Oprah Sinn-Garr and this is my group: Clint,” she said, gesturing to one of the twins. “Clein.” She gestured to the other. “Dave; the Eternal Space Chicken of the Sacred Quack; Sally; Steven; Wensleydale; Nameless; Judith; Hawk; Mary.” She then gestured to Clint again and continued to name the same people, but with different names. “Jamie; Salad; Henry; Rudolph…”

  “Hi,” said Clint/Jamie, “My name’s Clint. What’s your name?” he waited for the reply of Dave and then carried on. “What symbol are you trying to get?”

  “What?”

  “What is the symbol you are searching for on the Fez?”

  “What’s the fez?”

  “‘What’s the fez?’” He and his twin brother laughed. “The Fez is the big, red box we’re all trying to find, everyone in this room. We’re in FezFans. Why, what did you think this place was? A fast food restaurant?”

  “No, I didn’t know what the box was called,” he mumbled. He tested the word out on his lips, “The fess.”

  “No. The Fez,” Clint corrected.

  “So what button do you want?” asked Clein.

  “Well it’s this gold button, you see, and—” Dave started.

  “Good,” Clint interrupted. “I’m going to get this kind of P, but it goes back a bit then goes curly.”

  “I’m going to get one that looks similar but with a line through it,” said Clein.

  The Space Chicken didn’t discuss his symbol or why he was trying to find it. However, he did explain about his past experiences with Quack, which Clint seemed to care very little about. Crazy Dave just persisted in attempting to eat the floor.

  Clein turned his gaze back from Crazy Dave to Normal Dave and quietly asked, “Do you ever feel like you’re the only sane one around here?”

  “Yeah, sometimes I do,” said the supposedly sane Dave, his mind seeming to be distant, but none-the-less focusing on Crazy Dave’s floor antics.

  “Tomorrow, at one o’clock,” he continued, “we are setting off in search of the Fez. Meet us here with your backpack filled with everything you think you might need for the hike.”

  “Where is the Fez?”

  “It moves.”

  “It moves? Then how will we know where the Fez is?” asked Dave.

  “Once you are in the same country as the Fez, you will know. It was up Nekken earlier, near the border, and then I lost it. Its absence is like a burden put back onto our shoulders.” said Clint.

  “How come I didn’t feel it leave the country?”

  “You obviously weren’t paying much attention to it.”

  Dave started to protest but found that it was completely true.

  “How does it move?”

  “When people push its buttons, of course.”

  “And why does the Fez just pass through the houses like that?” said Dave, trying to find answers to all his questions and hoping that these would mean a way home.

  “It doesn’t seem to affect anyone’s home. It’s like it tries to be friendly.”

  “But what about the people inside the houses?” asked Dave.

  “Oh, they’re okay. So long as they are at home, they’ll be okay.”

  Thinking about his current situation, Dave said, “But what if you’re homeless?”

  Clint and Clein were both dumbstruck.

  “So if their house was in the middle of the Fez when it was passing by and they opened the windows, they could see inside?” asked Dave, trying to comprehend.

  “No,” replied Clint. Dave heart sank a little again, as it so commonly did when he was reminded of his vast failings. “Their windows are jammed shut. Like if they were on a train, it’s just cold blackness outside.”

  “I think I understand it.”

  “Good. So remember, meet us here tomorrow at 1 o’clock.”

  Chapter 6

  That night, Dave returned to Monterey Jack General. No-one there paid him much attention. At least, not the usual sort of hospital attention. And he’d had enough medical attention in the past week that he felt anything even partly related would be unbearable. They had gradually been trying to ease him ‘back’ into everyday life after finding there was technically nothing wrong with him.

  Good, thought Dave, as he finally went to bed at the end of the long and confusing first day outside the hospital on Glix. That is, apart from the time he spent unconscious on the street. And he didn’t usually count those days as visiting a city, but instead as ‘a drunken mistake’.

  Good, he thought, no-one suspected me of being a traitor. So what have I learnt about Glix today? Well, the people of Carpe Yolu certainly are odd: I met a human-sized chicken who looked oddly like one of the animals thrown off the clou
d by Quack and Margery. I also saw a troll, some long-haired people (and I’ve seen enough of them back at home), some twins and some people who were just weird in every way possible. Great.

  And about my new friends, Clint and Clein. Well, Clint has pale white skin, slightly long hair for a boy (though nothing in comparison to those people on the other side of the room), which he had stuck up in the air, in almost a small, upside-down Fez-shape. It was a nice sort of hazelnut brown. He also had quite big, low eyebrows which covered his similarly coloured eyes. In some ways he looks rather similar to me. And Clein. Well, Clein had pale white skin, slightly long hair for a boy (though nothing in comparison to those people on the other side of the room), which he had stuck up in the air, in almost a small, upside-down Fez-shape. It was a nice sort of hazelnut brown. He also had quite big, low eyebrows which covered his similarly coloured eyes.

  They are the ones who told me about the box. That box is called ‘the Fez’ and people try to follow it. When I saw it in my dream, it tried to kill me. But people seem to think it’s good to follow it here. And they seem perfectly sane… I have to find out why people follow it. Maybe that’s why they’re so odd. I can’t get drawn in too much; I might end up getting addicted to Fez and end up following it across many countries. Maybe Carpe Yolu is a town for people who are mad. That’s why I’m here. I’m not a threat after all. Ha!

  And on this possibly happy thought, Dave settled down to sleep on his last day in Carpe Yolu.

  Chapter 7

  Dave had rarely moved house on his home planet. In fact, he had rarely moved from his house on his home planet. Dave enjoyed the comfort of his own home and didn’t feel the need to leave it. Like many people his age, he saw those around him moving to and fro from pointless place to pointless place and so convinced himself that, therefore, there must be a reason for travelling in such a bizarre, laborious fashion.

  Dave’s native home was strange in that (in addition to the convention of refusing to eat some everyday substances for forty consecutive days of the year), the beginning of what was commonly determined to be a new solar orbit meant that everyone had to pretend they had somewhere to jog to at an ungodly time in the morning. This festival of irrationality only lasted several weeks at most, and the entire, incompetent population – except for a few, slightly competent members of society – returned to its slobbish, inert state of worthlessness.