On
the evening of the Summer Solstice the brave explorers finally set off on the
expedition that had been planned for so long by the university. When I say ‘so
long’ I am referring to a subjective feeling they shared rather than any precise
measurement of time. Anxiety had made the days seem long and unbearable but now
the dramatic moment had arrived.
The
longest day of the year had been chosen because there was less night and this
was regarded as a comforting fact by most members of the team. Not that any
moonlight would penetrate far into where they intended to delve. The date was
purely of psychological benefit, for they were still human beings with the
superstitious instincts of their ancestors.
I
say ‘they’ but in fact I was also part of the expedition. However my role was
to stay behind and wait for their return, so I barely consider myself to have
made a real contribution to the mission.
Collins,
Fumble, Rigby, Lister, Ripple, Masson and Blister were their names. Seven
heroes willing to risk everything in order to add just a little to the
universal store of knowledge that belongs to us all. I admired them then and I
admire them even more now. And I recall with acute feelings of bitter nostalgia
the last sunset they ever saw as it reddened their faces in a cosmic blush on the
steps of the university we all worked for.
Then
we walked slowly out of the town and over the landscape and soon the entrance
of the mystery loomed ahead. This was the portal of fame or doom, depending on
what destiny decided, but I do not believe in fate and it seemed of no great
menace to me as I approached.
We
stopped before it and made final preparations.
The
idea had originally been to tether the explorers securely so they could be
hauled back out in the event of an emergency, but unmanned probes that had
already been sent in indicated that ropes would snag on the superabundance of
objects that crammed the enigmatic space.
None
of the probes had returned, by the way, but they were designed for a one way
trip, so this fact did not worry us. Farewells were brief and every team member
shook solemn hands with every other, Collins with Fumble, Rigby with Lister,
Ripple with Masson, Blister with me, and so on. The explorers were equipped
with food to last several months.
“Switch
on your torches please!” cried Collins.
The
group had no official leader but I guess someone had to give orders at certain
points during the perilous mission. Beams of powerful but oddly unconvincing
light appeared to emanate from every hand and a complex mesh of insubstantial
girders was suddenly created. Then the beams swivelled to point in one
direction only, namely into the mouth of the anomaly.
“Good
luck!” I called to them, wiping away a tear.
“Don’t
cry in public!” someone said.
I
stiffened to attention, but who was there to witness my dishonour? What shame
is there in weeping anyway? My tears glinted very faintly in the starlight and
only the moths knew anything. They fluttered past and tickled my ears and the
powdery sensation of their wings on my lobes made me sob harder but with an
unhealthy and involuntary mirth. And then—
They
were gone. Not the moths but the explorers.
They
had entered the object.
I
did everything that was required of me. I sat on a portable camping chair and
boiled milk for hot chocolate on a little gas stove. I twiddled my thumbs. In
the morning I began reading the first of the books I had brought with me. That
is how I passed the time. Every so often a university official would come to
check but I never had anything to report.
No
journalists ever arrived to interview me.
The
story simply had no value for them at this stage. Only if the explorers
returned blinking, arms loaded with mementoes, from that undoubtedly hellish
region, would the press care about the mission. And they never came back out.
That is the thing that needs to be stressed.
None
of them ever emerged. The days and weeks became months and the months
eventually joined hands into a year.
The
funding ran out at that instant. I was required to stand up and fold the chair
and take it back to the university. Everything felt heavy, especially a vague
feeling of guilt I had, and I walked as if through molten lipstick, wearily and
in despair of my shoes. The town seemed unfamiliar to me when I reached it and
I entered the campus grounds like a stranger.
Collins,
Fumble, Rigby, Lister, Ripple, Masson and Blister already were statues on the
steps leading to the main entrance. Skilled masons had been busy in that year
of etiolated ambitions. And I had a statue too, but it was of a pigeon with my
face perched on the head of Collins, who somehow had posthumously acquired the
status of leader. I shuddered.
Nothing
was ever the same after that. I started drinking. Not to excess but to a lack
of success, which is nearly as bad, and now I am here, in this bar, and you are
the first journalist to care about my story. I know I met you by accident here,
that you didn’t seek me out, that we started talking randomly, but at least I
have had a belated opportunity to tell the tale.
The
journalist in question frowns and drains his brandy. His frown is imperfectly
symmetrical. “A handbag!”
“Yes,
that is correct.”
“How
extraordinary! Lost inside a handbag!”
“Indeed.
It is terrible.”
“They
were your colleagues?”
“Yes
and my friends.”
“Were
they little men? I mean, to fit inside a handbag they surely must be tiny
figures as small as thumbs.”
“They
were of normal size. I knew them well.”
“In
that case, the handbag must have belonged to a giantess! Was it an enormous
example of the type?”
“It
was a perfectly ordinary handbag.”
“I
don’t understand...”
“What
is there to understand? It was a woman’s handbag, no more or less, and they
were men! And they will never return, never, and who knows what they are doing in
there? Who outside can guess what inexplicable things they have found and are
still finding? A woman’s handbag! Now
you must go away and leave me alone. I will say it one last time. They were
ordinary sized men and the handbag was a typical handbag. They were men like
me. That’s all you need to know. The conversation is over.”
He
departs and I finish my whisky. Then I too get up and leave the bar and walk
home along the dark streets.
And
just in case the events of this true story seem no more than a jest based on
chauvinism, let me put your mind at rest by declaring that before I reach my
front door, both suspender buttons spontaneously pop and my black silk
stockings slide down around my ankles.
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