The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers

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Book: The Wishstone and the Wonderworkers Read Free
Author: Hugh Cook
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flesh sufficiently, questions of class, decency and caution go right out of the window.
    Thus Hunk meets Sabitha, and, in the manner of all idiothermous animals lusting in heat, they decide without preparation or preamble to engage in that interesting activity which the scholarly Arwin has dealt with in such exhaustive length in his five-volume magnus opus, On The Generation Of Species.
    But before genetic data (or organic secretions and their concomitant diseases) can be transmitted from one to the other, the would-be lovers are interrupted by the advent of an apparition in appearance formidable indeed.
    It is a Thing which hangs in nightdark heights near the gable of the nearest speakeasy. A globular Thing the size of a fist. It crackles with electric auras of gangrene blue and corpse-love yellow. Then it speaks unto them in a voice of brass and cymbals, saying:
    ‘I am the demon-god Lorzunduk. Behold! And know your doom!’
    Whereupon the Princess Sabitha flees, yowling.
    Hunk stands his ground. His back arches, his hair stands on end, and he hisses and spits ferociously as the apparition descends. Then his nerve breaks, and he too flees.
    Which is just as well.
    For if the lovers had not been thus separated before the consummation of their passion then this chronicle would have had to touch in some way upon that aforesaid consummation. Which would have been unfortunate. For this work is meant for the literate, and the literate are by definition more interested in the life of the intellect than the life of the organism, the life of the aforesaid organism being - is it not? - essentially repetitive and thus tedious.
    So let us be glad that we are not forced to waste our time by contemplation of an unoriginal act at which frogs, newly-weds and blowflies are equally competent. Let us be glad that we need here insert no account (doubtless to be skimmed or impatiently skipped by those in search of deeper revelation) of the shimmering scream of pleasure with which the Princess Sabitha accepted the hard-driving Hunk into her body, about the thrust of his drive questing deep in the humid velvet of her tight yet tender—
    Well, you know the rest.
    Anyway, to return to our chronicle. Both cats have fled in terror. Yet the glowing ball still hangs there in the air.
    Sniggering.
    Those of you who have been to Untunchilamon yourselves or who know the place by reputation will likely have guessed already that the glowing ball is nothing more than Shabble.
    Shabble?
    Yes, Shabble.
    ‘Shabble! Shabble!’ the children are wont to cry as they go chasing through the streets. ‘Shabble, come play with us! Shabble, Shabbiful, Jabiful, Shabajabalantiful.’ And sometimes Shabble will. Or, if not in a cat-chasing mood, then Shabble may condescend to amuse Shabbleself with a kitten to the kitten’s delight.
    (Shabbleself? Itself. Himself. Herself. Theirselves. Choose any one at will or at random - and you will know at least as much about Shabble’s psychology as the so-called experts.)
    Shabble, then.
    In appearance, a miniature sun, though coloration tends to be changeable and idiosyncratic. In voice eccentric, speaking at will in any of the accents heard ever on Untunchilamon, even those unplaceable foreign accents otherwise voiced only by the conjurer Odolo. In behaviour feckless, for Shabble has scant regard for consequences.
    That is Shabble.
    While Shabble is still hanging there in the air, an untoward incident occurs. There is a massive energy drain which affects all of Injiltaprajura. Lights darken. Fires go out. Gandies die. Then, to Shabble’s horror, Shabble feels Something trying to seize Shabble’s own energy. Shabble squeaks in fright and flees down the nearest drainpipe. The drainpipe (naturally) leads Downstairs.
    Downstairs!
    There is horror down there, and Shabble fears it greatly. Yet the alternative is death.
    Thus Shabble flees.
    We in our mortal flesh, living never more than a skin away from pain, are like to think of

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