Ulu Venv, the apothecary’s mute, O is he dead then? He is, he is ,dead and buried according to the tenets of the church of which he was a member, the Tremendously Fanatical Brotherhood Of Christ’s Bloody Wounds. The protocols of this sect require that the corpse of the deceased be pierced with no fewer than twenty knitting needles and stuffed into a burlap sack along with a lozenge of gutta percha and a sprinkling of talc, the sack fastened with safety pins and tossed down a well at midnight. Such was the end of Ulu Venv.

I was there. I witnessed his burial. I saw his corpse, raddled by scrofulous buboes, yet still recognisable as the Ulu Venv I had met on many occasions on my visits to the apothecary. I saw him pierced and stuffed into a sack, and I saw the sack fastened and tossed down a well. The well was one of my own. I have several wells on my property, none of them productive. I was happy, not to say desperate, to accept a fee from the Brotherhood for the use of one of my wells for the burial of their fellow.

What measure of man was he, Ulu Venv, this mute? I do not mean his physical measurements, which would be of no interest to anybody, and in any case would soon enough be redundant, as his mortal remains shrivelled and rotted within the sack of death. Take a tape measure to him a year hence and your readings would differ violently from any taken moments before he was stuffed into the sack. Violently! No, what I mean is the measure of him in moral terms.

Ulu Venv was mute and he was hapless. He had a great love of budgerigars, both as pets and snacks. Some budgerigars he coddled as pets for months on end before strangling them and roasting their still warm bodies on his little budgie-spit. Then he would transfer the roasted bird to a plate, tuck a napkin around his neck, and make quick work of it with a knife and fork, washing it down with a can of Squelcho! Afterwards he would belch and rinse his plate and cutlery under a spigot, and toss the empty Squelcho! can down a well. Sometimes this was one of my disused wells. I turned a blind eye, not difficult for me, as I am blind in one eye and have limited vision in the other, not unlike Charles Fort towards the end of his life, after all those hours spent in libraries poring over newspapers and scholarly journals. That is not the reason for my own occluded vision. I have never set foot in a library in my life. My own near blindness is an hereditary condition, for which I blame my father’s side of the family. It is said a distant forebear offended the King. In his anger the King cursed my ancestor, yea unto several generations.

Ulu Venv was not blind, but he was mute. The apothecary found this an exceedingly useful trait, for reasons I have not been able to ascertain. Nor have I attempted guesswork. What would be the point? Ulu Venv is dead now, at the bottom of one of my wells, and the apothecary has a new mute, a mute with a lantern jaw and a spiteful demeanour, O so unlike sweet tempered Ulu Venv!

There is a budgerigar perched on my windowsill. I feed it breadcrumbs, and pour a little puddle of Squelcho! into a dent for it to lap. I do this in memory of Ulu Venv, every morning. And though I cannot see them, I know that out there, across my fields, the Tremendously Fanatical Brotherhood Of Christ’s Bloody Wounds are gathered in a ring around one of my wells, and they are keening, keening, and will continue to keen until the cows come home. But the cows, now, are far, far away, and pointing in the wrong direction, and they may never come home again.

Whither art? It’s a question I often ask myself, usually when tucking into a plate of smokers’ poptarts or other breakfast-based snack food. I like to get art out of the way early on in the day, freeing up my time for higher things. I do not practise art myself, but it is a subject of abiding interest to me. Whither art?, I ask, wondering where it will go.

To answer that question, one must of course be familiar with where art has been. One follows its trajectory, from the earliest cave paintings to the latest talentless derivative didactic Marxist video installation bollocks, and one tries to push the line further along, to see whence it leads. Every morning, at breakfast.

Sometimes, alas, those smokers’ poptarts are just too damned delicious, and the brain that ought to be cogitating upon the future of art is instead benumbed in a lovely haze of gustatory bliss. At such times, all thoughts of art fly away, like unto a flock of starlings, and instead I ponder the sheer genius of modern breakfast snack food manufacturing processes.

But the next morning, after a day devoted to the higher things, things such as prayer and beekeeping and shove ha’penny, I return to that burning question, whither art?, as a dog returns to its vomit, and I wrestle with it, at least until breakfast is digested.

Very occasionally, when for example I have a stomach upset, I do not ask whither art?, but instead declaim, in a booming tone, wither, art! I curse art and I envision a glorious new world where art curdles and shrivels until at last it is gone, all of it, forever. But of course we know full well, all that truly withers is Googie (1917 – 2011).

Puny, neurasthenic Cadet Vig was on sentry duty outside Fort Hoity (4 points) when an angel of the Lord appeared unto him (12 points). Cadet Vig trembled in terror (2 points).

The angel of the Lord appeared to be perplexed. It opened its ring-binder, and looked carefully at the weedy cadet, and then at its paperwork, and then at Cadet Vig again, and then back to its paperwork, and its brow furrowed. For the purposes of its earthly visitation, the angel had made use of a hole-punch and inserted all its papers into the ring-binder. Normally, when shimmering in its celestial halls, the angel had each individual sheet affixed to a wall with drawing-pins, the mass of papers spread out for visual oomph, as is the practice with serial killers in television dramas (6 points).

“You are puny, neurasthenic, and outside a fort,” said the angel, “It says here you should be stately, plump, and inside a martello tower.”

Cadet Vig did not know what to say in response, so he merely quaked (2 points).

“Well, never mind.” said the angel, slamming shut the ring-binder, “What fort is this?”

“Fort Hoity,” said Cadet Vig, truthfully.

The angel reopened its ring-binder (1 point), rummaged through the papers, found the entry for Cadet Vig, and said, “According to my records you are meant on this day at this hour to be on sentry duty at Fort Toity” (8 points).

Cadet Vig was on the point of swooning. His legs turned to jelly as he realised that, yet again, he had misread the duty roster. Captain Nitty would be furious (10 points)! The milksop cadet had an awful vision of months stretching ahead doing potato-peeling punishment. How long, he wondered, would it take him to cross the eerie marshes to Fort Toity? Could he get there before Captain Nitty discovered his mistake? He had a sudden bright idea.

“Is it in your power,” he asked the angel of the Lord, “To transport me instantaneously to the sentry post outside Fort Toity, far away across the eerie marshes, so I will not get into one of my pickles with Captain Nitty?”

The angel once again consulted the contents of its ring-binder (6 points).

“Yes,” it said, eventually, “That is well within my power. But I am minded, instead, on this starry starry night, to shower you, Cadet Vig, with teeming thousands, nay millions, of points, more points than any cadet under Captain Nitty’s command has ever been awarded.”

Now Cadet Vig did swoon, He crumpled to the ground, next to the sentry box outside Fort Hoity. As he lay there, robbed of consciousness, innumerable golden shining points rained down upon him. And when he woke, the angel of the Lord had vanished, and stars glittered across the boundless firmament, and here, clanking towards him in full armour, came Captain Nitty, his face purple with rage, his eyes like burning coals (2 points), and Cadet Vig, for the first time in his puny life, was not afraid. He cocked his blunderbuss and took aim at Captain Nitty. He had millions of points!

This story has accumulated a total of 53 points, if I have tallied them correctly.

A letter arrives from Christopher Lamere in New England. (I note, incidentally, that Mr Lamere’s name is an anagram of H[is] R[oyal] H[ighness] Elastic Emperor, though this may not be significant.)

Dear Mr. Key

I want you to know that you are my favorite writer. This may seem like a vast honor for a no-name, penniless, friendless failure of a 25 year old to bestow, but it is God’s truth. The imagery which you conjure gives me chills. The truths you tell with your stories fascinate and disturb me, especially because I often initially read your tales as flights of fancy instead of actual true events. As a resident of New England, your descriptions of far away ye Olde England are unnerving portraits of a distant land which my home tries to imitate.

Imagine my surprise then, while wandering through some not very dense woods which as an American I would never call a spinney, I found myself at the edge of a wooden lake. At first, I was convinced that the plank upon plank of maple wood was merely the foundation for some as yet unconstructed building, but when I pressed my ear to the varnished surface, I heard that interminable sloshing of some hidden beast. I was shocked to find that your story of the wooden lake was not a mere fantasy, but an ominous story of hidden portent.

It’s the most frustrating thing in the world, since it seems like a conspiracy which I was excluded from. Even with words whispered between my close friends, when I broach the subject of vast lake monsters, or even the mere idea of lakes hidden by wood, their whole demeanor changes. It’s as if they’ve never heard of a lake, or monsters, or wood, or even nails. While I have not been ejected from my town as of yet, people tend to narrow their eyes and hiss “outsider” when I come around. What should I do? I don’t own a hammer, and there is no duckpond in my town.

Yours in fear,

Christopher Lamere

Have no fear, Mr Lamere! I have given much thought to what you should do in order to avoid otherwise inevitable gruesome consequences. First, make a magnetic tape-recording of the hissing sounds made by your townsfolk. Under cover of darkness, subject the tape to certain blasphemous manipulations, then use rusty blood-caked garden shears to cut it and form it into a loop, such that, when played, it will repeat after approximately thirteen seconds. Take it to the precise centre of the wooden lake and play it through an enormous loudspeaker or electric hooter at deafening volume. Have to hand a supply of pebbles which you can hurl at any townsfolk who approach, intent on silencing you. As the godawful hiss resounds across the wooden lake and into the dense woods, execute a tableau vivant of a historical or mythological theme – Judith with the head of Holofernes would be apt, or perhaps President Nixon holding his arms aloft just before boarding the helicopter on the White House lawn that ferried him to retirement. From time to time, increase the volume of the hissing tape loop. Before several days have passed, your lack of a hammer and a duckpond will count for nothing. And, as I so often say when dispensing advice, irrespective of the nature of that advice, remember to wear gloves.