Alphabetania: A Frabjous Guide

I swear tiles can smirk. The entire noodle house is plastered with these disgusting tiles. Floor, walls, ceiling. They’re all stained. Some with noodles, some with sauce, I think one’s even got blood on it. Normally I wouldn’t care, but the blood streaks, noodle smears and soy-sauce stains, all resemble something like a face. And it’s staring at me.

This was merely a single observation amongst the myriad minutiae passing through Artha’s head as he sat in Cheng’s Noodle Palace doing his homework. He’d seen every iota of human nature from his table: The man measuring each noodle with a pocket ruler before recording his results. The woman whose ridiculously long eyelashes were sucked into her nose when the breathed in. The child who’d secured a Mad-Hatter mask to the back of his head. The one event that evaded his observation was that the glittering plastic cat on the Noodle store’s counter had winked its painted eye at him. Twice.

Artha shook himself. He must get back to the task at hand. Task 4, issue date 3rd June, due date 19th June, today’s date June 18th. Anxiety whipped out some spoons and began tapping on the wall of his stomach. Outcomes H.1, H. 16, H.666. Task Description: The Board of Studies is forcing Extension 1 English students to extort a creative piece of writing, and your hellish school has agreed to participate. The spoons struck a triangle. Your piece must demonstrate an apprehensive understanding of the devices of language and - Artha shoved the paper away as the spoons were joined by A-Capella of pots and pans. The sounds seeped through his palms. His concise composition sniggered at him.

‘All of a sudden’.

The four words licked the droplets of sweat dripping onto the page. Artha’s nails dug into his palm. Table five’s occupant chewed another prawn chip. Sparkles of pink crumbs cascaded onto the table almost artfully, like sleek words seeping across a page. Inspiration drowned out the spoon’s sound. “Maybe I could just do a wild, intensely imaginative, genius-splattered-across-a-prison-cell stream of conscious piece?” Artha raised his pen. A furious flurry of flourishes followed.

‘All of a sudden the man fell to the ground and spilled tears of sufilious sorrow.’

“Sufilious?” Artha eyed the word. Was it a word? He hadn’t brought a dictionary. “You’re not a word.” Artha condemned the nine letters. “I’m sitting here struggling to write anything so what do I do? I invent a bloody word!” Artha gave the table a kick “Sufilious.” The word gazed up at him, sufiliously. “You little bastard!” he shouted.

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Artha raised his pen. Not to write, but to puncture, to penetrate and to punish. The frenetic cutlery orchestra thudding through Artha’s ears roared in approval. He swung his arm behind his shoulder and with a “yargh!” his pen stabbed through Sufilious’s outspoken ‘i’.

Artha punched the air in triumph. The cat waved mechanically back. But the murdered word wasn’t quite dead. Growing larger, bigger, huger the tear widened. Suddenly, the watery eyed, moustache smeared face of a man forced its way through the page. Fixated, Artha leant in closer and closer. When their noses almost touched, the man’s mouth swung open and flung itself completely out of the page, over Artha’s head and half-way down his body. Artha blindly grabbed at his noodle bowl as his legs flailed through the air, kicking confounded customers. The cat laughed manically behind its golden paws. Alarm throbbed through the noodle store, but before the sullen serving girl could even put on her gloves, Artha was dragged, howling with fear, through the page. All of a sudden.

“Ohurghuhhough”

This was the throaty, choking and resoundingly unpleasant sound Artha’s eater made as he coughed up his meal. Shivering and stunned at the invasive, alien feeling of being swallowed and regurgitated, Artha fell to the ground. Not just any ground. The grand, gaudy, gymgardious ground of Alphabetania.

Above him lurched the mountainous form of his captor, still rubbing his thick neck and humming to sooth his overstretched throat. Seeing this as an opportunity to defend himself, Artha’s eyes searched eagerly for his weapon of choice; noodles.

Being a lad whose spirits were not dampened by a stranger’s saliva, Artha seized his Vegetable Satay Surprise, and twirled a single oily noodle into a make-shift whip. With this limp line of a weapon, Artha charged at his swallower and lashed a streak of oily, sesame-flecked noodle across his face. The man paused. His eyes narrowed. As he peeled the noodle off his forehead, a thin line of oil remained. The pair stared at each other. How does an Eater respond to their Eatee, especially when noodles are involved? The assultee believed etiquette dictated a retort something like this:

“The audacity of hurling noodles at a respected officer of the B.O.A! But you wouldn’t be familiar with that acronym, would you foreigner? We are the Binary

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Oppressors Agency, and you, undoubtedly, are another immigrant without an Intertextuality Passport!!!”

Artha, even armed with the experience of three prior food fights, did not anticipate this response. Despite his limited understanding of the nature of the B.O.A officer’s accusations, aided by the involvement of three exclamation marks, Artha ascertained their anger. However one does not slap another with a noodle then quietly quail at the first hurdle. No, one fights on. Artha arched his leg forward into something of a praying mantis pose. His outraged opponent retaliated, raising his tremendous torso off the ground, supporting it on a single, daintily poised toe. Thus, the pair faced each other. The air sweated stress and sauce. A bird cawed overhead. Artha flung himself forward, flicking a fearsome fillet of sodden tofu at the man. With dazzling dexterity, the B.O.A officer snatched the tofu square out of the sky and held it, gently squeezing it together. A teardrop of sauce fell to the ground, where it sizzled in the heat of the moment.

With recognition of his opponent’s noodle duelling rigour, Artha’s adrenaline sidled shamefully away. Perhaps the best course of action when you’re a stranger in a strange land wasn’t to instantly engage an inquisitor of the law in a noodle brawl. Artha altered his tactics: he ran.

With a hopeless huff, he hurled his bowl of noodles into the air and fled. But before he could make a both literal and clichéd clean escape, the B.O.A officer sprang off the ground, snapped the base of the noodle bowl out of the air and slapped it down onto Artha. Artha fell, tangled in the terrors of being trolluped in noodles. The officer descended, seizing Artha with his arms and lifting him off his feet. “It’s off to Parentheses Penitentiary with you, bucko. Let’s see you commit Textual Invasion when you’re surrounded by brackets!”

Thusly Artha was carried off by the B.O.A officer into the two bronze brackets that make up Parentheses Penitentiary.

Before we progress I must make note, with the arduous intention of avoiding being branded by an insipid reader as Implausible, Impossible and Utterly Unrealistic that, yes, to one sitting comfortably reading this alarming anecdote, Artha’s actions do seem absurd. But let it be considered that Artha had just been swallowed; an occurrence not often inflicted on a man, and therefore was not in an apt frame of mind to logically assess his situation. Indeed, his natural inclination into noodle propelled action (one cannot be sure that they are not also of this disposition until they too are in Artha’s position) took over. Furthermore, if you’re thus far flummoxed, I’d suggest you leave now. Get up out of your arm chair and go play a ball game, it’s only going to get more Implausible, Impossible and Utterly Unrealistic from here. So there you have it. Let the peanut gallery be silenced and the story proceed!

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“Here you shall remain, bucko until you realise the errors of your footnote filching ways.’ The B.O.A officer disdainfully dropped Artha, penning him inside the punctuation. As he plodded off, the B.O.A officer shouted “It looks like a foreshadow is coming over, and I’ll tell you bucko, these brackets don’t keep out the rain.”

Artha was left alone with his circumstances: Trapped in Brackets, Covered in Satay Surprise, and Starting to Rain. “I must be inside some stupid, HSC-stress induced dream.” Artha sat down. The enormous brackets rendered his damp, oily appearance particularly pathetic. “I’ll just have to wait for my alarm to wake me up.”

“You’ll do no such thing, young man.” boomed a voice from above.

Stretched across the two brackets was a man’s face blown up on a projector screen. He had a surreal purple tinge and technicolour eyes. His voice was mysteriously magnified and reverberated off the bronze brackets.

“You must find Perspective and rid this downtrodden, dejected land of the Binary Oppressors Agency.”

“What?”

“What is this ‘what’?” The projected man’s composure slipped, and the purple hue of his skin began to look more sickly than menacing. “Never mind. You, Artha, have a forced, narrow and stubborn view of language, completely alienated from what true language is”.

Artha sprang to his feet. Now that his name had been both mentioned and besmirched, he took a much keener interest in what the screen was saying.

“Your view of language is something like a frumpy, middle-aged woman.” The man’s multi-coloured eyes squinted with concentration. “She is permanently anxious, all expressions forced. When her husband laughs uninhibitedly during one of her meticulously arranged dinner parties, she glares and glowers at him, embarrassed by the sound.” The man’s overstretched features gave Artha a serious, intellectually probing gaze.

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

“Perhaps, you’ll appreciate a visual representation?” boomed the man, his words self consciously over-pronounced.

“Oh god,” Artha mumbled, “Go on.”

With a flourish, the man raised the sodden noodles off Artha’s body. Weaving his arms in a mystical, impressive manner, the projected man telepathically manipulated the noodles before Artha. To Artha’s surprise and embarrassment, the noodles spelt out the words ‘All of a Sudden’. The letters were heaped on top of each other in a blind baby’s outline of a person, with Ls for arms and a torso of OF. The noodle man was then lowered face-down before of Artha.

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“With the personification powers present in me, I have personified All of a Sudden, or AOAS – I love a good acronym” the projected face said, with a note of pride in his voice. “From AOAS it can be seen that one cannot fully appreciate the flippancy of language while focused on stubborn, shallow and stupid views? Respond.”

Artha dug his nails into his palms.

“I don’t get it at all.” He breathed, his words perceptibly permeated by petulance. “I’m doing a bloody assignment, having a great time, then I get eaten, eaten, by this fat man who chucks noodles at me and throws me in here. Well, I’ll tell you what: I am sick of being told what’s insightful, what’s thorough, what’s bloody perceptive; I get enough of it at school, and I’m sure as hell not going to put up with it in my dreams!”

The projected face bit its lip guiltily.

“I’m sick of responding to everything shoved under my nose. If I don’t want to respond, then I’m not going to respond. I don’t care how warped this place is, I’m not going to do what anyone says here, anymore than those idiots at school! Now let me wake up, or leave me alone!”

With this final shout, Artha stomped away from the screen only to find himself unable to move outside of his bracket-defined prison. Feeling the horrendous heat of humiliation, in a much smaller voice Artha said, “I’m just so tired of having everything picked at.”

The screen fizzled to darkness.

Artha crouched down once more. In the darkness, he didn’t notice the projected man, this time in the flesh, appear beside him.

“Your sentiments are kindred with my own, although you may not believe it.”

Artha looked up at the man. He was rather short, with a crusty tweed coat and lopsided glasses. Upon standing, Artha found himself a significant head above the man.

“What do you want?” asked Artha, unsuccessfully attempting to replicate the ferocity of his last statement.

“My name is Percy, the Psychologist with a PhD in Personification. I’d set up that startling screen to enhance my… physical impact on my patients.” Percy gave Artha a shy grin. “I understand you’ve met an officer from the Binary Oppressors Agency.

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They’re a bane and a drain even worse than the slanderous Slang Bang Gang. You see, the ambition of the B.O.A is to control language, which here in Alphabetania is something like trying to shove a pigeon in a sock.”

“Sorry?” asked Artha, his sullenness usurped by the absurd simile.

“My apologies, my similes are of a rough sort. Personification is my main mistress, as you’d imagine, although even she has become a target of the B.O.A’s technique terrorism. First it was slang, which was brillig, but now they’ve gone too far. They’ve closed the Entendre Escalators and even demolished the Palace of Euphemisms! Only with the Signifier’s arrival will we be saved. The Signifier will find Perspective, which is said to reside in the Attic of Abstract nouns, along with its brethren, Love and Happiness. Once it’s found, the Stream of Consciousness will flow again!”

Artha raised an eyebrow.

“But I’m getting ahead of myself. First I need to bond you with AOAS.” The psychologist waved at the noodle man. There was a momentary silence before the noodle man, lying spread-eagled on the floor rose off the ground. When the personification began walking precariously, it wasn’t merely Artha’s jaw that hit the floor; half his face slid to the ground. In the strangest manner imaginable, AOAS bent over, cradled Artha’s chin, mouth and jaw and secured it back onto his face. With what may have been a tender gaze, the personification took Artha’s hand into his L and turned to face the psychologist. A solemn expression fell over Percy’s face. “I announce you, AOAS, and you, Artha, companions. Until acknowledgement of your connection do you part.”

Artha glanced down at the oily noodle which now gregariously grasped his hand. The bridge between AOAS’ A curved into a smile. “I shall embrace the formidable duty of escorting you throughout Alphabetania until you find the Attic.”Artha shrugged his shoulders and gave AOAS another apprehensive glance. “I’m not getting the impression I have much of a choice.” sighed Artha. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to get out of these stupid brackets anyway.”

“My boy, you have so much to learn! Parentheses’ paws are easily persuaded into providing permission for one to leave! Only the B.O.A fools would believe parentheses can actually isolate its content from its surroundings.” Percy strode out of the brackets. “We’d better get hopping. I’ll hail an ellipsis and we’ll be off to the Alliteration Agency for Adults; you’ll have to get, er, acquainted with Alphabetania.” Percy raised his hand. Immediately three balls swept before them. In response to Artha’s raised eyebrows, Percy pronounced,“It’s a cheap method of transport. You hop on and it’ll drive you to your destination. It’s an uncomplicated way to traverse distances without the bother of filling in the dots.”With that the ellipsis whirled into motion, and whisked Artha, Percy and AOAS through the brackets. The ellipsis took a sharp turn down Cliché Close and rode off into the horizon.

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After a windy while, a glittering round marquee appeared, crowned with an imposingly impractical inflatable heart. Chirpy music blared out of heart shaped speakers and children giggled as they hurled confetti at each other. The ellipsis screeched to a stop, evicted its occupants, and then streaked off once more.

The moment Artha took a step forward, a bosomy woman shrieked, “He’s back! Guards! Guards!”Artha sighed, all too prepared for another penitentiary retention. But the woman was pointing at Percy, who was too preoccupied studiously straightening his tie and feeling beneath his chin for signs of overlong stubble to notice her until she was inches from his face.

“We’ve had enough of your type here!” she barked. “There have been too many complaints of predatory personification professors to allow you back in here again!”Two massive men, their muscles bound inside an ‘I heart alliteration’ t-shirt appeared on either side of Percy and lifted him off his feet. Percy squirmed with panic.“I know I scared her last time, but you don’t understand!” Percy’s eyes darted from Artha to the woman. “Finding a partner as a Personification psychologist is unreasonable, unfeasible, impossible! My personifications have been my only companions for so long!”“Sir, our patrons are perturbed by your personifications.” She glared at AOAS. “How can amorous atmosphere exist around that? Well?”Percy’s face fell in resignation. He glanced at AOAS and a small tear twinkled in his eye. His gaze slid down AOAS’ L and onto Artha’s hand. “Wait! You can’t take me away, I’m accompanying the Signifier!”The woman’s eyes grew larger and her burly bodyguards lowered Percy to the ground. “You can’t be serious. The Signifier? That boy?” she looked at Artha with a mix of disbelief and deference. “Well, er, what’s your name?”“Um, Arth.”“That’s all we need. And I know your name of course.” She beamed at Percy. Looking at AOAS however, her smile flickered and faltered. “We don’t offer any services to your kind.” The bridge between AOAS’ A drooped into a frown. “Walk with me now,” The woman looped her hand through Artha’s free arm and dragged him towards the pink marquee. Battering her eyes bewitchingly, she began speaking in a low voice. “Here at the Alliteration Agency for Adults, we believe all amorous altercations can be aided by the amalgamation of adults through the alliteration of their names. Analysts from the B.O.A affirm that pairings based alliteration achieve more accomplishments than any other dating arrangement. Astounding, isn’t it?” As they were guided into the marquee, the bosomy woman leant up towards Artha’s ear and whispered, “I hope you’re satisfied with our pairings.” Artha, his confusion compounding by the minute, found himself inside the barren marquee, alongside an aardvark with an ‘A’ written across its back, and a scrap of paper bearing a scrawled ‘P’. Appreciating the absurdity of his dream, Artha affectionately patted his aardvark. AOAS bared his bridge at the animal. Percy seized

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the paper and tore it open. His expression evolved from cheerful curiosity into petulant peevishness as his eyes continued down the page.

“This is an outrage! A furious, wild-eyed outrage! They’ve paired me with a poem! Not only that, but it has ignominiously insulted me! In liverish lyric!”Percy thrust the poem under Artha’s nose.

How foolish they must be, For rather than a sonnet or an ode, They have paired me with thee A pedantic, non-pentamic, personification psycholode!

Trust the B.O.A to get it so wrong, Like love, alliteration must be blind, If they think with a personificologist I belong. Now tell me, lonely analyst, Do you get my gist?

Artha coughed up a scoff. Sighting Percy’s slumped shoulders and solemn stance, he reconsidered his irreverent jollity and offered a cautious cliché. ‘You know, maybe it just wasn’t your type? You might be more of a free verse man? Or not even like verse at all. Maybe prose. Even script. I know lots of people who like scrip-”“Who is responsible for this pairing?’ Percy boomed over Artha’s babble. “No, really, who is the fool who felt alliteration wasn’t adverse to relationships?”Unwanted tears began to twinkle in Percy’s eyes. These embarrassing effusions shall be spared further explanation, for an equally essential event was unfolding. Into the tent ambled our ample antagonist, accompanied by a most appropriate animal: a Belted Galloway bull. The man’s familiar hips bulged out of his tight black and white uniform, and his many chins wobbled as he guided his bull into the Marquee.

“Who’s arousing altercations in my agency?”The rotund man stroked his equally round bull. “Far from surprisingly, it’s the footnote filching foreigner and Percy the lonely psychologist, dissipating the agency’s atmosphere with yet another repugnant personification!”

“And why shouldn’t I?” Percy’s slouched shoulders sprang into skinny shields of insubordination. “You’re all fools! The idea of alliteration dating is absurd, atrocious utterly…’ Percy paused, ardently searching for a word beginning with ‘a’ to aptly evoke his indignation. After all, Percy was a man of Alphabetania, where any acerbic attack must be aided by alliteration. “It’s, it’s, it is absurd and atrocious.” Percy was placated. After all, when has a round of repetition ever hurt anyone? Aside from the Metonym Market Massacre of ’88, of course.

“That’s it bucko!’ the B.O.A officer boomed, ‘It’s Parenthesis Penitentiary for you-’

“Not without a fight!” Percy shrieked shrilly. “I challenge you to a Tautological Competitive Tournament! If you win, you may take me, but if I win, you must run up and down the Entendre Escalators until you can fit through the smallest plot hole!”

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“You can’t have a T.C.T in here!” The horrified host howled. “They’ve been outlawed by the B.O.A!” “That may be so, but this psychologist is publicly questioning the purity of our procedures! I must act! En garde!”

Percy and the B.O.A officer approached each other and turned back to back. Through teeth both gnashing and gritted, they began to count down from three. On the one, they turned away from each other and walked to opposite sides of the tent.

“What’s a Tauto-whatchacall tournament anyway?” asked Artha aloud, his interest aroused by the whole affair. The poem in his hand fluttered. New words were scrawled across its page.

It is a game I find most repugnant, For poetics it does not suit, The aim is to leave your opponent’s word redundant,Through a tautological refute

With a flourish Percy screamed out the word ‘free’. Artha looked up from the poem just in time to see the B.O.A officer push his hands forward and howl, ‘gift’. Artha was distracted once more by the fluttering poem which read:

In this first round you can see, Your friend’s meagre offering of ‘free’, Is vanquished by his opponent’s retort Of an item that need not be bought;The recipient of a gift has no expense,Making the ‘free’ superfluous hence!’

A spree of spectators bounded into the marquee. Heckles and hoots hailed the combatants.

“Helpful!” howled the B.O.A officer

“Assistance!” announced Percy

The crowd shrieked appreciatively

“Caring!” challenged Percy.

“Compassion!”

“Significant!”

Percy’s lips contracted and a single bead of sweat sashayed out of his thinning hair. Artha’s jaw slipped. AOAS’ Ls gripped Artha’s hand.

“Milestone!” Percy’s wearied lips widened into a smile, earning more shouts and jeers from the multitudes of couples now amassing in the marquee.

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“Finished!”

“Result!” The B.O.A officer breathed heavily. With a grin he twisted his wheezes into a sneer. “Idiot!

“Binary Oppressors Agency!” thundered Percy, his timid eyes sparking vehemently at his vivid show of virile virtuosity.

Percy’s shout spread silence through the tent liked wine through water. The B.O.A officer’s eyes bulged in anger at his outspoken opponent. AOAS groaned and the duelers were dragged back to reality. The B.O.A officer propelled his wobbling waist wildly towards Percy, and seized him with his walrus arms. The crowd indignantly denounced this dastardly display, and departed in dismay at the discourteous conclusion of the tournament. Artha and an alarmed AOAS forced their way past the squealing aardvark and a swirling sea of people towards Percy.

“It’s perfectly valid, you brute! Everyone knows that idiots are synonymous with the Binary Oppressors!”

“Don’t try to talk yourself out of defeat with your miscreant generalisations. You’ve been outwitted, bucko, and it’s off to somewhere even more isolated than Parentheses; a place where you won’t even know what century you’re from.” The B.O.A officer tightened his hold on the psychologist, who quietly quailed under his grasp.

Artha reached the squabbling pair, and prodding and punching, attempted to wrest the psychologist free. The B.O.A officer unfortunately was equipped with a can of onomatopoeia, which with a deft ‘thwop’, ‘thud’ and ‘bundum’ sent Artha and AOAS sprawling to the ground. Seeing his assailant incapacitated, the B.O.A officer charged out of the marquee with Percy, yelling for an ellipsis through the din. Before he could make a clean escape however, Percy freed his face from the B.O.A officer’s embrace and shouted to Artha, “Continue your quest! My kidnapping’s a mere red-herring to distract you from the true maiden of this narrative!” With this last hurrah, Percy the Personification Psychologist was dragged out of the Alliteration Agency for Adults, and Artha was left alone with AOAS.

With a sneeze and a sneer, the B.O.A officer’s bull stomped past Artha. The squealing aardvark was gone. Artha lay, dampened by the sneeze and bewildered by his imposing isolation. The option of waiting for his alarm never seemed so attractive. Just as Artha slouched deeper into the mud of the marquee, AOAS cooed softly. Seeing his sighing personification stirred a spark of solidarity between Artha, AOAS and their absent advisor. Summoning the rousing resolve that only one crumbled on the ground can, Artha decided that dream or not, Percy believed he was The Signifier, believed he could find Perspective, and surely believed that only Artha could alleviate the woes of Alphabetania.

With this resolution, Artha, who was in reality a resilient young chap, rubbed the ‘thwop’, ‘thud’ and ‘bundum’ off his shirt and sprinted in the direction of the officer’s ellipses. Being so bold does have its downsides however - as Artha was so focused on chasing the conniving culprit of his companion’s kidnapping, he entirely forgot his

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friend’s warning, and failed to notice a looming construction sign. Being gifted with the omnipotent powers of the composer, I can say with confidence that the sign read:

DECONSTRUCULISTS AT WORK, PROCEED WITH LITERARY CAUTION AND AN OPEN MIND

This was lost on Artha. Headstrong in his lack of hesitation, Artha lunged forward, dragging AOAS with him - straight into a hole.The pair flailed as they fell into a blanketing blackness. Artha’s stomach was forced so far into his throat that it was now acquainted with his tonsils. Despite this, he didn’t seem to be falling. The neat hole through which he slipped wasn’t getting any further away, and Artha could see a furry caterpillar circumnutating the edge of the gap in the same detail as he did minutes ago. This suspicion was confirmed when the rough face of a burly workman stretched in front of the sky.

“Mate! Buddy!” puffed the man. “Ya didn’t see the sign?”

A gang of men now peered into the hole, some looking more concerned at the sight of AOAS than Artha’s puzzling predicament. “There was a sign? I was chasing an ellipsis, my friend got kidnapped by the B.O.A, and I was trying to-”

“Yep, whatever mate. Youse angry customers are always wandering in here and presenting us with a whole ‘nother bloody character justification, thinking you’re all superior in textual analysis. Everyone has a bloody opinion when it comes to meaning, but do you have an R.A.F.E certificate II? Nup, ya don’t do ya? Listen mate, I graduated with a Readings and Fiction Education, and youse should of let me make the call before ya go tumblin’ in without reading the signs. And I hope for your sake mate, that ya didn’t slight the B.O.A, ‘cause they hired us as certified Deconstructionists for this job, and trust me mate, we ain’t gunna risk that because of youse.”“That’s fine, I don’t have a reading or anything, I just want to get of out here quickly,” stammered Artha. “Well that’s bloody brilliant, mate! This footpath has already collapsed under too many readings, as I s’pose you can tell.” The man casually flung his feet over the rim of the hole and pulled out a sandwich.

Between bites he continued. “Firstly we got called over here because some idiot reported a feminist reading. Some bull about the footpath hardening to conform to the expectations of its status as a footpath, mirroring the shifting role of women upon marriage. Like I said, bull. But then, on top of this, there was a whole ‘nother crackpot idea that the path, being linear and ordered, was a motif for paternal countries and their attempt to eradicate the ‘wild’ spirituality and lifestyle of colonies, personified by the taming of the noble savage. Bloody hell, it’s people like youse, who make complaints right in front of the bloody footpath that cause holes!” The workers murmured and nodded at each other amongst mutterings of ‘bloody vandals’.

“Still, this time it was our fault, we should of known, ‘cause the path only fell through ‘cause we thought of a new reading. While we tested for inconsistencies in the path, my mate Ted thought of something about the ‘Death of the Author’. He said maybe

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the composer of the footpath projected its only meaning as being as a footpath. But then the responder, youse kinda people who use it, rejected that view, maybe due to a difference in cultural values or summin’. That’s what Ted thought anyway. So we decided to demolish the path, ‘cause it might allow for the birth of the responder and maybe fix the path. But, youse know what footpaths are like; it fell right through. So here we are.”

“What you’re saying,” Artha paused to consider, “Is that the footpath held too many readings, and something about a dead author, so you demolished it so the responder could be born?” The man’s bushy eyebrows furrowed. “Spose. Wait, youse aren’t trying to make some bloody biblical allusion, are you? Saying that the footpath is a Christ-like figure, and by sacrificing itself it allows for the birth of a sinless humanity? You’d better not be mate, ‘cause this path can’t take another bloody read-”

Before the expounding edifice erector could complete his sentence, the earth surrounding the footpath trembled, and Artha and AOAS fell even further. Artha’s stomach was now shaking hands with his ears, and each appendage was formulating a neutral comment on the weather.

“Nah, it’s not worth the bloody effort.” The Deconstructionist began to shuffle away from the now gaping hole. AOAS groaned and waved his Ls.

“Wait, wait!” yelled Artha from the abyss. “That’s not what I meant to happen! I was just thinking that if the whole reason this footpath has fallen through is because it has too many readings, why don’t I, as I suppose the responder, create my own, definitive reading? If I read the footpath as being something normal, just a footpath, then it would have to conform to my personal reading. Right?” “I dunno buddy, I’m a de-constructionist, not a re-constructionist. That’s certificate III stuff.”“Okay. I’m just going to be a bit experimental here.” Artha imagined the footpath reforming, and raising himself and AOAS back to level ground. “See if my own reading will help at all”.

With a whoosh and a wail, a cube of concrete flew out the darkness of the hole and flipped Artha and AOAS onto level ground. The dumbfounded Deconstructionists gave a wearied whoop and set about patting each other on the back. Feeling that their work was complete, they hailed an ellipsis and swung out of sight. Artha, elated at his erudite escape, returned with enthusiasm to the problem at hand.

“If I could follow that B.O.A guy’s train of thought…-” While Artha mused on this particular train, another, much louder steam train flew past him. Barely squeezing between the railings of the streaking transportation was the B.O.A officer. Sighting our hardy hero, the man boomed orders to the train driver. “The footnote flincher has found us! Fire the furnaces!” The streaking train shot forward, to the rancorous roars of the B.O.A officer. Artha seized AOAS, and hurtled into a chase. Artha’s gangly legs were no match for the train’s charge. Running an exasperated hand through his hair, Artha searched for

12

some means of prolonging his pursuit. What he needed was a moustachioed Mexican, to whom he could yell, ‘follow that train’. Then it hit Artha: “Ellipsis!” Three black dots flew into view and swooped under Artha and AOAS. “Follow that train of thought!” commanded Artha.

The train and ellipsis swept furiously through Alphabetania. The ellipsis proved a ripping rival to the renegade train. A blur of colour and sound sped through Artha’s head, his eyes catching on landmarks – The Palace of Euphemisms, a theatre hosting a play on words and the Entendre Escalators. The ellipsis darted alongside the train just as the chase powered past a plagantic parched riverbed.

Out loomed a tunnel and the train was unexpectedly engulfed. The ellipsis shot in. Artha and his assemblage were plunged into darkness. The blackness wasn’t as dank or even as dark as Artha had supposed. The walls glittered with mirrors, enclosing Artha and AOAS in their glimmer. The train was gone. The ellipsis streaked off.

“Artha, you’re here! My relief salutes you!” Percy the Psychologist emerged, face spattered with soot. “This must be our prison. More importantly, did you see the Stream of Consciousness? Now can you understand both its grim fate and ours? With the B.O.A’s prohibition of Perspective, it’s become sullen and hollow.” Percy’s eyes sank with dejection. “There’s still a persisting hope among ardent Alphabetanians that on the Day of Revisioning all genre conventions and regulations will be stripped away and the Stream will unify us as a single body, without need for words. Language will swash through the stream, uninhibited by tiring techniques or redundant readings. But alas! It seems that day will never awaken.” AOAS howled at the glittering walls, drawing Percy out of his rosy reverie. “AOAS is right; we should focus on the problem at hand. If I recognise it correctly, we are in a place both secretive and mischievous. Artha, what do you see in these mirrors?” Artha trotted tentatively towards the nearest surface. Winking at him was a red haired fellow wearing a waistcoat and breeches. On closer inspection, Artha noticed the smoke billowing out of the reflection’s ears formed the words ‘Industrialisation equals poor conditions’, and across the boy’s chest shone a split heart tattooed with the words, ‘divided religion’.

“It’s you,” murmured Percy. “Reflected as you would be if you were alive in the 18th century. ‘Romanticism’, I believe. You are a mere replication of a domineering context. According to the Contextual Hall of Mirrors at least.” Artha looked closely, and indeed he was staring at himself. Thoroughly disturbed by the idea, Artha ran the length of the hall, to the final mirror. Grinning back at him was an obese version of himself, his triple chins dripping with crumbs forming the word ‘consumerism’ and jangling with technological equipment blaring, ‘technology drowns out individuality’. “So this is our modern context? Big, fat consumers with Ipod wires for veins?” asked Artha. “I always thought context sort of made sense; each person is a product of the values of their context and all that. But seeing what other generations might see today’s context as, it makes you realise that it’s mighty stupid. You can’t just reflect a whole world by one generalisation! Everyone is just a person, an individual after all.

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This hall would be more useful as little tiny mirrors, like fragments of people, you know?”

AOAS gave a loud groan of encouragement, and with a self affirming nod, Artha did something very drastic: he seized a stone and smashed it into the walls. Eyes shining with silvery reflections, the group watched in awe as the mirror splintered into thousands of fragments, each glowing with the light of a million pairs of eyes; some smiling, some dying, but all different. There was no time for revelling at Artha’s violent vandalism; a sudden chorus of sirens drowned out their cheers. Drumbeating began; stomping feet could be heard from the distance. Their sound grew, drawing closer and closer. Percy gripped Artha fearfully, “It’s the Slang Bang Gang! Their footsteps are hunting us! But he was wrong. Into the fractured light of the shattered mirrors plodded hundreds of bombullious B.O.A officials. Out of multitudes of fleshy throats resounded the words, “Revisionist reading of context! Censor! Censor!”

The crackling cavern continued to creak cantankerously, as sweltering, sweaty air filled their throats. Artha felt Percy collapse beside him. AOAS’ noodles fell limp. Sausage arms and barrel bodies, forced together by the narrowing walls, created an insurmountable barricade of blubber, stretching endlessly down the hall. The B.O.A men were so near, that Artha could discern individual pearls of perspiration pouring out from piles of popping chins. Inches from Artha’s face, a B.O.A officer boomed, “Everyone who has the same context has the same values! Don’t deny it, you vilifying values vagabond!” Pudgy potato fingers pinched and prodded Artha. Their chants reverberated around the hall, ringing endlessly in Artha’s ears. He crouched, clammy hands clutching his curdling stomach, his quest at an end; the conclusion was nigh with the coda waiting eagerly behind.

But there were no bopping batons. No terrifying threats. There was no sound at all. Cracking a cringing eye open, Artha faced rows of frozen Binary Oppressors. Swollen mouths remained hanging and arms still arched antagonistically. Out of nowhere, string music began. Searching for the source of the soft sounds, Artha angled his head upwards. An enormous red button glowed above him. It was of that urgent breed of buttons that glints on all gargantuan gizmos. Etched into the shiny plastic of its rim in regal capitals was, ‘DUES EX MACHINA’. Not knowing what it meant, but impulsively impelled towards interaction, Artha pushed the centre of button. With a deafening tearing sound, the hall splintered in half, leaving a gaping gouge in the wall. An invisible hand lifted Artha, Percy and AOAS through the opening. The string instruments sounded a final, warbling note, and at its close, darkness fell.

With the sense that their expedient escape was all a dream, Artha groggily extracted himself from the bundle of arms, legs and Ls that he called his companions and

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walked into the clearing where they’d fallen. Peeling himself off his companions, Artha woke Percy. The psychologist immediately issued anxious inquires regarding their imminent indictment. Upon informing his fretful friend of the Dues Ex Machina button, fear fanned itself across Percy’s face. “You’ve taken a swig from the schooner of the scheming siren of cheap literary plot devices?” asked Percy. “The Slang Bang Gang will be here in moments! They prey on narrative discord!” “So? Without that button we would be squished beneath sea of chub right now-”

A cyclone of crimson flew out of nowhere and encircled the trio. Incomprehensible twittering trounced out any screams of terror from the group, who found themselves once more engulfed in mounting masses. Percy’s pamdazzled expression and AOAS’ warbled whimpers confirmed the arrival of the Slang Bang Gang. Through the circling stream, faces of men, women and children appeared, each shrieking strange threats at the trio. “Oi, ya dill, you’ll be drinking with the flies once I toss ya in my Divvy van for your dole bludging!” one of them yelled. “Grahzny bratchny! You’ll be hed-corn you ded, real horrorshow!” “Twas brillig, and the slithy toves, did gyre and gimble in the wabe.”

With that shout, Artha ceased caring for the cries of the others in the cyclone. Something was wrong with the intonations of that last gang member. “Isn’t that gibberish from ‘Jabberwocky’?” Artha whispered.Confident in his cunning catching of Carroll quoting, Artha chanted in response,“O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” At this, the swirling circle spun to a standstill. Out of the midst of the red robed masses bounced a beaming boy. “You understood me!” he cried. “No outsider in the history of the Gang has ever trittempted to comphrestand us before! Everyone just tried to quilence us!” AOAS groaned in empathy as more robed rioters came forward. A man placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder and spoke. “Slang is a wordguage like any other and we are enrightled to use it. We even crionted the term Slangist, to describe disprejunation against slang use, but the B.O.A thought it was even more slang! Where did you learn to spalk our language?” “Those words, they’re all portmanteaus… ‘try’ and ‘attempted’, ‘word’ and ‘language’. It’s easy really, once you get the trick.” said Artha. AOAS squeezed Artha’s hand.

A shiver of shrieks rattled through the gang. The man yelled, “It’s the Day of Revisioning! Carry the Signifier to the Modern Post! Binary Opposition swhill be opposed!” The Gang shot forward, whisking a wide-eyed Artha and AOAS on their collective shoulders. A petulant Percy trotted after the proud procession.

The Slang Bang Gang charged out of the clearing and emerged into a dusty, downtrodden street crowed with a gleaming billboard bearing the words:

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THE MODERN POST – WHERE YOUR POST IS MORE THAN MODERN

A painted B.O.A officer in a too-tight lab coat and lens-less glasses grinned from the corner of the board.

Huddled humbly beneath the glaring sign was a fibro house, distinguished only by the words ‘Modern Post’ dashed across its walls. A list of services painted on a board outside the building included re-wrapping envelopes in left over letters, mail de-lineation and a complimentary address scrambler.

The gang poured into the house, hurling bricks and burning sticks. Created truths were torn, social constructs shattered and posting theories gratified across walls. The violent vivacity with which the Slang Bang Gang rampaged through the post office conjured conflicting emotions within Artha. Despite the B.O.A’s undeniably duncical decision to post-modernise post, Artha was uncomfortable with idea of its destruction. “After all,” he reasoned, “it isn’t too different to the Slang Bang Gang themselves. They broke conventions and twisted expectations then protested when they were persecuted. It’s the same thing really. Everyone should be entitled to their own passage of post, even if it is stupid.” Artha turned to Percy, who was hiding from the havoc behind a stack of disillusionment. “They’re going about this all wrong!” Artha yelled. “I’ve got to stop them.” Seeing a towering crate labelled ‘Post-Modern Techniques’, which would provide the perfect soapbox, Artha scrambled onto it. “Stop! You’ve got to realise what you’re doing!” The Gang fell quiet. One member continued loudly re-lineating an envelope. AOAS groaned him into silence. “By attacking this Post Office, you’re doing exactly the same thing the B.O.A did to you!” Artha began. “If everyone would just accept that words, language and even stupid techniques work differently for everyone else, and stopped pushing their ideas onto others, we wouldn’t have to have uprisings.”

The Gang traded looks of guilt, profound revelation and disappointment with each other.“He’s corright!” The Carroll kid hooted.“He’s corrwrong!” Squeezing through the door was a familiar ball of bovine flesh: the B.O.A officer. On seeing Artha his veins bulged out of his skin. Waddling rapidly through the Gang, he forced himself within spitting distance of Artha. “I'm smart, you're dumb; I'm big, you're little; I'm right, you're wrong! You’re the left column buddy! Dumb, little and wrong! That’s Binary Opposition bucko, and no foreigner’s gonna change it!”Before Artha could conjure a retort, the box beneath him buckled. Out of it spilled threads of wriggling words. One propelled itself into Artha’s mouth. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At last! After languishing behind this computer screen, I can finally liaise directly with you. This is what short story analysts call a Big Moment; the climax and whatnot. I’d suggest you take notes. No margins, nothing too formal. Quickly! I’ve got to go, wordcount’s a-dwindling!-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Coughing violently, Artha choked up the word ‘intrusion’ and spat it on the floor. The B.O.A officer’s face still gaped offensively at Artha’s. It aroused neither fear nor fright in Artha, instead inspiring a fickle emptiness. Did Artha pity this man, with his desperate piggy eyes, poised so perilously close to his own? He was just another person, relying solely on his black and white view of language to create all meaning. What authority had Artha to shatter it? “Well Matilda? What’ve you got to say for yourself?” the B.O.A officer barked.“I don’t want to change it,” he said quietly. “It’s yours and it’s how you understand everything. Your idea of how meaning works might contradict mine, but what I’m starting to get is that language isn’t the same for everyone, or even two people.” Percy squeezed through the crowd.“You’ve done it Artha! You’ve conquered the vile villain of verbal misunderstanding! You understand language’s intangibility, irrepressibleness, and existence outside any rules, conventions or meaning!”Artha opened his mouth to respond and the word ‘self reflexivity’ flung out of the ‘Post Modern Techniques’ box and into his mouth.

“Artha, it’s your narrator,” I boomed, my voice echoing through the post office. “You’ve done very well, so I’m going to reward you with the entrance to the Attic of Abstract Nouns. I’d have a glance at AOAS if I were you.”Before he could obey my wise command, AOAS’ L slipped out of Artha’s hand. Letters churned together, twisting and transforming until ALL OF A SUDDEN morphed into READ BETWEEN THE LINES. Artha stared, stumped with the puzzling message before him. “Why can’t words just be bloody words?” breathed Artha.“Sometimes they are,” I suggested, sounding stunningly sage. Then he saw it. Huddled between the H and E was a tiny open attic. Fixated, Artha leant in closer and closer, until his eye filled the little loft. And there, nestled behind a miniature hatstand was Perspective. Feeling Artha’s eye upon it, the elusive word soared through Artha’s head and stuck itself to the ceiling.

A gasp gurgled around the room as the word expanded until PERSPECTIVE stretched across the entire ceiling. It began wheezing and whizzing, until it exploded fireworks of purple water which swashed through the room, dousing all in its liquids. “The Stream of Consciousness! It returns!” gasped the B.O.A officer. The weittle walls of the Post Office exploded outwards, unable to restrain the whitastik water. The whirlpool lifted Artha, Percy and all around them into a wave of people and consciousness.

The wave crashed into the previously vacant river bed, now overflowing in a tremendous ocean of consciousness. Portmanteaus, binary opposition and alliteration rippled through the water, splashing together in a whiz-bang of wild walumbrousness. All manner of primitive, pre-discovery words and language clashed sufiliously against each other, while whirling waves of unencumbered communications swept through Alphabetania, drowning all laws and bores in its aero-nautical heights of glorious, nonillius nonsense!

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Nerves nipping in his skin, Artha rode the winking waves until he was plunged under the water and sucked like a palm across an emptying bathtub drain through a hole

beneath the Stream.

In the bathroom of Cheng’s Noodle Palace a very conscious chap was spat unceremoniously out of the 3rd basin from the right, startling the golden cat perched on the taps. The boy soared through the air until he slammed into the smiling tiles where he lay sprawled, sputtering and squirming. All of a sudden.

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