Robert Rankin - The Hollow Chocolate Bunnies of the Apocalypse

'Once upon a time,' said the big fat farmer, 'it was all fields around here.'

The traveller glanced all around and about. 'It's still all fields,' said he.

'And there you have it.' The farmer grinned, exposing golden teeth. 'Nothing ever changes in these parts. Nothing. Nor will it ever. And so much the better for that, says I. Though so much the worse, say others. It all depends on your point of view. But isn't this ever the way?'

'I suppose that it is.' The traveller nodded politely. He was hot and he was weary. He had wandered many miles this day. His feet were sore and he was hungry. He took off his blue felt cap and mopped it over his brow.

'The colour's coming out of your cap,' the farmer chuckled. 'Your forehead's gone all blue.'

'Which, you must agree, is different,' said the traveller. 'And admits, at the very least, to the possibility of change in these parts.'

'On the contrary.' The farmer dug about in his voluminous patchworked smock, brought forth something chew-able and thrust it into his mouth for a chew. 'To me it admits something else entirely. To me, it admits that you, a ruddy-faced lad'

'Tanned,' said the lad. 'Tanned from travel.'

'All right, tanned, then. That you, a tanned lad, of, what would it be, some sixteen summers?'

'Thirteen,' said the travelling lad. 'I'm tall for my age. Thirteen I am, which is lucky for some.'

'All right then yet again. That you, a tanned lad, thirteen years and lucky for some, scrawny-limbed and'

'Spare,' said the tall, tanned lad. 'Spare of frame and wiry of limb and

'Dafter than a box of hair,' said the farmer. 'That you are a gormster and a dullard, with a most inferior cap, who understands little of the world and will surely come to grief in a time not too far distant.'

'Oh,' said the lad. 'Indeed?'

'Indeed.' The farmer spat with practised ease across the field of flowering crad. 'Nothing ever changes in these parts and there's a truth for you to be going along with.'

'And going along I mean to be.' The lad wrung sweat from his most inferior cap and replaced it upon his tanned and heated head. 'Just as soon as you have furnished me with answers to questions I must ask. You see, I have wandered from the road. I followed a sign that said shortcut, and now I find myself here.'

'It happens,' said the farmer. 'More often than you might suppose.'

'As rarely as that?' said the lad, who was never one prone to extravagant speculation.

'At the very least, but mostly a whole lot-more.'

The travelling lad whistled.

'Please don't whistle,' said the farmer. 'It aggravates my Gout.'

'I am perplexed,' said the whistler. 'How can whistling aggravate Gout?'

'Gout is the name of my goat,' the farmer explained. 'I have a pig called Palsy and a cat called Canker. Once I owned a dog by the name of Novinger's syndrome, but his howling upset my wife, so I sold him to a tinker.'

'Oh,' said the lad once more.

'Yes, oh. And whistling aggravates my goat. As does poking him in the ear with a pointy stick. Which, in all truth, would aggravate me. And I'm not easily upset.'

'Rjghty oh.' The lad shifted from one weary foot to the other, and his stomach growled hungrily. 'But regarding these questions that I must ask.'

'Are they questions of an agricultural nature?' the farmer enquired.

'Not specifically.' The lad shook his heated head.

'That's a pity,' said the farmer. 'Because my knowledge on the subject is profound. I trust it's not a question regarding clockwork motors. Because, for all the life that's in me, I cannot make head nor toe of those infernal machines.' The farmer made a sacred sign above his treble chin.

'It's not clockwork motors.' The lad made exasperated sighing sounds. 'I was lately apprenticed in that trade and I know everything I need to know regarding them.'

'Cheese, then?' said the farmer. 'I know much about cheese.'

'Directions only.' The lad blew droplets of bluely-tinted sweat from the tip of his upturned nose. 'All I wish for are directions. How do I get to the city from here?'

'The city?' The farmer almost choked upon his chewable. 'Why would a lad such as yourself be wanting to be going to the city?'

'I mean to seek my fortune there,' the lad replied, with candour. 'I am done with toiling in a factory. I will seek my fortune in the city.'

'Fortune?' coughed the farmer. 'In the city? Hah and hah again.'

'And why "hah", you farmer?' asked the lad.

'Because, my tanned and wiry boy, you'll find no fortune there. Only doom awaits you in that direction. Turn back now, say I. Return to the mother who weeps for you.'

'I have no mother,' said the lad. 'I am an orphan boy.'

'A little lost waif; my heart cries bloody tears.' The farmer mimed the wiping of such tears from the region of his heart.

'Let not your heart weep for me.' The lad straightened his narrow shoulders and thrust out his chest what little he had of a chest. 'I know how to handle myself.

'Turn back,' advised the farmer. 'Return the way you came.'

The lad sighed deeply. 'And what is so bad about the city, then?' he asked.

'Where to start?' The farmer puffed out his cheeks. '-And where to end? So many evil things I've heard.'

'And have you ever been to the city yourself?'

'Me?' The farmer placed his hands upon his over-ample belly and gave vent to raucous sounds of mirth.

'And why now the raucous sounds of mirth?'

'Because what do I look like to you, my poor lost laddo?'

'You look like a big fat farmer, as it happens.'

'And what would a big fat farmer be doing in the city?'

'Trading produce, perhaps? This crad that flowers all around and about us in these fields that never change.'

The farmer scratched his big fat head. 'And why would I want to trade my crad?'

'For money. To buy things.'

'What sort of things?'

'Food, perhaps?'

The farmer gave his big fat head a slow and definite shaking. 'You are indeed a mooncalf,' said he. 'I am provided here with all the food that I need.'

'Other things then. Consumer durables, perhaps.'

'What?'

'Consumer durables. I am not entirely sure what they are. But I am informed that the city holds them in abundance. And I mean to acquire as many as I possibly can.'

The farmer shook his head once more, and there was a certain sadness in the shaking.

'Clothes then,' said the lad. 'Everyone needs new clothes at one time or another.'

'And do I look naked to you?'

The lad now shook his head, spraying the fully clothed farmer with sweat. The farmer was certainly clothed -although his clothing was strange. His ample smock was a patchwork, as if of a multitude of smaller clothes all stitched together.

'My wife and I have all we need, my sorry orphan boy,' said the farmer. 'Only disappointment and despair come from wanting more than you need.'

'I've no doubt that there's wisdom in your words,' said the lad. 'But as I have nothing at all, anything more will represent an improvement.'

'Then return the way you came. Weave clockwork motors if you must. Hard work, well achieved, is sometimes rewarded.'

'No,' said the lad. 'It's the city for me. My mind is set on this. But listen, if you have never visited the city, why not accompany me? Your gloomy opinion of it might be modified by experience.'

'I think not. The city is for city folk. There are those who toil there and are miserable and those who prosper and are happy. The toilers exceed the prosperers by many thousands to one. So much I have been told, and what I've been told is sufficient to inform my opinion.'

'Perhaps I will return one day and alter this opinion.'