Read The Smell of Telescopes for Free Online

his shadow’s footprints, which were deeper than his shoes. He waited outside the shop until the barber re-emerged. Later, he fished the bottle out of the dark cistern and lowered it into his sack.
    Waking in the oven, the pirate rubbed his sooty eyes and considered the meaning of the dream. Was it symbolic of anything other than itself? He hoped not. He crawled out, sharpened dawn on a strop and hovered over the empty chair. The delivery of his letter in this fashion was too neat to be true, like a perfectly shaved chin. Closing for an early lunch, he decided to check the cistern for his bottle. But the nets were woven too finely; he could not penetrate the washing. He returned to dusty silence and chewed his tongue like a pie. Dusk arrived; a new morning climbed up behind and time molested his life.
    The weeks passed. One night there was a sound of tearing: his front door rattled. He cowered in the oven and strained his eyes. The lock was blown apart and the door opened, letting in a cloud of sulphurous smoke. Two figures stood on the threshold. When the bell sounded, one patiently reloaded his carbine and took careful aim. The second eruption peppered the wall with shot, leaving the bell unscathed. While this figure cursed and stamped the carbine to splinters, his companion pulled out a cutlass and severed the cord holding the device. It tinkled to its doom. Nodding at each other, the beings advanced.
    “It’s darker than the attack on Porto Bello. ’Ceti always preferred glow-worms to lamps. His eyes are anchors.”
    “I can stir a pot with his halo.”
    “Pride comes before a trim. We’ll leave before he finds us. Mustn’t belittle the stubborn soak. Wondrous fool.”
    He felt numb as he observed them. Were these his first customers? A minute more disabused him of this notion. They lowered something down on the chair and patted it on the head: this was the real client. Then they gave the shop a cursory pillage. Reaching for a tall jar of whale-oil on the shelf, they smeared wax on their faces: one on his lashes, the other on his brows. Then they vanished like eels, leaving the taste of saltpetre on the floorboards. Baked with emotion, ’Ceti paddled from the kitchen toward the chair and looked at the object. He was saved: resting on the cracked red leather was boundless sustenance.
    At the end of the year, when the washing-lines were raised to cheat the rain of a soft landing, a postman took a short-cut down the passage. The lock was still smashed, so he pushed into the shop. Slumped over the chair, the corpse seemed to be smiling. Perhaps it was the decay. On the seat, an enormous coconut with elaborate curls, rotting in the sunlight. There was a comb tangled in its hair. When the news spread, neighbours came to dispose of the bones. Some say Morgan bought them for his flag. All lies are true after a rinse and cut. And now dawn looks like a rebel and even smooth dusk is going through a phase.

The Blue Dwarf

    “All I require,” the blue dwarf cried, as he placed his hand on my knee, “are your trousers and your soul.” 
    “Oh, little man,” said I, “this is a foolish request! They are both too large for you. They would flap in the wind and set up a commotion. Who would want to be your friend then? You would have to shout above the noise: ‘Blueberry pie at my house.’ Even so, no-one would come to visit. You would have to sit alone, absurdly attired.
    “But let me tell you of the time I bartered both. The world was a younger place then; we did not value so highly such things as trousers and souls. The former were objects merely to be worn; the latter were baubles brought out over dinner to amuse guests. Neither had pride of place in the wardrobe, as they do now.”
    “I do not wish to hear this,” replied the blue dwarf, and he turned to go. But I soon had him by the scruff of his neck and he was forced to amend his statement: “Perhaps I will listen after all.”
    “Very good,” I told him.