The Helmet of Horror

Chapter Twelve

IsoldA
I told you, there weren't any doors, only handles. But I didn't even get a chance to touch them. The moment I took a couple of steps towards the jeep, its window began slowly winding down. Some kind of mechanism must have switched on. I really wanted to find out what was behind the glass, but the light began to fade, and a few seconds later it was dark. Exactly the same thing as happened to you, in fact. I climbed up on the platform and touched the wall where the window of the jeep had been. There was a gap there now. I ran my hand round its edge. It really felt like a car window. But the window hadn't opened all the way and the gap wasn't big enough to climb through the wall. There was a slight draught from the window, as if there was an air-conditioner working inside. And I thought I caught a faint glimpse of light. I leaned down to look inside, but as soon as my face was level with the opening something bumped against my cheek and I heard a terrible howl. I leapt back, lost my balance and fell off the platform on to the floor. The light came on  -  dim at first, then brighter and brighter, like in the cinema after a film. By the time it got really light, the jeep's window was already closed again. I went back out through the corridor into the open air and came back here. I was shaking all over at first, but I started feeling better on the way. It's funny to think about it now.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Well, I've learned one lesson. Nice and easy does it.
IsoldA
Yes. Especially in your RR SUV.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
It's your RR SUV.
IsoldA
Why?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
It's on your side!
IsoldA
But you're the one inside it. That means it's yours.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
How can it be mine if I can't see it?
IsoldA
And how can it be mine if I can't even get into it? Apart from sticking my head in the window.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Let's say it's ours then. Then we can't be wrong.
IsoldA
Agreed.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Isolde ... I want to tell you something. It will probably sound stupid, but I want you to hear it anyway. Whatever I'm thinking about, I always come back to you. As if all the thoughts that aren't connected with you are heavy weights and as soon as my mind tries to deal with them, the effort becomes too much. But everything to do with you is light and happy, like the bubbles in champagne. I just want to go on and on thinking about it.
IsoldA
Yes, Romeo, that really did sound stupid. But I could say the same thing to you.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Why don't we meet again at the same place? Say tomorrow afternoon? Calmly, without any fuss. Or any noise.
IsoldA
But what if we're being followed? I mean there, inside.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
The light goes out when the window opens.
IsoldA
Haven't you ever heard of infra-red cameras? They could do more than just watch us. They could shoot an entire movie.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Then who would they show it to?
IsoldA
Your wife, for instance. Or Ariadne in a dream.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
I haven't got a wife. And I couldn't give a damn for Ariadne and her dreams. If we start worrying about spies, pretty soon the world will be full of them.
IsoldA
You're right. The only way to be alone is to behave as though we are already alone.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
So it's a date then?
IsoldA
Tomorrow at three, Romeo. I date your car.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Our car. My green-eyed Lolita. My lovely Mona Lita.
IsoldA
And now to sleep, Cohiba. Be seeing you.
Nutscracker
Be seeing you, be seeing you. Monster, are you there?
Monstradamus
Yes. Where else could I be?
Nutscracker
Well, what do you make of that?
Monstradamus
No doubt our master shed a great big sentimental tear. The twilight of Ancient Greek thought in a nutshell. Zeno's paradoxes. Achilles can't go riding in his big beautiful car. Because when he's riding in it, he can't see it. The passers-by can see it, so they're the ones riding in it. And Achilles only imagines he's driving it, but in actual fact it's driving him.
Nutscracker
I feel a bit jealous. How about you?
Monstradamus
Not particularly. I don't like jeeps. You're too high above the road when you sit in them. And anyway an RR SUV is a bit OTT. Cohiba ought to have an Alfa Romeo.
Nutscracker
I don't mean the car. Alfa Romeo, Beta Romeo  -  all that sounds like the stud ranking in a herd of chimpanzees to me. I mean the feelings.
Monstradamus
But you have them too. They have love, you have envy. As comrade Ariadne teaches us, these are merely different states assumed by past within the helmet of horror.
Nutscracker
And on that optimistic note ...
Monstradamus
Yes indeed. Good night.
:-))))
Organizm(-:
Who wants to chat?
Ariadne
I do.
Nutscracker
And I do.
Monstradamus
And I do I suppose.
Organizm(-:
An interesting team. Monstradamus, Ariadne, me and Nutcracker. Has anyone noticed that the four of us have something in common?
Nutscracker
It would be hard not to notice. We all use toilet paper with a little star on it.
Monstradamus
And we share a great passion for life.
Organizm(-:
That's not all, though.
Nutscracker
We've all been fed garbage just recently as well. Did everyone get that putrid lasagne yesterday? And how did you like today's vegetarian beefsteak, rare and bloody?
Organizm(-:
That's not it either.
Monstradamus
I know what he means. None of us has said anything about our labyrinths.
Ariadne
Really? It's just that no one's asked me.
Nutscracker
And are you willing to tell us?
Ariadne
Of course.
Nutscracker
So what have you got outside your door?
Ariadne
A bedroom.
Nutscracker
What, just an ordinary bedroom?
Ariadne
No, not ordinary. If you ever leaf through those fashionable journals with all the chic interiors, you might have seen something of the kind. It's a large room, and the bed takes up at least half of it. The mattress is so wonderful I don't even know how to describe it. I should write more poems. When you lie down on it, it feels like you're parachuting through the air, soaring along the pillows, the blankets and the sheets  -  everything is absolutely the very best. And there's an air conditioner with heaps of different operating modes. You can set it so that a fresh breeze blows through the room as though it's coming straight off the sea. And there are thick curtains on the window that ...
Nutscracker
You've got a window? What does it look out on?
Ariadne
I don't know. There's some kind of garden, and the branches of trees. I can't see anything else.
Nutscracker
Have you tried opening it?
Ariadne
The window doesn't open. What else now? There's a really elegant wall-lamp above the bed and a night-lamp in the corner. There's a mini-bar too, only there aren't any drinks in it, nothing but little boxes of sleeping pills. There are lots and lots of them, all beautiful kinds of colours, and inside each one there are instructions on how many pills you can take at once, which ones you can take with others, which ones you can't, and so on. Only I don't need any sleeping pills. I only have to lie down on the bed, and I'm gone. I just fly away.
Nutscracker
And is that all there is?
Ariadne
When I leave the bedroom for a long time  -  say an hour or more  -  someone changes the sheets and makes the bed. But I haven't met anyone, not even once. And there aren't any other doors in the bedroom, there's only one way in.
Nutscracker
How do you explain that?
Ariadne
I don't try. It's less scary that way.
Nutscracker
A labyrinth like that could give you bedsores, Ariadne.
Ariadne
You weren't listening to what I said, Nutcracker. The mattress I have is so wonderful I can't even feel it. What bedsores? An angel could sleep on it without even creasing its wings.
Monstradamus
That's an interesting subject. How angels sleep.
Ariadne
Probably like bats, on a coral perch. And they have special gold hooks on their slippers.
Monstradamus
Perhaps. Only they hang head-up, because they aren't attracted by the earth's gravity, only by the love of the Lord. Like Ugly said. Angels are non-material beings.
Organizm(-:
Then how did they manage to choose wives for themselves from among the daughters of man and beget children?
Nutscracker
Ugly probably knows about that. Or she can check with some of her friends. Ugly, are you there?
Monstradamus
By the way, on the subject of checking with your friends. Ariadne, you said we could ask you questions about the helmet of horror in case you have another dream about our management.
Ariadne
Of course.
Monstradamus
I have three. Firstly, I really would like to know how everything else can be manufactured out of nothing. And secondly, how the helmet of horror can be located inside one of its own parts, and does that mean that inside one helmet there is a second one, and inside the second a third one, and so on to infinity in both directions? And the final question is  -  exactly how does the separator labyrinth work?
Ariadne
All right, I'll ask.
Nutscracker
And at the same time ask them to say something about the occipital braid. So far we don't know a single thing about it.
Organizm(-:
I have a question  -  why is the helmet of horror called that?