The Oddfits (22 page)

He read the fifth card. “Step Five. Walk to the glass tank.”

He looked around: nothing but speckled blueness as far as the eye could see. A very tiny wisp of activity caught his eye. There! Far in front of him, slightly to his left, was a cluster of hovering tiny black dots. Gradually, his eyes began to make out the faint outlines of a rectangular glass tank.

This all should have struck Murgatroyd as very peculiar indeed. Yet, it didn’t. Just as when he first heard Ivan’s tomato-soup voice, he had that unfamiliar and pleasant sense of coming home. He approached the tank, and as he drew near, he saw that the tank was filled with little flying insects buzzing about. They looked suspiciously like mosquitoes.

He read the sixth card. This was the longest set of instructions so far.

“Step Six.” Murgatroyd read slowly. “Locate the circular panel in the glass on the side of the tank. Unlatch the panel. Open it quickly and stick your arm in.”

For the first time in this whole endeavour, Murgatroyd felt a twinge of fear. Were the instructions serious? He turned quickly to the seventh card to see what it said.

“Step Seven. Hold your arm steady inside the tank and count backwards from sixty. Admire and bond with the mosquitoes as you feed them.”

So they
were
mosquitoes. Still hoping that the cards weren’t really telling him to stick his arm into a tank full of blood-sucking creatures, Murgatroyd skipped ahead to the eighth card.

“Step Eight. Don’t feed them too long, or they’ll get too fat! Withdraw your arm, making sure to shake the mosquitoes off first, and close and latch the panel.”

Maybe the ninth card would read, “Just kidding.” Murgatroyd read the ninth card. “Thank you for feeding my pets! Aren’t they sweet?”

Murgatroyd sighed, flipped back to card six, and began carrying out the feeding instructions. Once Murgatroyd’s arm was inside the tank, the mosquitoes flocked to it, covering it in a seething, humming mass of ravenous insect hunger. At first, he felt nauseated, but as he continued to watch how lustily they suckled at his pale, thin arm, the disgust and fear began to melt away. Each mosquito, he noted, was completely ignorant of the fact that this arm was attached to a larger sentient being staring at them in wonder from outside their glass enclosure. He was so mesmerized by the spectacle that he’d forgotten to start counting backwards from sixty, so he began counting backwards from forty.

“Thirty-nine, thirty-eight, thirty-seven
. . .
” The longer he looked at them, the less they appeared a giant, indistinguishable mass. He could pick out individuals now, the delineations of the veins on each wing, the contours of their abdomens swelling slowly with his blood.

“Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen
. . .
”

Strangely enough, he felt as if he really was bonding with them. He felt an affection for each of them.

“Three, two, one, zero.” He shook them off his arm before withdrawing from the tank and latching the panel. His arm felt prickly all over, and already, red welts were beginning to appear.

He looked at the tenth card. “Step Ten. Don’t scratch. It will make it worse. Much worse.”

All of a sudden, his arm was inflamed in itchiness. He groaned and tried blowing on the bites to relieve the pain.

“Step Eleven. Go back down the stairs. I have some lotion that will help with the itching. See you soon!”

By the time he had finished reading the card, his arm had become a swollen, throbbing, burning, misshapen lump of flesh. Murgatroyd raced to the stairs and began a hurried climb downwards. Unfortunately, he had indeed climbed a long way to the top, and even though he made his way down as fast as he could, it still seemed to take an eternity. Finally, he arrived at the bottom. There was only one small problem. There were no more stairs, but there was also nowhere else to go. Panting from the itching and the pain, he hurriedly flipped through the cards to see if there was another step. In the dim purple light, he could hardly make out the words.

“Step Twelve. Once you get to the bottom of the stairs, stare at the crack in front of you. Feel homesick and alone.”

Murgatroyd groaned. The crack was easier to find from here. It was almost four times the size it had been in the Known World and was indeed right in front of him. But he really didn’t feel like feeling homesick and alone. He felt itchy. So very, very itchy. In fact, that was all he could feel running through his mind—an itchiness, as regular and resounding as a heartbeat.
Itchy. Itchy. Itchy. Itchy. Itchy. Itchy
.

No. If you want to get out of here, you have to concentrate.
Murgatroyd gritted his teeth and tried to think back to the scene from his childhood that Ann had used to get him to see the More Known World during their first meeting. Then he thought of how he had felt all last night—the doubt and mistrust and dissatisfaction and isolation
. . .

He was back. The man in the suit was still sitting in his armchair, doing his crossword, but Murgatroyd barely registered his presence as he sped past him and burst out the back-room door.

Ivan was standing there to receive him, a green plastic bottle in his hand. “Stretch out your arm.” Murgatroyd obeyed, his eyes watering. Ivan drenched the arm in lotion and vigorously rubbed it in. The pain and heat vanished instantly. Murgatroyd looked at his arm. It looked like its pale, non-inflamed self again.

“Is it better now?” Ivan asked.

“Much better.”

“Did you like them? My pets?”

His mind less clouded with pain, Murgatroyd reflected. “Yes, I did.”

“They’re a very rare variety of mosquito and very sensitive. Ann got them for me from a new Territory she’d been exploring. They don’t do well in the Known World, so that’s why I keep them there. They can live for much longer and I don’t have to feed them as often.”

“Why mosquitoes?” Murgatroyd asked.

“It sounds a bit funny, but I like them.” Sighing, Ivan shook his head at his own silliness. “I don’t know why. They probably don’t even know or care about me. Or what a pain it is to feed them. Literally. Luckily, I do have this lotion.” Ivan jerked his head towards the back-room door. “My older brother invented it.”

“That’s your brother?” Murgatroyd exclaimed.

Ivan nodded. “He’s a little eccentric, but he’s very clever. He’s not really as bad as he seems.”

Murgatroyd smiled.

“Thanks for dropping by,” Ivan said, tugging on his eyebrow rings, this time as if it were his way of smiling. “I have to start taking inventory right now, but it was nice to meet you. I hope your father gets better.”

“Thanks.”

“Sorry you can’t go on the Quest.”

“Yeah,” Murgatroyd rubbed his neck and looked at his feet. There was a moment of silence, as if they both were mourning the missed opportunity. “Ann did say she’d still be there, in case I changed my mind, but I don’t think I’ll be going.”

“Yeah. It’s a shame,” Ivan said.

The bell above the entrance door tinkled. Both Ivan and Murgatroyd looked up to see who had come in, but nobody had.

“Must be the wind,” Ivan said.

Murgatroyd nodded. He felt reluctant to leave this new unexpected acquaintance he had made. “It was nice to meet you,” he said.

“Nice to meet you too. Oh, wait a second. I almost forgot.” Ivan handed him a paper cup of vanilla soft-serve ice cream. It had a little blue parasol stuck in it. “Have a Mister Softee. Free of charge. If you do see Ann, tell her I said hi. Here’s a spoon.”

Feeling shy all of a sudden, Murgatroyd took the little plastic spoon, said thank you, and left. He looked at his wristwatch. It was a lot later than he thought. He had to report for work. As he walked towards the bus stop, he ate the ice cream and thought about what he had just experienced. So that was what travelling to the More Known World was like. And he now knew what Ann meant about feeling most at home while doing so. Now that he was back in the Known World, he felt the deep despair and confusion he had been experiencing lately beginning to wash over him again. To delay this reality, he thought about the wondrousness of his visit to feed Ivan’s mosquitoes and grinned to himself. He felt hope and joy welling up within him—and a curious, renewed yearning for these sensations, so new to him, to remain with him always. Was this what going on the Quest would be like?

His meeting with Ivan Ho and his brief visit to the More Known World had given Murgatroyd great joy indeed. These were the exact results Ann had hoped the visit would produce when she had arranged it. Unfortunately, Murgatroyd’s third visit to the More Known World also had other consequences—ones that neither Ann nor the One, the Other nor Yusuf, nor any other soul living or dead could ever have foreseen. For although new knowledge was being gained every day, there was still much about the worlds that nobody knew.

For example, nobody knew that, technically speaking, Oddfits didn’t adapt to the Known World; the Known World adapted them. It was a small distinction that hardly made any difference when it came to the day-to-day business of existence; but it did imply that the Known World was capable of exerting more power than its inhabitants tended to ascribe to it. Another interesting thing that nobody knew: oddfittingness wasn’t just a matter of quantity, but also of quality. There was a type of oddfittingness that the Known World could never diminish, never eradicate, and therefore, could never tolerate. An unadaptable Oddfit couldn’t be allowed to live: it was an inalterably foreign element that had to be purged in order to preserve the healthy functioning of the whole.

A third of all Oddfits conceived possessed this type of oddfittingness, and a third of all Oddfits conceived met their demise before they ever took their first breath.

Murgatroyd should have died before he was ever born.

And yet, he lived. At the risk of attributing to the Known World sentience, unified thought, and feeling, one might even say that the Known World spared his life. It certainly had intended to eliminate the foreign being, as it did with all the others; but there was something different about this one. This one loved.

All the others emitted hate—hate pure and blind for the world they found themselves in, and understandably so. They were creatures out of their element—birds in water, fish in air. With every act of cellular proliferation, with the formation of each new type of cell, each new organ, and each new appendage, every burgeoning nerve and sinew and blood vessel of these rapidly growing beings screamed silently in protest, consumed with an instinctive hatred for an environment to which they could never belong. The reaction was mutual: the Known World felt their presence as a burning, festering rash across the skin, a thick splinter in the foot’s sole, the sharp sting of an angry wasp. They were as incapable of tolerating the Known World as the Known World was incapable of tolerating them.

Then there was this one. This one who, against every inclination of every growing fibre of its being, struggled to love the world in which it now found itself gaining form and consciousness. Love in spite of it all.

The Known World was confused. Could it be that this being was, in some way, one of its own? Or maybe this one just needed more time. Could it be adapted later?

Improbable, but there was still a small chance
. . .

The Known World made its decision with great trepidation. The being could live, but the adverse effects of its presence had to be sup
pressed in order to be made endurable: in lieu of getting rid of the illness, the Known World treated the symptoms. In exchange for its life,
the being had to be kept in a weakened physical and psychological state.

So it was done. The being was born and it grew, after a fashion. And it reached adulthood, of a sort. And it bore the weakening that was inflicted upon it admirably. It still loved. In response, the Known World remained wary, but also gracious. When the being departed the first time, returning pungent with the aroma of the other world and slightly stronger than it should have been, the Known World dismissed this as a fleeting lapse, resumed its suppression of the being, and let it continue to be—for the being still loved.

When the being did this a second time, the Known World was alarmed and pained, but took no action—for the being still loved.

This time, it could not be abided, no matter how much the being still loved. Aside from the fact that this third departure was simply excessive—a clear sign of the being’s wavering determination to endure the Known World—the being had come back far too robust. Upon its re-entry, the Known World had groaned in agony. The being called Murgatroyd had become a cancerous tumour, a deadly virus. There was no alternative. It had to be destroyed.

Murgatroyd was blissfully unaware of the aggravation his actions had incited from the world in which he now sat, waiting for the bus to take him to work. He was also unaware that he was being watched. The watcher was someone who had also been in the 7-Eleven at the same time as Murgatroyd, and whose stealthy departure had caused the little bell above the door to give a cheerful tinkle. It was the Duck Assassin, lurking in the shadows of a nearby banyan tree, dutifully carrying out the work assigned to him by Mrs. Vithani.

The Duck Assassin was a quiet young man. Or perhaps “silent” would be a better word, since one associates “quiet” men with innocuous
activities like library-frequenting and chess-playing and stamp-
collecting. He was a silent but dangerous sort who had nothing personal
against Murgatroyd Floyd Shwet Foo. Nothing but the nameless dull contempt he felt for everyone and everything. At least, that was what he had always felt. Until now.

Crouching very still behind the tree trunk, dressed in his usual black attire, with the lower part of his face concealed, the Duck Assassin watched Murgatroyd at the bus stop. The little
ang moh
wasn’t doing anything very interesting—sitting, standing, sitting again, standing and stretching, walking in circles. Finally, the
ang moh
pulled out a little blue paper parasol from his pocket and, twirling it about between his hands, seemed to lose himself in happy contemplation. Yes, the
ang moh
hadn’t really done anything, and wasn’t really doing anything now, but the Duck Assassin was beginning to feel much more than mere contempt for Murgatroyd.
Much
more. As he watched Murgatroyd, he felt his contempt blossoming into a searing hatred, intensifying exponentially with each second Murgatroyd was passing alive under his surveillance. He didn’t know why. The
ang moh
had never caused him offence. There was no explanation for it.