Pixel Juice Read online

  Pixel Juice

  stories from the avant pulp

  Jeff Noon

  Copyright © Jeff Noon 1998

  DEDICATION 3

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 4

  PROLOGUE WATCH 5

  PART ONE ILLUSION'S PERFUME 7

  THE SHOPPER 8

  SOLACE 9

  THE CABINET OF NIGHT UNLOCKED 11

  SUPER-EASY-NO-TAG-SPECIAL 15

  ALPHABOX 17

  METAPHORAZINE 18

  ALPHABOX 19

  QWERTYPHOBIA 20

  ALPHABOX 22

  JUNIOR PIMP 23

  SHED WEAPONS 29

  HOMO KARAOKE 30

  DUB KARAOKE 34

  PART TWO INFECTION'S COURTSHIP 35

  BUG COMPASS 36

  FETISH BOOTH #7 40

  PIMP! - THE BOARD GAME 43

  CHROMOSOFT MIRRORS (V.4.2) 45

  CLOUDWALKERS 46

  BLURBS 55

  DUB BLURBS 57

  TWEEDLES 58

  PRODUCT RECALL - MARILYN MONROE 60

  XTROVURT 61

  THE PERFUMED MACHINE 64

  INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE USE OF 66

  PART THREE POISON'S FLIGHT PATH 67

  GETTING HOME SAFELY 68

  PIXEL FACE 69

  STIGMATICA 76

  AUTOPSY OF A HUMMINGBIRD 78

  FROM THE BOOK OF NYMPHOMATION 80

  SOMEWHERE THE SHADOW 81

  CALL OF THE WEIRD 86

  DUB WEIRD 88

  THE CHARISMA ENGINE 89

  SPACEACHE AND HEARTSHIPS 95

  DUBSHIPS 97

  PART FOUR REFLECTION'S EMBRACE 98

  SPECIMENS 99

  CREEPING ZERO 101

  CRAWL TOWN 103

  ORGMENTATIONS 108

  HANDS OF THE DJ 109

  BASSDUST 112

  EVENTS IN A ROCK STAR'S LIMOUSINE 113

  SPECIAL PROMOTION - HYPER-ALICE 116

  THE SILVERING 117

  BEFORE IT DISAPPEARS 118

  PIXEL DUB JUICE 121

  NIGHT SHOPPING 122

  EPILOGUE WATCH 123

  DEDICATION

  some stories for MICHELLE and BILL;

  and some for STEVE and BARBARA;

  Super-Easy-No-Tag-Special for GORDON;

  Xtrovurt and The Perfumed Machine for THE BULLETS OF AUTUMN - www.bulletsofautumn.co.uk;

  Shed Weapons for JIMMY;

  Orgmentations for MATTHEW;

  Bug Compass for POLLY and VANA;

  Hands of the DJ for DOUG;

  Homo Karaoke for MICHAEL;

  and the rest for PAT and JACK

  the whole, and everything for JULIE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  to the following publications for the original mixes:

  THE BIG ISSUE for Call of the Weird and Solace;

  CITY LIFE for Homo Karaoke;

  the GUARDIAN for Tweedles;

  RAISE for Before it Disappears;

  RANDOM FACTOR for Blurbs;

  WATERSTONE'S DIARY 1997 for The Shoppers

  with thanks

  PROLOGUE

  WATCH

  When I was a young kid in junior school, perhaps seven or eight years old, one day this lad called Colin Bradshaw comes up to me in the playground.

  'What time is it, Noony?' he asks.

  'I don't know,' I reply.

  'You mean you haven't got a wristwatch?'

  'No.'

  'I've got one. It's a special watch, like spies use. It's invisible.'

  Now this Colin Bradshaw was the toughest kid in the class, and he was always hanging around with his gang, and playing tricks on the other kids.

  'Wow! Invisible!' says I. 'Can I see it?'

  'It's invisible, stupid! Anyway, I haven't got it on me today. It's at home. You can have it if you want. We can do swaps.'

  So we made this deal, that Colin would bring the invisible watch in the next day, and I would bring my model of the James Bond Aston Martin DB5 (complete with ejector seat and guns that came out of the front and everything). This was back in the Sixties, and the James Bond car was easily the best toy of the time, everybody wanted one. Especially Colin Bradshaw.

  'OK,' he says the next day. 'Give us the car then.'

  So I gave him the car.

  'Right. Hold your hand out. Palm up, stupid.'

  I hold my hand out, and he puts his hand into his pocket and pulls it back out, holding the invisible watch. And he places the watch, gently, in my trembling palm.

  And I believed ...

  PART ONE

  ILLUSION'S PERFUME

  THE SHOPPER

  In the first shop they bought a packet of dogseed, because Doreen had always wanted to grow her own dog. In the second, a pair of bird shoes, which fluttered slightly as Matthew put them on. In the third shop, Little Tommy bought half a dozen singing biscuits, five of which he swallowed straight away, because shopping made him hungry.

  There were only nine shops in the entire city. In fact, the shops were the city, so vast they were and all encompassing. It was difficult to know where one shop ended and the next began. No wonder the children were tired already.

  In the fourth shop Doreen chose a box of shadows, some of which she used to mask the pain in the head that Tommy's constant singing gave her. In the fifth shop, Matthew floated over the umbrella-pig cage in his bird shoes, claiming that if Doreen had bought the shadows, then he should have at least a single pig to keep the rain off. Doreen reminded him it never rained inside the shops, and that he should instead buy an egg of words. Matthew was becoming angry at the way this shopping trip was going.

  The three young shoppers were determined to buy a single product from each of the nine stores. These precious items were to be the children's gift to their mother, for her birthday. Their mother, you see, had never once ventured outside the first shop.

  In shop six, Tommy bought a penny ghost. In shop seven, Doreen purchased a Girl-of-Eternal-Flame Doll. In shop number eight, Matthew wanted to buy a genuine piece of cow, but Doreen told him they could no longer afford it. Instead, he was forced to buy a mansion house in London. In the ninth and final shop, Little Tommy bought a smoke-map of Manchester, which they used to retrace their steps through the aisles of the city.

  On the way home, however, the dogseeds slipped from Doreen's fingers, caught on a slight breeze. The bird shoes tried to catch the seeds, only to crash into a display stand, tumbling poor Matthew to the ground. He landed on Tommy, who swallowed his last song biscuit accidentally. Doreen used many more of her shadows to wipe away Tommy's wailing. Matthew's egg hatched prematurely in his pocket. The resulting cloud of words gathered over the Flame Doll, forming the word 'locust' in the air. The doll ran screaming into the mansion house, shooting electric sparks from her hair. The house burned so fiercely that not even the fire brigade could put it out. They'd forgotten to bring their hosepipes.

  Tommy smoked his map completely to get them home to Mother's little kiosk. All that remained was the penny ghost and a single shadow. The children were in tears by then, but their mother accepted gratefully the gift of the shadow and told Little Tommy he could keep the ghost for his trouble and kindness. That night he played with the spirit, as his mother wiped her sad eyes with the birthday shadow and told them the story of the mythical tenth shop, the one that lay beyond all the others.

  SOLACE

  Remember Spook?

  —No.

  Sure you do, came out when you, me and the rest of the world were just a bunch of kids. It was a bit of a craze for a few years, a new soft drink product. Ninety-nine per cent sugar; one of those things that tastes disgusting first off, but you can't help getting hooked if you persist with it. It was called Spook, I guess, because it was like clear liquid to start with, no flavour
, with this neat gimmick in the cap. You could twist the cap six different ways to get six different flavours. Nothing special looking back, just some cheap chemicals released according to which flavour you chose, but the sort of thing that kids go mad for.

  —Oh, right. Orange, strawberry ... apple ...

  That's it. Lemon, cola or elderberry. Anyway, remember Nesbit?

  —Who?

  Come on, that scrawny little brainbox with the rich parents ? He was the one who first introduced us to drinking Spook, because it wasn't advertised or anything, you just had to know it was there somehow. Whenever we went to the shop, it was always, 'I'll have a Spook'. That's all he ever asked for, especially after he'd discovered that turning the cap in a certain clever way, you could get to mix the flavours. I'm not sure if the manufacturers even knew you could do that, and we had to pay Nessie to do the combinations for us, because only he knew the secret.

  —Nessie?

  Nesbit. Now you've got him. He got us all hooked on the stuff for a while, trying out different combinations. It was neat, the way the two colours merged to form the new flavour. He was good at maths, I remember, and he'd worked out with six starting flavours you could have more than sixty different flavour combos, if you could only discover the correct ways of turning the bottle top. I can't remember the exact figure.

  —He made up names for them?

  That's right. Orange and cola he called orancola. Strawberry and elderberry he called elstrawb, and so on. He'd found out all the ways to combine two of the flavours. Then he started on mixing three of them. It was tricky stuff, getting the cap to twist just so to release three at the same time. He'd spend hours with the bottles - playtime, after school, whenever. I went round to his house one time, he was sat on his bed with dozens of bottles all around him, twisting at one like he was in a daze, like it was the best puzzle ever.

  The first trio flavour he discovered was apple, cola and lemon. He called it appolamon. Tasted horrible, but he was so excited, the taste didn't bother him. It wasn't the taste anyway, that drove him, it was just finding out the new flavours. He had this thing that he would find all the trios and then move on to four different flavours, then five and so on.

  —He started to put on weight?

  Yeah. Real skinny to start with, but the body just can't take that much sugar. He was visiting the dentist's nearly every week, and he was the first one of us to have spots I remember, really bad ones. He used to be good at school, but now his grades were dropping daily. His parents were worried; they tried to ban him from buying any more Spook, stopped his pocket money. Which was a mistake because then he started stealing the stuff, drinking it in secret. It was strange, because the new combinations he was coming up with, they must have been vile. You'd think he'd be happy to just mess with the bottles, but no, he had to drink every single one, even the ones that were failed experiments.

  By this time the rest of us were growing up, you know. Moving on to more sophisticated pleasures. Like beer, for instance. And girls and ciggies. But Nessie was still in there, still searching.

  He gave me a taste of his first ever four-flavour combination. Elorcolem, he called it. Elderberry, orange, cola, lemon. I tell you, one sip was enough; I was nearly throwing up! He drank the concoction in one, no trouble, but from the look on his face, I could tell he was hating it. He couldn't stop himself.

  I called him a spookaholic. He didn't laugh.

  Instead, in this really clear voice, he told me that he was searching for the solace.

  —Solace?

  The ultimate combination. All six flavours: strawberry, orange, lemon, apple, cola, elderberry; all mixed together. He took the initial letter of each fruit: S, O, L, A, C, E. That's how he came up with the name. Solace. He said it might take him years to find the right way to twist the bottle cap, but he was determined to get there, even if he died doing it.

  —He said that?

  Even if it kills me. That's what he said. Exact words.

  —Did he ever find this ... what was it?

  Solace? Well, we moved apart then, because it was time to go on to high school. I did all right, got a good place, but Nessie, who everyone thought would make university one day, he ended up at the worst school. He'd given up on being brilliant, I guess. That's addiction for you. Cheers!

  —Bottoms up. That's a hell of a story.

  It's not over yet. I bumped into him the other day. Christ, it must be fifteen years since I last saw him.

  —Did you? Whereabouts?

  You know that pub, the Cut Above? In there, last Friday. It was late afternoon, the place was quiet. Just me and this other guy, a great fat bloke wedged behind one of the tables. Looked like he needed two chairs to sit on. I avoided him of course, propped up the bar. He called my name out. I looked around, he was waving me over like he knew me. It took me a second or two to recognize him.

  —Nessie?

  I went over. God, he looked bad. Fat, like I said, and still spotty even at his age. When he smiled at me, his teeth were black, what was left of them anyway. Looked like he was on his last legs. I asked him if he wanted a drink, you can guess what he said.

  —I'll have a Spook?

  You got it. The table was filled with empties, must have been a dozen of them. I didn't know they were still selling the stuff, should have been banned years ago, I reckon. Anyway, I bought him another, just for old times' sake. The barman didn't open it, like he was following orders. I placed the unopened bottle on the table in front of Nesbit, who just stared at it for a while. I was trying to make conversation, asking him what he'd been up to, if he was working, married, kids of his own. He said he was out of work, divorced, a kid he never saw.

  I fear for that kid, I really do.

  —What do you mean?

  He told me the story. Remember the Introvert scandal, from way back?

  —Vaguely. He wasn't one of them, was he?

  That's the explanation. He'd only found out when he was twenty-one; his parents finally got round to telling him, the bastards. That's why they were so rich, you see. Spook, the company that is, they paid them a small fortune, them and about two hundred other young couples. It was meant to be the next wave of advertising; get them hooked in the womb. I don't pretend to know the details, something to do with feeding the DNA with subliminal messages. They targeted poor people, of course, and promised no side effects. Of course, now we know better, but those two hundred kids have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

  Introverts; interior adverts, I think it stood for. The original idea was that they would just promote the product, you know - word of mouth being the best advert of them all. Remember how Nesbit almost got us hooked. Then it went wrong; the hook was too deep, too sharp. The product took over.

  —They were paid compensation, weren't they?

  Sure. Very generous. That's why Nesbit didn't have to work. Little good it did him, the poor bastard, because you can guess what he spent the money on. And I'm scared for his kid, because if it's genetic, you know, it might be passed on.

  —Jesus. Want another?

  I'll stick with this, thanks. Anyway, Nesbit finishes his story, then he finally picks up the bottle of Spook I've bought him. I was all set to grab it out of his hands by this point, because I didn't want to be blamed for anything. But he was too quick for me, his left hand was gripping the bottle tight, the right twisting the cap this way and that, lightning fast. It was like watching an expert at play, like a magician or something. I tell you, I was frozen in space, as these six streams of colour — red, orange, yellow, green, brown, purple — all started to appear in the clear liquid. For a few seconds a rainbow was there in the bottle, a small tornado of colour. Then they finally merged, and the whole bottle turned black. Midnight black! Nesbit gave the bottle a final shake and then removed the cap. He poured the drink into an empty glass and placed it in front of me.

  Solace, he said.

  I picked it up, real slow. Looking deep into it, I swear I c
ould see sparkles of light, like stars in the night sky.

  I put the glass to my lips, and took a sip.

  —And?

  What?

  —What did it taste of, man?

  Tasted like heaven, I tell you. Like heaven was washing over my tongue.

  THE CABINET OF NIGHT UNLOCKED

  Now that the existence of the Olmstaff Method is public knowledge, it may well be time to offer a brief history of the procedure. The fact that the Method itself is currently an illegal act, and that even a description of the actual ritual is a punishable offence, should only persuade us more strongly to consider the moral problems it has brought to light.

  Of Brother August Olmstaff himself little need be said, beyond the standard biography proposed by Professor T. P. Lechner in his now famous but hardly seen The Sacred Wound (Cargo Press, 1967). The facts are quickly sketched: Olmstaff was born to a poor farming family in Lancashire, England, in 1455; he was the last and weakest child of nine siblings; he was born mute; his father ordered him to join the local Silent Order of Nazarenes, at the tender age of seven. Like many who joined the monasteries of that time, Olmstaff's subsequent history has vanished into the secret chambers of dust and slow tolling bells. Lechner places his death in the year 1487, in disagreement with more recent writings, which find evidence of Olmstaff's life as late as 1524. (Interested parties are directed to my own 'The Blinded Sundial' in Items of Moral Philosophy, April 1995, for a detailed overview of the 'biography problem'.) It should only be noted here that it was to Lechner's advantage to give Olmstaff an early death, and to point out the (allegedly) curious state of the corpse.

  Of the three extant manuscripts attributed to Brother Olmstaff's hand, the first two may be dismissed in passing, being only a fair copy of Plato's Republic, and a rather beautiful illumination of Egberg's On the Chronologic of Certain Insectes. That Plato's philosophies evidently concerned the monk less than the life cycle of the horsefly, has been of interest to some observers.