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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 7. April 23 1968

The Return Of The Triboldies — Part 7

page 6

The Return Of The Triboldies

Part 7

We are encamped just over the pass, having left the valley of Ytinutroppo. Before us five paths depart. Which shall we take? Let the philosophers be called for. Where are they all?

Once again they were crowded into the bronze wagon, hunting frantically for the alkahest. One might wish them to search as diligently for their own resting-place. Paraphernalia has emerged. Which way? he is asked. He points idly to the right. It is of no importance, he has just remarked. Whichever way we go now, he says, will enable us to arrive at the same destination. Suddenly a rhinosceroscamel drawing a black wagon with blue spots has galloped down the widest path. Others are following. We are o

Only 164½ of us remain, which leaves but 115 able bodied after having subtracted 20 magicians, 23½ children, 4 invalids, 8 giggling Tropo women, and the unfortunate Corstorphine have bean excluded from the census. The unfortunate Corstorphine has been stricken by a strange disease which has rendered him unable to be seen.

According to Whirligig we are probably crossing a birthmark on the groin. Ahead of us there is what appears to be a pale gleaming rock projecting from the plain. Far behind us there are the hills that surround the valley of Ytinutroppo. Far ahead there is nothing but more of this, and the rock which I have already mentioned. I do not like this spot: it is too similar to where we have come from. Perhaps we are travelling along the circumference of a circle on the leg (perhaps the navel. I venture to suggest) and are opposite the point from where we started; if this is so I recommend an abrupt change of direction. But we have not yet travelled far enough for it to be so. The weather is almost unpleasantly warm. We must trust to the ancients that our own place is not like this. Does climate vary?

18653. Eight long years we have been away! We performed a ceremony at dawn this morning, the solemnity of which was marred a little by the magicians' uncertainty as to their chronology. I remember well that on the first day of each year the sun was clouded shortly after dawn, then the cloud passed. This did not occur today. It is whispered that the magicians have lost count of time, and that what purports to be the date heading this page is in fact a mere fabrication on the part of Nostradamus, our Chronologist. Sparadrap is exceedingly worried in case we should lost count of time . . . for all the calculations concerning the alkahest, The End, The Beginning, and above all the whereabouts of our homeland will he thrown into error if we lost time. The feeling about this runs strong among us all. If Nostradamus has jeopardised our people by losing a day, let him find it, or else replace it by a day of his own. Sparadrap is at present conferring with Nostradamus, examining the saw no doubt, measuring the cut in the beam, weighing the sawdust, and the like. The name of Nostradamus shall be Sumadartson if it prove that he has lost the day. Time belongs to us all, not to himself alone.

Fears are confirmed! Sawdust weighs less than the hole in the plank. Woe is the name of Sumadartson! Our progress has ceased, wagons stopped in mid-track, animals have ceased running without letting their legs touch the ground, and panic is spreading like Dysentery. Wagons are being turned inside out (and vice versa) in the desperate search for the absence of the small heap of sawdust (approximately 7¼ grains) that would indicate to us that the day is saved.

We have searched for three days and five nights and there is no sign of sawdust. The day is lost! Panic has overcome us all! It is midnight; we are camped in this sweltering heat, and sand blows about our ears. Most of us are exhausted. This heat is too much for the rhinoceros-camels, who have collapsed onto the ground, the sharp points of their humps pointing wickedly upwards at all angles. A few miles to the south stands the glistening rock which we have not yet examined, so frantic has been our search for the missing sawdust.

A solution has been propounded by Quidditas. He suggests that the missing day may have functioned as a bridge which cannot be crossed till later. Perhaps the path of time is not straight. If one day in the future is two days, then we shall know that the crosing of the bridge has been completed, and that we shall he free to pass on. Moreover, if the path of time crosses itself once more, the missing day shall be returned in double. He has with some difficulty removed his wooden leg and is scratching in the sand the following diagram:

Diagram of a rope knot

And the name of him who was called Woe shall be Nostradamus; all arc overjoyed at the day so cleverly found.

Now we are at the glistening pale rock; we are examining it through peculiar objects that make it look larger than it is. Our magicians find these objects of great interest. They are constructed of a substance like rock in hardness, but like air in vision. The objects are identical; dozens were heaped in a crack in this rock; they are cylindrical in overall form; one end of the cylinder is closed, and the other tapered to a small circular aperture. Most curious! The Troppo women travelling with us are certain that these objects arc artifacts of the Aggabuggers. Unhappy creatures, they do not speak our language and must communicate by pointing; Phenobarbara is bored with them and refuses to speak in their langauge; she has many other languages to study, she says. Perhaps it was unwise to bring these strangers. They undermine our solidarity.

We have found this most unusual rock to be composed of a number of bluish and yellowish translucent bubbles, joined by while matter. The rock is like soup! Amazing! One can plunge one's arm into it (with slight difficulty) and pull out the arm dry. Never before were such rocks known to man: the ancients say nothing. The rock is perhaps one day's saunter in circumference. Beyond it are others of the same kind, says long-sighted Laughing Gas.

Now we are travelling around the rock, stopping once in a while to thrust arms into it, testing its consistency. There are footsteps in the path we are following; large: perhaps made by a Brontosaurus, Unusual!

In the perfectly hemispherical surface (almost perfectly, to be exact) there is an excrescence, the height of four to six men, and of similar width. Within this transparent it is apparent that bubbles are moving downward slowly. To the most brilliant among us would suggest that the rock is soft centred, like a large and juicy chocolate.

To my right I see many more rocks of this same shape and colour, rising from the plain which becomes yet warmer with every breath we take. Only grass grows: however we have enough stocks of licorice and straw to last for years. How noble and brave our people is proving! We pass the nights in festivities, thinking only of our goal.