Freax and Rejex

“It makes this bumhole of a place bearable, dunnit?” a black cab driver said to camera as he leaned out of his window.

“And how many times have you read it?” Kate enquired.

“No idea, darlin’, but there’ll never be enough, never. My real life there is sweet as a nut. Look at that bloody bus, thinks he owns the bleedin’ road! Why the hell can’t I bring my longbow with me into these soddin’ dreams, eh? I’d soon have him.”

Back in the studio Harlon Webber threw his hands in the air for attention.

“Why are all those schmucks wearing playing cards?” he asked anyone who would listen. “Is it some kinda cult of Vegas?”

Nobody answered. They, like the rest of the world, were bewildered and intrigued as to what was happening in the UK and were watching the report closely.

“Hey, Johnny,” Harlon called, squinting into the gloom behind the cameras. “Didn’t you say you got a kid sister over there? Weren’t you worried about her a while back?”

Jimmy the cameraman was used to the jerk getting his name wrong. It used to bug him, but now it didn’t matter.

“She’s just fine, Mr Webber,” he answered flatly. “It’s all just fine.”

“Kate’s looking trim there, isn’t she? Hey, anyone here nailed her? I don’t normally dig redheads, but I’ve been trying for two years. Maybe I need to wear army fatigues. Yeah, I bet that’s why she goes to all them war places. She must have a thing for jarhead grunts. One of those power broads who has to feel superior the whole damn time.”

No one in the studio answered him.

“Hey, hi!” a young American student said into the lens outside the British Museum. “I’m Brandon from Wisconsin – or that’s who I’m supposed to be when I’m here, right? I’m really a farm guy in the Kingdom of the Dawn Prince and hey, you just watch out for that Bad Shepherd. He’s been sighted over by the marsh and that’s just way too close, man. He’s like real bad news and if he goes anywhere near my goats, I’m going after him with my axe and getting me some shepherd brains. He tore the hearts clean out of Mistress Sarah’s geese last fall, every one…”

“If I could just speak to you as Brandon for a moment,” Kate interjected.

“Sure, that’s cool. That’s why I’m here, right? To be Brandon and rest, so I can be stronger there – awesome.”

“What do your parents make of all this, back home in the US?”

“Yeah, I like Skyped those guys the other day. It’s real weird having a set of folks in this dream place, when my true mom is back in our cottage right now, teasing the wool, or out in the field pulling up the turnips.”

“But your family in Wisconsin, what do they think?”

“Oh, they don’t understand, man. They don’t have a copy of the sacred text so how could they? They’re nice people an’ all. Not their fault. They were like freaking out and stuff.”

“Because of your devotion to Dancing Jax?”

“Just ignorance, dude, that’s all. They’ll know real soon though. I FedExed them a copy yesterday.”

“You sent one of these books to the United States?”

“Sure, I can’t believe it’s not out there already. Wake up, America!”

“Thank you, Brandon.”

“Hey, blessed be, man.”

Kate Kryzewski, a no-nonsense breed of reporter who had been to Afghanistan and Iraq, seemed genuinely disturbed by what she was hearing.

She turned to camera and stared at it gravely.

“‘Wake up, America,’” she repeated. “That’s what the young man said and I couldn’t agree more. Every person I have met here in London has been obsessed by this seemingly ordinary and old-fashioned children’s book. When I say obsessed, I use the word quite literally. These people aren’t just ardent fans. I would go so far as to say they’ve been possessed by it, so much so that they have assumed the identity of a character from the story. They aren’t interested in anything that doesn’t relate to it. They read and reread the stories whenever they can and the British government has just passed new legislation for seven fifteen-minute intervals throughout the day when everything will stop so mass readings can take place. Apparently, the reading experience is best shared. Can you imagine this happening in America?”

“Damn freaky, that’s what it is,” Harlon stated, leaning back in his chair and slapping the news desk. “Wackos, the lot of them. That’s what warm beer and bad restaurants do to you. Last time I was there they tried to serve me beans for breakfast. I was like, ‘You frickin’ kidding me? Get that redneck pig slop outta here!’ Dumb, backward, Third World douches.”

“… And in every garden and park,” Kate continued, standing in the Palm House at Kew, “are these strange new cultivars of trees and fruiting shrubs called minchet.” The camera panned past her to zoom in on a row of ugly and twisted bushes that had strangled and killed most of the exotic plants.

“This plant features in the book and just be thankful we don’t have smell-o-vision because these things stink of swamps, halitosis and damp basements all in one. And yet the British have developed such a taste for this fruit that they’ve started to put it in juices, sodas, cosmetics – even candy. You can buy a MacMinchet Burger, a Great Grey Whopper and there are now twelve herbs and spices in the colonel’s secret recipe. No doubt you’re thinking there’s some addictive substance at work here – that’s what I suspected too – but we’ve had it tested and there’s absolutely no trace of anything that could account for this behaviour.”

The report cut to the exterior of the Savoy Hotel and Kate was wearing her most serious face.

“At the centre of these strange new phenomena is the man responsible for bringing Dancing Jax to the attention of a twenty-first-century audience. He too has assumed the identity of a character from those very pages, that of the Ismus, the Holy Enchanter. He’s the charismatic main figure in these fairy tales and I have been granted an audience with him. So let’s see if he can explain just what is going on here…”

The scene changed to the plush interior of a hotel suite where a lean man with a clever face and perfectly groomed, shoulder-length dark hair listened to her first question with wry amusement. He was dressed in black velvet, which made the paleness of his skin zing out on camera.

“No, no,” he corrected, “Dancing Jax is not a cult. Cults, by definition, are small, hidden societies of marginal interest.”

“Then can you explain to the millions of Americans, and the rest of the people around the world, just what is going on with this book?” Kate asked. “And why you Brits are so hooked on it?”

The man stared straight down the lens.

“Dancing Jax is a collection of fabulous tales set in a far-off Kingdom,” he said. “It was written many years ago by an amazing, gifted visionary, but was only discovered late last year…”

“Austerly Fellows,” Kate interjected. “He was some kind of occultist in the early part of the twentieth century. There is evidence that suggests he was, in fact, a Satanist, a founder and leader of unpleasant secret sects, and controlled a number of covens.”

“Malicious rumours spread by his enemies,” the Ismus countered. “Austerly Fellows was without equal, a man far ahead of his time, an intellectual colossus, bestowed of many gifts. Jealousy and spite are such unproductive, restraining forces, aren’t they?”

“What I don’t understand is why such a man, Satanist or not, would even write a children’s book.”

“It is merely the format he chose in which to impart his great wisdom. The truths Dancing Jax contains have enriched our country beyond all expectations. It speaks to you on a very basic, fundamental level.”

“So you’re saying it’s a new religion.”

“No,” he laughed. “It is not a religion. It is a doorway to a better understanding of life, a bridge to a far more colourful and exciting existence than this one.”

“But don’t you have two priests dressed as harlequins in your entourage and isn’t there a woman, called Labella, who is a High Priestess?”

“There are many characters in my retinue.”

“But surely these mass readings that are scheduled to take place… might they not be viewed as a form of organised worship?”

“Only if you consider breakfast the organised worship of cornflakes.”

“I’m a black coffee and donut person myself. Can you explain the significance behind the playing cards that readers of the book wear?”

The Ismus smiled indulgently. “If you’d read it yourself, you’d know,” he said. “But it isn’t giving anything away to say that Dancing Jax is set in a Kingdom where there are four Royal Houses which have, as their badges, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts and Spades. The numbers indicate what type of character the reader identifies with, so a ten of clubs would be a knight or noble of that house, whilst a two or three would be further down the social scale – a maid or groom. Perfectly simple.”

“But the harlequins I mentioned earlier, and the priestess, as well as certain other characters in your entourage, I notice they don’t wear a card. Why is that?”