Sprout Mask Replica by Robert Rankin

He shook a head-load of golden hair and flashed me a pair of ice-blue
eyes. He had the kind of voice that could talk the knickers off a nun, but I
wasn’t buying the baby oil.
    ‘Who
are you?’ I asked, just to keep things pally.
    ‘My
name is Colon,’ he said, ‘the super-dense proto-hippy.’ If there was a gag in
that it passed me by. ‘You stuck the matchsticks on yourself. If you’d care to
step outside, I’ll explain everything to you.’
    I wasn’t
keen, I can tell you. But there was something so compelling about this fellow,
I thought I might give it a try. I reached up to tear the Sellotape from my
forehead.
    ‘No.
Don’t do that.’
    ‘Why
not?’
    ‘You
put it there for a purpose.
    ‘What
purpose?’
    ‘I’m
not entirely sure.’
    ‘Well,
if I put it there for one purpose, I’m taking it off for another. In order not
to look absurd.’
    I
ripped off the Sellotape.
    Somewhere
over the Andes a pilot lost control and his aeroplane fell towards a
mountainside.
    I shook
my head. ‘Something just happened,’ I said. ‘Something bad.’
    ‘Did
you cause it?’
    ‘No, I
don’t think I did.’
    ‘Let’s
go outside.’
    And
outside we went.
    We
stood together in the alleyway. It was a real alleyway, one of those
with the trash cans and the fire escape with the retractable bottom section.
From an open window somewhere near came the sound of a lonely saxophone, beneath
our feet was terra firma, high over all the sky.
    ‘What
do you see up there?’ he asked.
    ‘Only
stars,’ I said.
    ‘Only stars?’
    ‘That’s
all.’
    ‘That’s
far from all, my friend.’
    ‘If
this is to be an esoteric conversation, is it OK if I smoke?’
    ‘I
really couldn’t say.
    The
night was nippy, hands-in-pockets weather. I slotted a Woodbine into my
cigarette harness.
    ‘You’re
smoking Woodbine tonight,’ he said. ‘Is that significant?’
    ‘An
earthquake in Honduras.’
    ‘What
did you say?’
    ‘I didn’t
say anything.’ But I was sure that I had, I couldn’t remember just what it was.
    ‘You
don’t know you’re doing it,’ he said. ‘You have no idea at all. Perhaps it
would be better if I didn’t tell you.’
    I lit
my cigarette, took two extra matchsticks from the box and placed one behind each
ear.
    ‘Why
two?’ he asked.
    ‘Bulb
sales are down again in Holland.’
    ‘Ah
yes, I see.’
    ‘What
do you see?’ Something was happening here. Something that made me feel
uncomfortable.
    ‘Tell
me about the stars,’ he said. ‘What do they mean?’
    ‘The
stars are the simplest of all,’ I explained. ‘But also the most difficult. When
you look up at the night sky, you see stars, white dots on black. All you have
to do is join the dots and see what they spell out. The answer’s up there, but
everyone knows that.’
    ‘No-one
but you knows that.’
    ‘Knows what?’
    ‘About
the stars.’
    He
smiled, it was the kind of smile that could make a lighthouse out of a dead man’s
willy and a sailor come home from sea. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I’ve broken your
train of thought. Forget I said anything. Go on about the stars.’
    ‘The
truth is really out there,’ I said. ‘The message is written in the heavens. The
problem is in knowing how to join up the dots. Which star is dot number
one and which is dot number two and so on. It all depends on where you’re standing
on the planet and how good your eyesight is.’
    ‘So
there’s a different message for each of us.’
    ‘What
are you talking about?’ I tapped cigarette ash into the palm of my hand,
divided it into three small piles, discarded two and devoured the third.
    ‘Why
only eat one?’
    ‘Red is
this year’s colour, everyone’s wearing it.’
    ‘Yes,’
said he, ‘it all adds up.
    ‘Listen,
Mr Colon,’ said I, ‘there’s something funny happening around here and you’re at
the back of it. Spill the beans pronto or I’ll never forgive myself for the
hiding I’m going to give you.
    ‘How
long have you