Hands Lying Light in the Interstices, You Rave

You don’t know why, but you go down on hunkers, grope for it. Wet cardboard, (link-reveal:"soft")[, like a hare’s ear], (link-reveal:"spongy")[, like a fungus], (link-reveal:"flimsy")[, like a newborn’s skull]. It’s upside down. You take it in both hands and, carefully, turn it over. Written on the lid in marker pen, letters smeary, you can just [[read...|3]]

[[You take the box home.|5]] [[You hide the box back in the thicket, go on your way.|End 1]]

When you get back, you put the box down on your desk. With thumb and forefinger, you pinch one end of the lid, (link-reveal:"lift it.")[ Inside the box there is: [[A postcard.|Box 1]] [[A scrap of paper.|Box 2]] [[A polaroid.|Box 3]] [[A ticket stub.|Box 4]]]

(if: $place is "smog and light pollution")[Life (live:0.8s)[(either:"gets worse","improves","goes on much as before")]. Sometimes you think about the box. (link-replace:"Not often. Just sometimes")[All the time]. (link-replace:"Now and again")[In every waking moment, and in your dreams too], you feel suddenly, as a jolt, the interconnectedness of (link-reveal:"things:")[ of the mangy one-eyed fox that skulks at the foot of your garden and survives on kebab leftovers and fried chicken (link-reveal:"bones;")[ of the scurrying (link-reveal:"rats;")[ of squabbling (link-reveal:"starlings;")[ of all the people going about their days or nights, sleeping, eating, arguing, and (link-reveal:"fucking;")[ and of the inanimate too - of the buildings, the bricks and (link-reveal:"glass;")[ of the air, the sun and moon, the blue sky and the (link-reveal:"clouds;")[ and the scattering of stars that can be faintly seen in the west of the lightening (link-reveal:"sky.")[ And you (live:0.8s)[(either:"wonder.","yearn.","weep.") =><= [[REPLAY|1]]]]]]]]]]]](if: $place is "smoke drifting from a nearby brickworks")[Life (live:0.8s)[(either:"gets worse","improves","goes on much as before")]. Sometimes you think about the box. (link-replace:"Not often. Just sometimes")[All the time]. (link-replace:"Now and again")[In every waking moment, and in your dreams too], you feel suddenly, as a jolt, the interconnectedness of (link-reveal:"things:")[ of the chittering blackbirds and (link-reveal:"tits;") [ of the scrub alder and willow, the underwood of hawthorn, bramble, bracken, and (link-reveal:"nettle;")[ of the midges, mosquitoes, blowflies, wasps, and bees, whining, droning, and buzzing through this brush, alighting on pinkish blossom, deep red (link-reveal:"berries;")[ of the dead hare in its nest of thorns, flesh boiling with (link-reveal:"maggots;")[ of the newts and frogs in the (link-reveal:"storm sewer;")[and of the inanimate too - of all the derelict (link-reveal:"industrial buildings;")[ of the air, the sun and moon, the blue sky and the (link-reveal:"clouds;")[ and the scattering of stars that can be faintly seen in the west of the lightening (link-reveal:"sky.")[ And you (live:0.8s)[(either:"wonder.","yearn.","weep.") =><= [[REPLAY|1]]]]]]]]]]]]](if: $place is "a thin high scrim of cloud")[Life (live:0.8s)[(either:"gets worse","improves","goes on much as before")]. Sometimes you think about the box. Not often. (link-replace:"Not often. Just sometimes")[All the time]. (link-replace:"Now and again")[In every waking moment, and in your dreams too], you feel suddenly, as a jolt, the interconnectedness of (link-reveal:"things:")[of the finches, larks, and (link-reveal:"warblers;")[ of the wood pigeon cooing in the copse of beech and elm at the foot of your (link-reveal:"garden;")[ of the buzzard soaring far (link-reveal:"overhead;")[ of the bream, roach, perch, and tench, in the river, of the flukes burrowing in the flesh of these (link-reveal:"fish;")[ of the knot of elver squirming in the shadow of the bank a little way (link-reveal:"upstream;")[ and of the inanimate too - of the land (link-reveal:"about;")[ of the air, the sun and moon, the blue sky and the (link-reveal:"clouds;")[ and the scattering of stars that can be faintly seen in the west of the lightening (link-reveal:"sky.")[ And you (live:0.8s)[(either:"wonder.","yearn.","weep.") =><= [[REPLAY|1]]]]]]]]]]]]]

=><= (link-replace:"Towards a Typology of Liminal Places")[(link-replace:"An Investigation into Occulted Spaces")[(link-replace:"The Otherlands of the Sabbatic Goat")[[[Hands Lying Light in the Interstices, You Rave|4]]]]]

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(if: $streetlamp<1)[Written on the scrap is a road name and an alphanumeric sequence. (link-reveal:"You can’t make any sense of it.")[ (link-reveal:"You try everything you can think of. Internet searches. Treating it as a code to be cracked.")[ But still you draw a [[blank|Street Lamp 1]].]]](if: $streetlamp>=1)[Written on the scrap is a road name and an alphanumeric sequence. [[Return it to the box.|7]]]

(if:$godchicken<1)[The polaroid is an image of a fast food restaurant. The name, ‘The God of Fried Chicken’, is distinctive. You go online, look it up, and find it’s in a small industrial town a few hours drive away. [[You could go there, visit it.|God Chicken 1]] [[Or you could look at one of the other objects from the box.|6]]](if:$godchicken>=1)[The polaroid is an image of a fast food restaurant. [[Return it to the box.|7]]]

(if:$statelyhome<2)[The stub is from the ticket for a stately home. [[You go online, look up the stately home. On the next day you have free, you visit it.|Stately Home 1]] [[You look at one of the other objects from the box.|6]]](if:$statelyhome>=2)[The stub is from the ticket for a stately home. [[Return it to the box.|7]]]

It is a print of Eliphas Levi’s famous Sabbatic Goat: =><= <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a4/Baphomet.png" img width="200px"> <== On the reverse someone has written in a neat hand: <span class="neathand">Once I was a thing of flesh and bone, grown in a womb. A thing of opposable thumb and glib tongue. Then I yearned. But no more.</span> You return it to the [[box|6]].

You wander through the rooms of the mansion. Finally you find yourself in a room on your own. There are no tours, no other visitors. You are [[alone|Stately Home 2]].

The room is opulent. Furniture upholstered in rich fabric, with patterns picked out in gilt. There is a large stone fireplace at the centre, with gargoyle heads under the mantle. There are embers smouldering in the grate. At the far end of the room is a [[large arched leaded window.|Stately Home 3]] On either side of the side of the hearth, there are [[bookshelves.|Stately Home 4]] On the wall opposite the fireplace hangs a [[tapestry.|Tapestry]] You decide to leave and go back [[home.|7]]

Looking out of the window, you can see formal gardens laid out. Just below is a kitchen garden with herbs and a vegetable patch. In the centre is a midden. Crows peck at scraps, caw wearily now and again, preen their jetty feathers. Further off there are lawns, an avenue lined with statues on plinths. You can’t quite make them out, but there seems something grotesque about their form and figure. Off to the right is a (link-reveal:"hedge maze")[ - circular, involute, you wouldn’t want to get lost in there]. A white mist veils the [[distance|Stately Home 2]].

<span class="hiddenlink">The wall hanging depicts a man and a woman, in robes regal, but moth-eaten and threadbare, the man in a crown stately, if bashed about a bit, tines bent, the woman in a jewelled (link-reveal:"diadem")[ - who turns to look out of the picture and smile wryly at you (set: $otherlands to $otherlands + 1)(set: $statelyhome to $statelyhome + 1)] - though on close scrutiny it seemed many of the gems had come loose from their settings, and fallen out. They sit playing chess at a table in a garden, but without a board and with pieces missing, like haruspice scrying by worrying at entrails. The garden itself is scrubby bushes, weeds, and wilted flowers. In the background, on the left, is a (link-reveal:"hedge maze")[ - where wander a legion of the lost, frantic and keening(set: $otherlands to $otherlands + 1)(set: $statelyhome to $statelyhome + 1)]. On the right, a band of hawkers ride by, their mounts, scraggy, the birds they carry hooded on their patched leather gauntlets, mangy, and their casts, forlorn.</span> You have the feeling there’s something important concealed in the tapestry. You peer closely at it. Then you turn [[away|Stately Home 2]].

The shelves are lined with Hermetic and alchemical volumes, but when you reach out to take one down you find it is merely a false back. Feeling along the spines you find that they’re all fake save [[one|Bookshelves]].

It was a copy of a book called [[//Tales from the Land of Nod//|Book 1]], by Walter Waldegrave.

Neither the title nor author are familiar to you. You take the book down from the shelf and begin to [[leaf through it|Book 2]].

Its first few leaves are blank. They’re followed by a frontispiece; an etching depicting an old man, with a matted beard, dressed in a cloak, and incongruously wearing a regal (link-reveal:"diadem")[, though one that has been bashed about a bit]. He stands, hunched, leaning on a knotty staff, amid a barren, rocky landscape. Facing this illustration is the title page; the text printed there runs as follows: <div class="booktitle">//Tales from the Land of Nod// Ten startling stories heard from the lips of men and women of the Legion Lost By Walter Waldegrave</div> There’s no other information, no publisher’s or printer’s details, no publication date. You flick through the book. //Tales from the Land of Nod// is a strange literary artefact. From what you can tell, it contains a number of episodes, which are presented as factual accounts. They relate encounters on the trail in some of the least hospitable places of the world, and sometimes in bizarre otherworlds seemingly apart from this one, set across a period spanning the last few years of the nineteenth century and the first decades of the twentieth. They lack any overarching narrative; the only thing unifying the collection is the identity of the narrator, Waldegrave. The format of the episodes is familiar from supernatural and horror literature: a frame describes a meeting between Waldegrave and another individual, who then goes on to tell a yarn. They’re written in an archaic, awkward style. Reading them is starting to make your eyes cross, so you put the book [[back|Stately Home 2]].

(if:$otherlands<4)[A few days later, something lures you back to the shoebox again. You open it. Inside there is: [[A postcard.|Box 1]] [[A scrap of paper.|Box 2]] [[A polaroid.|Box 3]] [[A ticket stub.|Box 4]] [[Or you could put the lid back on and return the box to the briar patch where you found it.|End 1]]](if:$otherlands>=4)[When you get back home there’s someone waiting for you in the dark, in your living room. There is a (link-reveal:"stench")[, rank and ruttish], in the room. [[You switch on the light.|8]]]

Once you’ve parked your car, you find the restaurant. It looks busy. [[You could go inside|God Chicken 2]]. [[Or you could look into the alley that runs down the side of the place|God Chicken 3]]. (set: $chicken to 0)

You can tell, from the long queue, that the food is good. (if: $chicken < 3)[The smell of fried chicken makes your mouth water.](if: $chicken >= 3)[But the smell of fried chicken makes you queasy.] There’s nothing unusual about the place, except for a strange poster on the (link-reveal:"wall")[ - a scene of narwhals jousting with their tusks]. (if: $chicken < 3)[You could buy a box of chicken, take it outside, and find a wall to sit on while [[you eat|God Chicken 4]].](if: $chicken >= 3)[No more special recipe, for the love of the God of Fried Chicken!] Or you could [[go outside|God Chicken 5]] without buying anything.

(If: $chicken <= 0)[(link: "It’s delicious!")[(set: $chicken to $chicken + 1) (goto: "God Chicken 5")]](if: $chicken >= 1 and <= 1)[The second box is still good, but you’re starting to feel quite (link: "bloated.")[(set: $chicken to $chicken + 1)(goto: "God Chicken 5")]](if: $chicken >=2)[The third box was one too many. The chicken tastes rank and greasy. Your guts knot and you retch, then dart for the (link: "alleyway.")[(set: $chicken to $chicken + 1)(goto: "God Chicken 8")]]

You are on the street. [[The God of Fried Chicken|God Chicken 2]] looks busy. (if: $chicken < 3)[The food smells wafting from it are delicious.](if: $chicken >= 3)[The smell of fried chicken makes you queasy.] Or there’s an [[alley|God Chicken 3]] that runs down the side of the shop. Or you could [[leave and go home|7]].

It’s a narrow alleyway, which ends in a brick wall. Someone has scrawled there, in a lurid lime green: =><= <span class="neathand">The Sabbatic Goat</span> <== There’s little in the alley, save for a large kitchen bin. You [[look behind it...|God Chicken 6]]

...and see a ram’s skull, with involute horns, which is swagged with fruit and vegetable peelings, and looks like some pagan fetish. Threaded through the empty orbits is a strip of paper, like a length of tickertape, on which, in a tiny meticulous hand, is written what seems an [[invocation|God Chicken 7]] of sorts.

You read: <span class="hiddenlink">Let it be a blood ape on the prowl and a stooping screech owl, let it have a tapir’s snout, a hagfish’s grisly gape, a fox’s mealy muzzle, a goat’s breath and grizzled beard, a sea devil’s lure, a vulture’s ruff and tonsure, a platypus’s venomous spur, a lobster’s claw, a badger’s paw, give it a toad’s throat sac, an armadillo’s plated back, the mandibles of a stag beetle, a turkey’s snood, carbuncle, and wattle, a hog’s bristles and wild eye, the bottle-green sheen of a blowfly, and flesh soft, pallid like a grub’s, give it a warthog’s tusks, a (link-reveal:"narwhal’s braided tusk")[ (there’s a clash of horn from inside the bin, and you jump)(set: $otherlands to $otherlands + 1)(set: $godchicken to 1)], and the tottering gait of a foal newborn, let it have a rat’s tail, a man o’ war’s scourges, a goat’s lustful urges, a cock like a ram’s, a weasel’s sneer, an echidna’s spines, let it whine like a hyena, whoop like a gibbon, yowl like a mandrake, growl like a bear, let it live in air, in water, on land, and let it wait in the dark to gnaw out his pineal gland.</span> You have the sense that there is something of significance hidden within this litany, but just what, you are unsure. Faintly disturbed, you [[leave the alleyway|God Chicken 5]].

Then, one day, you’re driving along a dual carriageway and you look over at the street lamps on the central reservation, and a very similar alphanumeric sequence on a sign affixed to one of the posts catches your [[eye|Street Lamp 2]].

You have a friend who works for the local council. He manages to track down the street lamp to which the code written on the scrap of paper refers for you. [[You could go looking for it.|Street Lamp 3]] [[Or you could examine one of the other objects from the box.|6]]

It’s on a quiet suburban cul-de-sac. One night you go there. It’s a place of pebble-dash and mock Tudor and net curtains. There is a film of boredom and frustration and prurience over everything. In one window you see an ornament. Peering closer you see it’s an orrery. You notice (link-reveal:"Venus")[ - picked out in sickly yellow]. The street lamp is near the end of the street, where the urban falters, gives way to fields. [[You cross to it|Street Lamp 4]].

<span class="hiddenlink">You stand under the street light, looking at the night sky for a time. You have the feeling there is something strange about the scattered stars, but you can’t put your finger on quite what. In the east, just above the horizon, is (link-reveal:"a particularly bright point of light, a sickly yellow.")[ You peer at it, then hear faint yowling and scent the salt tang of blood or brine and the cloying perfume of bindweed flowers. And, standing in the sallow cone of light, you look up, the bulb sputters out, and you see a sky, unlike the one you were looking at just a moment ago - a bloated green smear of a moon, an awry spatter of stars, clustered not into the wonted ragtag menagerie, but a writhen horde.(set: $otherlands to $otherlands + 1)(set: $streetlamp to 1)]</span> Then you return to your car, drive [[home|7]].

He sits in your armchair. You switch on your light. The bulb sputters, but you can just make him out in the flickering. An old man, wizened, with shock of stark white hair standing up from his skull. He is wrapped in a winding cloth, but is not dead, as tremors, fitful as the light, show. He fixes you with a stare. His eyes are rheumy, pale blue. With [[square pupils|9]]. (set: $goatmood to 0)

He swigs constantly from a hip flask. From his left hand dangles a marionette of a great (link-reveal:"auk")[, whose face, peculiarly mobile for both a puppet and an extinct flightless seabird, conveys alternately deep melancholy and utter disdain]. You clear your throat, address him. [[‘How are you doing that with the puppet’s face?’|Auk Response 1]] [[‘What’s that stuff you’re drinking?’|Absinthe Response 1]] (set: $auk to 0) (set: $absinthe to 0)

You’d expected his voice to be faint. But it is harsh, something like a bray. He takes another pull at the flask. Then responds. ‘This? Why this is the Green Fairy. The authentic wormwood. Vision juice, I calls it.’ [[‘Absinthe?’ you ask.|Absinthe Response 2]]

(set: $auk to 1)‘I’m just pulling your leg,’ he says. ‘It’s all controlled by strings. It’s a delicate business.’ ‘That’s extraordinary,’ you say (link:"You reach out to touch the face of the auk.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Auk Response 3")] (link:"You shake your head in wonder.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Key Questions")]

‘You stole my collection,’ he says. ‘What?’ ‘You took my box of artefacts of potency.’ He reaches out an points with a (link-replace:"bony finger")[cloven hoof] at the shoebox, which sits on your desk. (link:"‘So? What of it?’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Response 3")] (link:"‘I’m sorry! I didn’t realize it belonged to anyone.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Response 4")]

‘You should learn humility,’ he says. (link:"‘You’re right, I’m sorry. I did take the box.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 2)(goto: "Response 4")] (link:"‘And you should get out of my home.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 2)(goto: "Response 5")]

He takes another swill from his hipflask, then coughs, splutters, hawks up a grey clot of phlegm, spits it out on the carpet. ‘I know you’ve caught glimpses of those places,’ he continues. ‘How would you like to be one of their earthly guardians?’ (link:"‘I’d like to go back to my life. Forget all this ever happened.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Response 6")] (link:"‘I don’t know.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 0)(goto: "Response 6")] (link:"‘I suppose would like to see more of those bizarre hinterlands.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Response 6")]

Among the bones you see the skulls of animals you can identify or think you (link-reveal:"can:")[ the skulls of cattle, sheep, and (link-reveal:"swine;")[ many birds’ skulls, some of which you recognize by their beaks – a raven’s, a cockatiel’s, a (link-reveal:"hoopoe’s;")[ a skull you think is a large dog’s or possibly a (link-reveal:"badger’s;")[ a stag’s skull, with branching (link-reveal:"antlers.")[ And there are human skulls too. A great many human (link-reveal:"skulls.")[ But there are also giant bones, strange massy skulls, with one orbit or three, bristling with involute horns, vicious incurving (link-reveal:"tusks.")[ You can hear faint yowling and scent the salt tang of blood or brine and the cloying perfume of bindweed (link-reveal:"flowers.")[ (link-replace:"Your pineal gland throbs.")[(link-replace:"Throbs.")[(link-replace:"THROBS.")[Your skull splits open like a gourd. =><= [[REPLAY|1]]]]]]]]]]]]]

(if: $goatmood <= -4)[‘So be it,’ he says. Suddenly you stand on a blasted plain strewn with bones. Fog hangs in the [[air.|End 2]]](if: $goatmood >= -3 and <= 2)[‘So be it,’ he says. And then, of a sudden, you are [[alone|End 1]]. Just a faint stink hanging in the air.] (if: $goatmood >= 3)[‘What's keeping you here?’ he says. ‘There’s nothing that makes you happy.’ [[‘Just piss off, will you.’|End 2]] [[You shake your head. ‘I'd like to stay, try to find something that gives me joy.’|Response 10]] [[You take his hand. ‘I'll join you. You're right. There's nothing left for me here.’|End 3]]]

[[REPLAY|1]]

(set: $place to "smog and light pollution")One evening, under a wan moon and faint stars hazed by <tw-link class='cyclingLink' data-cycling-texts='["smog and light pollution", "smoke drifting from a nearby brickworks", "a thin high scrim of cloud"]' onclick='clickCyclingLink(this, "$place");'>$place</tw-link> you go (link: "walking...")[{ (if: $place is "smog and light pollution")[(goto: "Ci")] (if: $place is "smoke drifting from a nearby brickworks")[(goto: "S")] (if: $place is "a thin high scrim of cloud")[(goto: "Co")]}] (set: $otherlands to 0) (set: $streetlamp to 0) (set: $godchicken to 0) (set: $statelyhome to 0)

...along the canal, behind the block of flats, in the city you’d moved to, (live:0.8s)[(either:"for the noise and the bright lights","for the hustle","to pursue your dreams of becoming an artist","to take up that job in your uncle’s firm")]. Birds chitter, mosquitos drone, and somewhere nearby there is the gurgling of a storm sewer. You (link-reveal:"walk...")[ You’re lost in thought. You know the way like the back of your hand. Then something glimpsed out of the corner of your eye snags. In a tangle of mallow and bramble, (link-replace:"a dead baby.") [(link-replace:"a skinned leveret.") [[[an old shoebox|2]], mouldering, bloated with damp.]]]

...in the patch of waste ground abandoned to witchgrass, cow parsley, yarrow, bindweed, nettle and scrub alder and willow, behind the converted terrace, in the grey suburb or small town you’d moved to, (live:0.8s)[(either:"fleeing bad debt and worse creditors","after losing your job","jilted by your lover")]. Birds chitter, mosquitos drone, and somewhere nearby there is the gurgling of ditchwater. You (link-reveal:"walk...")[ You’re lost in thought. You know the way like the back of your hand. Then something glimpsed out of the corner of your eye snags. In a tangle of mallow and bramble, (link-replace:"a dead baby.") [(link-replace:"a skinned leveret.") [[[an old shoebox|2]], mouldering, bloated with damp.]]]

...in the woods, behind the house, in the sleepy village you’d moved to, (live:0.8s)[(either:"following the breakdown of your marriage","to flee the noise and the bright lights","for air you can breath","for air that doesn’t coat your tongue with a film of filth")]. Birds chitter, mosquitos drone, and somewhere nearby there is the gurgling of a rill. You (link-reveal:"walk...")[ You’re lost in thought. You know the way like the back of your hand. Then something glimpsed out of the corner of your eye snags. In a tangle of mallow and bramble, (link-replace:"a dead baby.") [(link-replace:"a skinned leveret.") [[[an old shoebox|2]], mouldering, bloated with damp.]]]

=><= [[<img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/SamaelLilithGoatPentagram.png" img width="200px">->1]] ‘I believe that there is a perichoresis, an interpenetration. It is possible, indeed, that we three are now sitting among desolate rocks, by bitter streams … And with what companions?’ - Arthur Machen, ‘N’ [[Credits]]

This story was written on the British Library’s Interactive Fiction Summer School, ‘The Infinite Library’. Thanks are due to Abigail Parry, course tutor, the guest tutors, the other students, to Stella Wisdom, the British Library’s Digital Curator and organizer of the course, and others at the British Library, for excellent tuition, ideas, support, and encouragement. Paintings are by <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Martin_(painter)" target="_blank">John Martin</a>. <a href="https://timothyjjarvis.wordpress.com">Timothy J. Jarvis</a> is a writer, scholar, and teacher of Creative Writing with an interest in the antic, the weird, the strange. His first novel, <a href="https://timothyjjarvis.wordpress.com/the-wanderer">//The Wanderer//</a>, was published by Perfect Edge Books in the summer of 2014. His short-fiction has appeared in //Murder Ballads//, //Booklore//, //Uncertainties: Volume I//, //Caledonia Dreamin’: Strange Fiction of Scottish Descent//, //3:AM Magazine//, and //Leviathan 4: Cities//, among other places. He is also interested in drone and ambient music and has collaborated with sound artists on sleeve notes and performance. In 2012, he was shortlisted for the Lightship International Short Fiction Prize. He currently lives in Bedford, a small town in the hallowed/cursed M1 corridor. That nightmare in which one of yr legs is much shorter than the other and you’re constrained to gyre aimlessly … Is real. Rest is a dream. [[Back|Start]]

[[REPLAY|1]]

‘I am the master of the spaces between spaces. The liminal zones.’ (link:"‘And to what do I owe the honour of this visit?’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 2)(goto: "Response 2")] (link:"‘Sounds impressive. But why are you here?’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Response 2")] (link:"You roll your eyes. ‘Fair enough. And you’re here because?’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Response 2")] (link:"‘The master of stinking like a farmyard, more like. And you’ve broken into my home because?’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 2)(goto: "Response 2")]

(set: $absinthe to 1)‘Makes the heart grow fonder,’ he responds. (link:"You grin.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Key Questions")] (link:"You groan.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Key Questions")]

‘It’s all too late for that, I’m afraid,’ he says. ‘You’ve already glimpsed those places, haven’t you.’ (link:"‘I have.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Response 6")] (link:"‘Piss off, will you. I haven’t the foggiest.’")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Response 6")]

You’d expected his voice to be hoarse. But it is piercing, something like a bleat. ‘Well that’s simple,’ he says. ‘I’m not.’ [[‘What do you mean?’ you ask.|Auk Response 2]]

You ask another question.(if: $auk >= 1 and $absinthe <= 0)[ [[‘What’s that stuff you’re drinking?’|Absinthe Response 1]] [[‘Who are you?’|Response 1]]](if: $absinthe >= 1 and $auk <= 0)[ [[‘How are you doing that with the puppet’s face?’|Auk Response 1]] [[‘Who are you?’|Response 1]]](if: $auk >= 1 and $absinthe >= 1)[ [[‘Who are you?’|Response 1]]]

The bird squawks scornfully and pecks at your hand with its great [[bill|Key Questions]].

‘I’m dying,’ he says, plaintive. ‘My alloted span is nearly up. I need a successor. A new Walker of the Bounds.’ He smiles, extends his (link-replace: "hand")[cloven hoof]. ‘I’ll teach you the wonders of the (live:0.4s)[(either:"Otherlands","<span class = reverseletter>Otherlands</span>","<span class = reverseword>Otherlands</span>","<span class = upsidedown>Otherlands</span>")].' (link:"You spit.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 1)(goto: "Response 7")] (link:"You cringe back.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood + 0)(goto: "Response 8")] (link:"You reach out.")[(set: $goatmood to $goatmood - 1)(goto: "Response 9")]

(if: $goatmood <= -4)[‘So be it,’ he says. And then, of a sudden, you are [[alone|End 1]]. Just a faint stink hanging in the air.](if: $goatmood >= -3 and <= 2)[‘What's keeping you here?’ he says. ‘There’s nothing that makes you happy.’ [[‘Just piss off, will you.’|Response 10]] [[You shake your head. ‘I’d like to stay, try to find something that gives me joy.’|Response 11]] [[You take his hand. ‘I’ll join you. You’re right. There’s nothing left for me here.’|End 4]]](if: $goatmood >= 3)[‘I understand your reluctance,’ he says. ‘But is there really anything left for you here?’ [[You nod.|Response 11]] [[You shake your head|Response 9]].]

‘I suppose there isn’t anything left for me,’ you say.(if: $goatmood <= -4)[ You take hold of his (link-replace: "hand")[[[cloven hoof|End 3]]].](if: $goatmood >= -3 and <= 2)[ You take hold of his (link-replace: "hand")[[[cloven hoof|End 4]]].](if: $goatmood >= 3)[ You take hold of his (link-replace: "hand")[[[cloven hoof|End 5]]].]

He smiles wry, then is [[gone|End 1]].

[[‘I understand,’ he says. ‘I wish you all the best.’|End 1]]

A splash of discoloured brickwork shows where many others have given into greed before [[you|God Chicken 3]].