Theo and Ordinary People

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1930, Page 7 (Supplement)

Theo and Ordinary People

By

W. GRAEME-HOLDER

(First Prize Short Story Competition)

It is debatable whether Theo would ever have visited Mars had not a particularly able and untruthful salesman persuaded him to purchase an extreiqiely elderly specimen of a most popular make of motor-car. But then, it is also debatable whether there would have been war in Europe in 1914 if Ethelred the Unready had been Beady. True, there might have been war in 1907 or S, but who wishes to discuss that? There was a war in 1914, and Theo did visit Mars.

Theo purchased the car under the impression that he would be able to cover enormous distances in ridiculously short spaces of time; and, of course, in thia he was entirely mistaken; for liis purchase had long outlived its speedy habits and was justly entitled to a long, last sleep. It certainly resented being driven at twenty-three-aml-a-half miles per hour, and gave expression to its resentment by taking rests in the most remote parts of the country at most inopportune times for the driver, thereby encouraging in Theo that love of machinery which is the heritage of,every true Anglo-Saxon. Quite early in his career as driver Theo learned the functions and vagaries of spark-plugs, crownwheels, king-pins, fan-belts and radius-rods; and the excellence of his heated language was no criterion of his affection for the rattling mads of which conveyed him and his to various places during week-ends and holidays. The day on which Theo decided to go from New r Plymouth to Rotorua was the day on vyhich his claim to inclusion in the pages of Britannica may be said to have had its birth, for, owing to an inadequate oil-supply in the sump, the engine ran out a "big end” somewhere in the centre of New; Zealand — far, far from any \garage or service station—and there, on the side of the road, Theo attempted the major operation necessary to further progress towards his destination.

. Experience had taught him to carry everything ’requisite and necessary foi‘ major and minor repairs from needles-and-thread to a small charcoal brazier for heating soldering irons; and sometime in midafternooii Theo found himself all ready to run in • a new bearing, except that he was minus all bear-ing-metal save the remnants of the old bearing which he had retrieved from the sUmp. It is not necessary for us to' enter into the technical details connected with this bearing business, save to remark thsLt it is practically impossible to run a bearing without bearing-metal; and, but for tHe fact that Theo suddenly bethought him of the ‘ ball of “silver-paper” cigarette wrappings which he had been saving for the benefit of a needy Orphanage, he might still have been on the side of the road. He fished around among the oddments which reposed under the back seat; and, having found the ball, peeled off several of its outer layers and added th<yn to the small quantity of bearing-metal which spluttered in the heated crucible. ' . And that was how he discovered the extraordinary gas which, bears his name, Theolium; for, no sooner had the flimsy foil settled into the mass of molten metal than things commenced to happen. Something approximating an explosion took place. The car, which was some twelve feet away, gave a spasmodic hop and. settled gently upon its side. Theo felt himself lifted from his feet and deposited gently in a ditch. A tree-branch, which extended directly above tho brazier, left its parent trunk and sailed into the blue. But, beyond a curious, sibilant / hiss, there was no sound from thez crucible, which, simply toppled over and emptied its valuable contents upon.the earth. Perhaps we should have mentioned before that Theo was a chemist. He immediately recognised that her© was a .hitherto unknown force which might be capable of anything. He wasn’t certain that he had not unwittingly exploded a tew atoms, and he crawled back cautiously to the brazier and spent the rest of the day in profound thought and “silver-paper.” . After that, things moved rapidly. Theo became secretive, and spent much time and money in experiments -with bearing-metal, sunip-oil, tin-foil and tobacco, and it was not until the roof of his laboratory left itsf supporting walls and departed on an aerial voyage of discovery that he knew he had recaptured the secret of Theolium. — He had long since learned the process required to conserve oxygen, and his Activities were now, transferred from his laboratory to the ramshackle shed wherein he housed his dilapidated car. The longsuffering machine, took on a new and wondrous shape, acquiring a sedan-like body made of boilerplate with inch-thick quartz windows, and through the centre of its roof protruded a propellor shaft with a serviceable propellor attached thereto. An inch pipe pierced its floor and connected with a tank upon the driver’s seat, and the back portion of the body was fitted with living-conveniences. On a beautiful Thursday in June Theo was ready to go. So he went.

He removed the roof of his garage with an axe, locked himself in the car, ejected a quantity of Theolium through the inch-pipe, and sailed into the blue. The rocket idea had materialised; for Theolium had the effect of completely cutting off the earth’s attraction from any object under which it could sneak; and, Mars being the nearest planet with any sort of pull, Theo naturally gravitated thither.

It Was an old idea,, but it worked admirably. Of his adventures in space we have little to say. He became used to the shriek of star-dust as it dashed past the windows of his cab, and was considerably perturbed when a small, dark planet sneaked upon him out of the darkness, brushing him so closely that he upset the pan of bacon-and-tomatpes which he was in the act of cooking for his breakfast. ' ,

Somewhere in space he lost the sensation of rising, and knew that he had arrived at the spot where the earth and Mars exerted an equal pull. Not wishing to remain suspended in space for eternity, he started his engine and had the satisfaction of feeling his propellor pulling him Oyer the danger zone. He shut off both the engine and th© Theolium; .and the pit of his stomach advised him that the car had, turned completely over and was now falling with ever-increasing momentum towards Mars.

. Thirty-six hours later he started his propellor as a brake, and watched with interest the landscape of Mars as is rushed up to meet him with decreasing speed. He was some six thousand feet above the surface, and descending with the easy motion of a first-class parachute, when he was surprised to hear the drone of an ordinary ’plane, then another and another, until there were at least a dozen ’planes circling about him and evidently acting as a guard-of-honour. He was landing quite close to a remarkably Ehglish-looking town, and the crowd beneath him were actually shouting “Hooray!” 'Surely this could not be Mars! He had always understood that Martians were a breed of mechanical spiders of immense proportions and inexplicable morals; but these seemed to be just ordinary people. Theo was' conscious of a keen disappointment.' Evidently something had gone wrong with the Theolium and he had returned to earth, and he was not at all surprised, when emerging from the machine, to notice a turly individual in a grey suit and felt hat elbowing his way through the crowd with a cinema camera, and to have a dapper little man climb almost into his arms with the information that he was a special, representative of the “Daily News,” and had been commissioned to get an exclusive story at any cost! The dapper little man was followed by other reporters, and an excited female threw her arms around his neck, and kissed him loudly upon the lips; and called him “Dearie!” It was all very stereotyped, all as he had seen trans-Atlantic and trans-Pacific airmen greeted at the end of a successful flight. And Theo knew only an overwhelming bewilderment. “Where am I?’’ he asked feebly. “Osselwoth on the Pluff,” informed the eager reporter. “And where have you come from, sir?” ‘(New Plymouth,” replied "Theo dispiritedly. “And where is that, sir?” “New Plymouth, New Zealand,” he explained, patiently. The reporter looked politely surprised

“In Molapuug, perhaps?” suggested the reporter. “In what? New Plymouth is in New Zealand. This is England isn’t it?” "This is Brupland, sir.” “Brupland? Never heard of it! I am on the earth, I presume?” . , There was a significant pause, and a doctor sidled up to Theo and took a bottle of tabloids from his vest pocket, ~ ‘‘No, sir, you are still on Mars!’ .The reporter essayed a joke. • “According to our most able novelists the inhabitants of the earth are some breed of abnormal spiders.” He chuckled, and added, “Nothing of the spider about Osselwothians.” • “Mars!” whispered Theo, and allowed the doctor to feel his pulse, and a squad of curious air-offieeis to lead him to a comfortable hotel and an excellent dinner. He burbled of the earth, and his hosts tapped their foreheads sympathetically and agreed politely with everything he said. After all, he was one of themselves, and the air profession must always involve a certain m?ntal strain. ■Somebody handed Theo an evening paper; and, unconscious that a celebrated Osselwothian elocutionist was ‘delivering his famous recitation Ihe Shooting of Maeadoo,’’ he read the feature-page story of his landing and learned that he was a fahious aviator, from the country of Uppsany, who had developed an entirely new type of ’plane, capable of hovering indefinitely and landing in a space no .larger than the ground of the machine itself! A full page was devoted to his epoch-mak-ing feat, and a footnote suggested that the celebrated aviator was so worn with the strain of his long experimental period, and the anxiety of the flight itself, that he was suffering from the singular hallucination that he had flown from another planet, namely the Earth. ... In the end, consequent on Theo’s insistence that he was an entire stranger to Mars, and a certain violence of manner with which he emphasised his claims as a citizen of Earth, a sympathetic medical tribunal advised his detention in an institution reserved for the mentally afflicted, and Theo was conveyed thither in the politest manner possible! Naturally, there was a great public outcry that such a famous aviatdr should thus be confined; but, as all enquiries failed to produce evidence of his country or state of origin, as no personal friends or relatives had come forward to claim him, it was at last seen that his confinement as a mental suspect was in the best interests of the people at large, and beyond an occasional letter in the free columns of the press,- Theo was forgotten. A benevolent government allowed him to retain possession of his extraordinary air-craft, chiefly because the most' expert Martian aeronauts could make nothing of it beyond recognising the principle of the engine, and it was conveyed by rail and motor-truck to the asylum and placed in the centre of the exercise yard where it was an object of never-failing interest to the other patients and the warders.

A pair of friendly swallows soon nested beneath the overhang of th© cabin-roof. Tired of insisting that he came from the Earth, Theo subsided into a purposeful and sulky silence. He shamelessly stole food from the patients, and denied himself a portion of every meal that he might secretly provision his craft. He cadged cigarette wrappings from warders and visitors, and spent much time,in refuelling his Theolium tank; and, when he felt that he could get away, he stole three gallons, of petrol from the asylum market-garden truck.

On the following morning there were neither Theo nor the Interplanetary Taxi within ten thousand miles of Mars. They were on their way Home! Beyond a little damage to a front wheel hub-cap, .due to a careless collision with the moon, the return journey was without any exciting event; and with a rather heavy shock, owing to th© Martian petrol missing fire as-he neared the Earth, Theo landed ■on the roof of a new bungalow in a suburb of Melbourne, just at dusk on a Monday in late August. The shock of landing removed the two rear wheels, the differential housing crashed through the shingled roof and the ceiling of the dining room, and the machine came to rest suspended by its steering rod, which -had wrapped itself around the hot-Water cistern. . The occupant of the house was most unreasonably annoyed; and the upshot of the argument was that Theo was haled before a magistrate on., a charge of wilfully damaging property. 'Being asked to give an explanation of his extraordinary acrobatic tendencies, he entered into full details of his visit to Mars. The Court listened in astonishment, then looked at itself wisely, smiled upon him with a particularly fatuous smile, and told him that it was quite all right and that he' was now quite safe among friends. . . ' . . Under other circumstances Theo’s subsequept language would have resulted in his indictment on a charge of contempt of court, but the powers that were were surprisingly sympathetic, assuring him again and again that they quite understood, and agreeing that the weather in Mars must be quite pleasant at this time of the year. It was not until the magistrate pointed out to the plaintiff that damages could not be collected from a person who was mentally afflicted that Theo demonstrated what he really could accomplish in the way of language when under the stress of emotion, and later in the evening he regarded the walls of his padded cell with eyes which brimmed with tears —tears for the benighted ignorance of a self-satisfied humanity. As he fell asleep he derived some little consolation from the memory that all pioneers had been treated with greater or less contumely.

Over the counter of his tiny “general store” in the heart of the wild Ure.wera country, Theo expatiates on the wonders of the Heavens. And his full-blooded Maori audience, realising its noble savagery, goes outside to laugh.