3:AM Magazine

By Alan McCormick & Stefan Wiese.

Christopher Christopher, known to most as Twice Christopher, to his friend Bartholomew Barty as Christopher Chris and to Mum and Dad as Christophers, makes his way down an elongated pavement of many shops and little charm: an ordinary street in an ordinary town populated by ordinary people: pallid persons gyrating in grey plastic raincoats and lazy arsed elasticated bottoms. On market day you might find an oversized dwarf on his vile tummy blowing a woman’s Adolf away from under her nose. Not anyone’s idea of entertainment but a crowd will inevitably collect around them as there is little else on offer. In such a barren environment Christopher Christopher stands metaphorically alone: a towering Masai amongst the crouching Pygmy. For Christopher Christopher is an intellectual: a lyricist, lute player and self-proclaimed laureate of the singsong. A Renaissance artiste no less, forced to walk amongst the idiotic in a fruitless search for inspiration and appreciation; a thwarted thespian condemned to be understudy in a medieval pantomime of farted manners and belching verse.

‘Oh, lank-haired beauty, will you be my booty?’ inquires Christopher Christopher in lyrical accompaniment of his lustful lute.

The hag-like harridan he addresses with his lovelorn song is sitting on what appears to be a pile of rat dung.

‘Sell you some for a smile, kind gentleman,’ she yells.

‘Your voice is like a chattering chandelier in a dark, dank tunnel,’ sings Christopher Christopher.

‘Want some shit or not?’ she replies.

‘No, thank you. Not today,’ he says and makes his way down the street, chiding himself in whip-like whispers for wasting his art on such a baleful beast.

‘Lust must not get the better of me,’ he whispers. ‘I must save my verse for my one and only, the one who has not yet made her entrance onto my sorry stage.’

Just then Christopher Christopher spots the oversized performing dwarf walking alone on the other side of the street. Now Christopher Christopher has seen dwarves fighting on late night shows and so knows to be wary. Nevertheless he is also something of a friendly philosopher and decides to offer the hand of corrective, fraternal friendship to the squat little fellow.

The dwarf gives a typically angry dwarf-like response: ‘I don’t know what you’re fecking on about, philosopher ponce.’

‘I am beseeching by way of philosophical musing that we are neither fish nor fowl, mineral nor base metal. Though we are none of these, we are also all of these for we are human and the unity of binding blood pumps under our skin. You and I despite appearances, little man, are one and the same.’

‘Feck off,’ shouts back the dwarf.

‘I will not wrestle with you. Your language is limited and offers no respite from the ugly realities of life. I offered you a flower and you spat poison back at my mouth.’

‘Never touched your mouth and you never gave me a flower,’ shouts the dwarf.

‘I speak figuratively.’

‘Figuratively? What mouthy manure.’

‘I bid you good day.’

‘Feck off,’ yells the dwarf at Christopher Christopher’s retreating figure, ‘and take your fecking figurative flower with you.’

‘Little body, little mind,’ whispers Christopher Christopher to himself.

‘Oi, I heard that,’ says the dwarf running after Christopher Christopher with a dementedly determined expression and his tiny fists waving in the air.

Though the dwarf has unusually acute hearing, he is not a competent runner and our philosophising hero is able to make a speedy enough retreat to safety. Behind a tall wall he waits until the budding mini pugilist gives up and wobbles his way home.

When the dwarf is out of ear shot Christopher Christopher breathes a large sigh of relief. As he does so, he turns round to find the young moustachioed woman who he’d seen in performance with the dwarf, sitting against a tree staring at him. Christopher Christopher is overcome with a strange sense of pity and affection for the lightly whiskered young performer and feels compelled to offer her some advice.

‘Young woman, why do you let the angry oversized dwarf blow an Adolf from under your nose? It demeans you and gives encouragement for vulgarity to spread amongst those who watch.’

The young woman slowly peels the thin moustache away and lets it fall like a hair-slug onto the ground – and her beauty is revealed as if by a magic spell.

‘Do not judge a book by its cover, Chris. Do not let your lute lead you into quarrelsome ways. And try not to discriminate against public performances involving dwarves called Andy and women with false moustaches.’

‘No-one has ever called me Chris before,’ says Christopher Christopher with a look of happy dismay.

The young woman smiles and Christopher Christopher feels his heart swooning and his cheeks redden. And so he pulls out his lute and starts to sing:

‘Feel my what?’ asks the young woman.

‘Your elemental; your fundamental; your beauty in and out,’ exclaims Christopher Christopher.

‘Chris, thank you for that,’ she replies.

‘No, thank you,’ replies Christopher Christopher, shutting his eyes and leaning forward to kiss her. As his lips part and his tongue rolls out, he falls through space and onto the ground; the young woman is gone. He rubs his head and opens his eyes, and the grey clouds and dirty day are replaced by sunshine, sweet scented climbing flowers, and a rainbow arching the sky like a horseshoe on a giant flying unicorn. And lying next to him, wearing her fallen Adolf and snoring like a bassoon, is the dwarf named Andy. Christopher Christopher pulls out his lute and begins to play.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Dogsbodies and Scumsters, a collection of Alan McCormick’s stories and Jonny Voss‘ illustrations, is available now on Roast Books. See more of their work at Scumsters and Dogsbodies & Scumsters. ‘Three Lessons for Christopher Christopher’ was written by Alan McCormick and illustrated by a friend of Alan and Jonny’s from Berlin, Stefan Wiese.

First published in 3:AM Magazine: Friday, November 4th, 2011.