#ottoborg

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The Ones Who Can't Choose

Hoborg, son of Quater and the king of the Neverhood, made his sons so that they could choose between good and evil. Their freedom of morality is what separates them from lesser beings made of best klay. Animals which can’t understand speech, made for taming and eating. Beings who can talk but cannot think past their lot in life. One should remember that having a lively discussion with someone doesn’t make him a person. Not all are owed favours. Not all must do public service. Not all can choose their destiny.

That is what I was told.

These are stories about the ones who can’t choose.

Hammerboy

We don’t really appreciate how simplified Willie’s story is. Hoborg never called his world the Neverhood until he woke from his helpless sleep. Klogg spent months choosing between good and evil before he made a grab for the crown. And Hoborg wasn’t the only one on the Hood who made things.

Take the Cannon as example. The Cannon was Klogg’s pet project. It was the firstborn who envisioned it, designed it, and assembled it. All Hoborg did was create the parts. But it wasn’t a collaboration so much as a struggle for control. To Klogg, the choice between good and evil took the shape of deciding who was more fit to rule, Hoborg or he. As the two got to know each other, both became convinced they would make for the better king, and they were out to prove it. That’s why it made Klogg so bitter when his father put a plague at the foot of the Cannon: This cannon monument was put here by Hoborg.

Hammerboy was another joint creation.

Why did Klogg ask his father to make a dwarf whose chief delight in life would be smashing people with a hammer? Well, I think he’s always been a fan of slapstick. He found the Hood dull. Hoborg was putting his next son off until Klogg had made his choice, and Willie wasn’t Klogg’s type, to put it mildly. Maybe he wanted to tempt his father into creating something truly violent. At any rate, Klogg loved Hammerboy. He played with him for hours, and when he was tired of getting flattened, he instigated the dwarf to ambush other residents of the Hood.

Hammerboy can understand English, but usually he doesn’t bother to listen. He sounds like he talks, but what he says is gibberish. He doesn’t even have words for “yes” and “no”. He just mimics the cadence and tone. When he needs to get something across, he uses pantomime. Sometimes he’ll grin at you so wide that all of his teeth are showing and brandish his hammer in the air. I think at those moments, he’s contemplating smashing your head. Or your chest. They must be sweet thoughts.

I don’t think he’s malevolent, though. Hammerboy lives for the moment the bones crack and the flesh splits. He hits once. He marvels at his work.

Once when I was a one-day-old, I was passing through his territory, and he managed to break my legs so expertly that I couldn’t get back up. I am not as immortal as most Hoodians. It hurt like hell. I was crawling on my elbows to the entrance when Hammerboy stood in my way with his hammer. He grinned wide. I covered my head.

Nothing happened.

When I looked up, Hammerboy was inspecting my legs. He pointed at my shattered left knee. He poked it. I yelped. Hammerboy looked at me in wonder. He sat down next to me. Carefully, he aligned his hammer by his hand so he could grab it easily, and he waited for my legs to heal.

When my left knee finally stopped popping, I tried to move. Gingerly I stood up. Hammerboy shuffled over to me and patted my knee. He looked up at me, brandished his hammer and grinned.

I shook my head. “No. I’m sorry, Hammerboy. I’m not playing.”

Hammerboy made a disappointed sound… and he left.

Since then, I fancy Hammerboy always pauses when he sees me. He seems to be asking: “Are we playing?”

The Clockwork Beast

There is no story sadder than The Battle of Robot Bil. When it comes to the final “Waahhh! Bil, hang on!”, half the audience is usually crying. The antagonist of that story is none other than the fearful Clockwork Beast, Klogg’s masterwork. It was the only one of his creations that came alive. He put so much wrath into it that it was animated with the sole wish to hurt Big Robot Bil.

The Beast was made to scare Willie out of rebellion. The hoophead never went straight for Hoborg’s crown, but he did get inside Bil’s chest once. He flipped his friend back to “good” and they strode toward the Castle, shouting that they’d throw the bad man off the Hood. Sadly, Klogg summoned the Bear Retrieval Unit and distracted Bil for long enough that he managed to climb inside the robot himself. He punched Willie, drove Bil back into his hole and set him to “bad” again. Afterward, he set out to build the Clockwork Beast. He paraded it in front of Willie and described in gruesome detail what the Beast would do to Bil if it was ever activated. Willie was so terrified that he never dared to revive Bil again. He was sure that the robot would die if he ever clashed with the Clockwork Beast.

He was right.

As sad as it is, The Battle of Robot Bil has a good ending. After Klaymen saved the Neverhood, he explained to Hoborg that Willie and Bil had been killed. By that time, Hoborg had spent years designing every detail of his future twenty-three sons and he couldn’t wait to get to it. But he didn’t hesitate to sacrifice two of his lifeseeds and bring his old friends back instead. Willie and Bil returned and everyone lived happily ever after.

If you ask Hoborg how exactly he brought them back, when it had been weeks since they’d fallen off the Hood, he’ll say that he has his creator ways. He won’t elaborate if you press him. He doesn’t want to call attention to the fact that Willie and Bil didn’t use to be made of best klay. It begs the question: What happened to the bodies which fell off the Hood?

There is no story scarier than Those Who Fell. I tell it in three ways, depending on how the audience is feeling. It always begins with Willie, panicking inside the dying Bil’s chest, putting out fires and fixing leaking oil tubes. He saves his friend’s life by the breadth of a hair, and together they fall through the black nothing. Days pass. They run out of water. They run out of food. They wait for somebody to get them, but nothing happens. The darkness parts and they fall through opalescent clouds, so fast that Bil is starting to come apart.

I look over my audience then. If they look sufficiently scared, I say that was when Hoborg summoned the souls of Willie Trombone and Big Robot Bil and implanted them into new bodies on the Neverhood. The old bodies became lifeless, and eventually shattered to a thousand pieces against a great land. A crater is all they left behind while the real Willie and Bil lived happily ever after on the Neverhood.

But if my listeners can take being a bit more scared, I tell the story in a second way. This time, Hoborg didn’t bother summoning souls from hundreds of kilometres away. Instead, he made the new Willie and Bil just like he remembered them, and called upon new souls to inhabit the bodies. Meanwhile, the old Willie and Bil continued falling. Through clouds, through empty space, among stars. They fell until they went mad… and then they shattered to a thousand pieces against a great land.

I look out again at this point and ask if my listeners want the scary story to go on. If they’re feeling particularly brave and say yes, the third version, the real horror, begins. Willie and Bil fall, but they survive the fall, broken and maimed. Willie repairs the robot enough that he can walk, and together they set out back to the Neverhood. The journey takes them centuries. They have much distance to cover, and finding their way through the Neverhood Nebula is nearly impossible. But in the end, they make it. “Take a look at the sky,” I say. “What is that speck over there? Is it not Big Robot Bil and Willie Trombone, or what is left of them? They will set foot on the Hood soon, and what will happen then? When they realise that nobody has missed them. When the old Willie comes face to face with the new Willie, an intruder who wears his likeness and memories, who has stolen his life eternal. What will blossom in his heart? Will he happily forget his sufferings? Or will bitterness overpower him, and will he hate us all?”

I tell all three versions of Those Who Fell, to make sure that no one considers it a true story. No one ever saw the old Willie and Bil. The Wall of Records never wrote of them. It’s entirely possible that the official story is true; that Hoborg summoned the bodies themselves and fixed them up with best klay. He made Willie forget the fall because it was a mercy.

Still.

And what about the Clockwork Beast? Hoborg never brought it back. It seems unlikely that now, centuries later, it is still falling. Perhaps it shattered to a thousand pieces against a great land. Perhaps it stalks Quater’s universe, thirsting for revenge.

We do not know.

Frenchie

Frenchie… is a giant bug. He should not, by any means, be counted among those who can’t choose, because he’s an animal. But Willie bothers me every time I tell these stories without including his best bug friend, so… here is Frenchie’s honorary chapter.

Frenchie became Willie’s BBF while hitching a ride inside Big Robot Bil. They were near the Mountain of Best Klay when they found the bug hiding under their bed. Willie took a liking to him and kept him as a pet. Frenchie tried to eat them several times, but he never did serious damage and Willie thought it gave him personality. Hoborg, for his part, was too happy to have Willie along to risk it all over a bug.

Now, the interesting thing about Frenchie is that he isn’t the original Frenchie. One day long ago, Kari Katur accidentally killed the giant bug. Frenchie sneaked up on him and swarmed all over trying to eat him, all legs and foul slobber. So, in a panic, Kari slung him against the wall and kicked him. He paused to see if the bug had had enough. He saw that Frenchie’s head was caved in. His legs were twitching in the air as he tried to roll over and skitter away. But in a while, that stopped. The bug was dead.

Kari was crushed. He apologised to Willie in tears, swore he hadn’t meant to. The hoophead clapped him on the shoulder and asked him to prepare a funeral feast. Bring a lot of bread, lettuce, and onions to where Frenchie’s body was lying, and invite the whole Hood. What Kari didn’t expect was that they would be eating the bug. Fortunately, Willie did most of the eating. He chewed slowly and sadly, while everyone else took a bite to pay their respects. Once nothing remained, Willie patted his belly and said: “Well, old friend! Now we be together forever.” And he took Kari to the Castle, and they asked Hoborg to create another Frenchie.

Thus it was learned that Hoborg had re-created Frenchie a few times already. The bug wasn’t durable enough for how dumb he was. Kari didn’t know what was worse. That he’d killed Willie’s friend, that he’d been forced to eat his remains, or that he had to deal with the bug again after he was dead.

Crit Unit A and Crit Unit B

I never had the chance to meet the two members of the Bear Retrieval Unit. They left the Hood before I was made. I’ve only heard stories about them and seen their likenesses. But I feel a sort of connection to them. I would have liked to talk to them. Like my brothers and me, they were off-worlders. They struggled with being accepted, and ultimately left paradise behind. You have to wonder what makes a man so miserable he’ll give up on life eternal.

Hoborg says that the two birdmen fell from the sky soon after he made the Hood. He nursed them back to health and offered them to stay, even if neither could understand the other’s language. In those days, the sky wasn’t black yet. Pearly clouds embraced the island. Each day, they gathered thicker and became darker. To the birdmen, it must have looked like the mother of all storms brewing. They shook their heads as they watched the sky, waiting for the thunder and the lightning.

It is said that the sky became pitch black on the day Klogg took Hoborg’s crown. The Everhood turned into the Neverhood. Willie became a fugitive. And the two birdmen were employed as the Bear Retrieval Unit.

I think this was the chief reason why Cua and Cub, as they came to be called, were never liked by the original twenty. They’d worked for Klogg, not by coercion but of their free will. They never tried to depose him. They were content to steal Bil’s Teddy Bear for him any time he wanted. They had obviously chosen evil. Even after Klaymen saved the Neverhood, they never tried to become part of the whole. They ate when someone cooked, but didn’t share their own food. They littered so profusely Hoborg had to instate daily public service. They broke into every room of the Castle and stole. I can just about see the jeers they got when they walked about. Everyone was wondering why Hoborg let them stay.

Eventually, Cua and Cub tamed a pair of glider birds and they flew into the darkness, never to return.

I haven’t always featured a chapter on the Crit Units in The Ones Who Can’t Choose. It felt like an insult. They were grown men from one of Arven’s worlds. They hadn’t chosen well, but they’d chosen. I changed my mind after Nike returned from his first journey. It was because he brought us a pack of cigarettes.

On the second day of the Three-Day Party, the 500th New Year’s Party which took three days, my brothers and I were dead tired. We had partied through the night and we didn’t want to go to sleep. We felt like if we did fall asleep, we’d wake up to see that Nike hadn’t returned; that it had only been a dream. So we burned midnight oil and kept the party alive. But after lunch of the second day, even our most loyal friends dropped off and only the three of us remained. Nike yawned, opened his chest compartment and said: “Help me out here.”

The inside of his chest compartment was an awful mess. He and Klogg had long since abandoned the good practice of storing only the necessary minimum. Nike said it was that prejudice which got them robbed. If they hadn’t kept their flying machines in the backpacks, they would have returned on time. For a while, sticking everything into their chests was safer and more convenient. Then the threshold of practicality was passed. Their chest compartments turned into jungles. Nike insisted that he knew exactly where everything was, but he also admitted something had died and rotten in there once.

So, on the second day of the Three-Day Party, we weren’t too surprised when Nike pulled out an extendable stick and told us to help ourselves to a souvenir. He’d give us directions where it was. We just had to find it and take it out. And not topple anything, please.

The request was embarrassing. Sure, he was our beloved big brother and he’d been off-world for a long time, but rummaging through his chest compartment was two steps too far. Nike didn’t help matters when he said Klogg and he did this for each other all the time. Nehmen and I were both all red when it was done, but under Nike’s instructions we managed to pull the thing out. It was a hand-sized paper packet, wrapped in plastic. Nike tore off the wrapping, opened the packet and offered each of us a slim cylinder with one end orange and the other white.

“These are called cigarettes,” he said. He fished a lighter out of his chest compartment (he kept that in the front). “They sell them everywhere. They’re made of dried tobacco leaves and they’re for smoking.” He put the orange end of the cigarette between his lips, covered his mouth with one hand and cracked the lighter aflame with the other. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Resting his hands in his lap, he let a long cloud of smoke out from the corner of his mouth. They were the casual movements of someone who’d done this a thousand times.

“Let me try,” Nehmen said and busily imitated him. Soon all three of us had burning cigarettes between our lips. The smoke tasted bad and made us cough, and Nike laughed and puffed and told us to savour it. It would prop us right up. And anyway, it was the last pack of cigarettes any of us would see in our lives.

Then he told us he’d just given us drugs. He spoke of those who smelled of tobacco smoke from morning till evening, who had to get up at night to smoke because they couldn’t sleep. He’d taken up the habit himself because it seemed cool, and then dropped it like a snake when he realised what it was doing to him. His fingers would itch for a smoke, and before he knew it, there was another cigarette in his mouth. He hated the loss of control, the idea that something else was pulling the strings. He said very few of those who started smoking more than a pack a day were able to stop. When you ran out and got cold turkey, you couldn’t think of anything else. He tried to quit three times before he managed to do it for real. And that was Nike, son of free will. He still kept this last pack of cigarettes, so that he’d have something to smoke while he lay dying in the dust.

Following Nike’s example, we crushed the orange ends of the cigarettes under our heels and returned to the Labs. That same day, the cigarette butts became a sensation. Many recalled that Cua and Cub had littered just such burnt things everywhere. The Hoodians on public service swept them away not knowing what they were.

And so we learned that the Crit Units had been tobacco addicts and that Klogg had kept them supplied with cigarettes. Hoborg didn’t know where his son had got tobacco plants, but he’d found crates of cigarettes in the Castle, hidden from both him and the Crit Units. New stashes were discovered months after Klaymen had saved the Hood. And then the last crate was gone… Cua and Cub left.

This is why I list the stories of the Bear Retrieval Unit here. I don’t think they were very free to choose, in the end.

Bernie the TV guy

On the ground floor of the Five-Pipe House, Bernie lives in a televisor suspended from the ceiling. His real name is Bernard, but most Hoodians call him the TV guy.

Bernie only has a head and two hands. He can turn and angle his TV, he can lean out of it a little, but he’s largely confined to its box. He’s like a clam living in its shell. His lot in life is telling jokes. He’ll tell them with great delight and wit and if no one talks to him, he gets sullen. He can’t think unless he can talk. His inner world stops turning when it isn’t lit by somebody’s attention.

A story is told about the TV guy, from the very beginning of the Fourth Age. When the original twenty saw the face in the televisor, they weren’t sure what to make of it. Bernie wouldn’t speak; he just stared toward the entrance door. When Klaymen walked in, he would gasp and smile and turn to follow him. It was clear he wanted Klaymen to do something. But he wouldn’t say what.

At last, Hoborg came to see what was wrong. He spoke to Bernie but was ignored like everyone else. So he said: “When you first came here, Klaymen, did he say something?”

Klaymen thought about it deeply. “Yes,” he said. “He said: ‘Hey Klaymen! Say knock knock.’”

“Well then?” Hoborg said amused. “Say knock knock.”

“Knock knock?” Klaymen said.

“WHO’S THERE?” the TV guy shrieked.

“Huh?” Klaymen said startled.

And the TV guy began laughing. Guffawing. Cackling so hard tears dripped on the floor. “Okay, okay,” he said, wiping his face with both hands, “have you heard this one? Ahem. Three logicians walk into a bar. The barkeep asks: ‘Will all of you be having a beer?’ The logicians look at each other. The first one shrugs and says: ‘I don’t know.’ The second one shrugs and says: ‘I don’t know.’ The third one turns to the barkeep and says: ‘Yes!’”

After five seconds of silence, Katcza began laughing. “I get it!” he said. “Because he asked if all of them were having a beer!”

“That’s right!” the TV guy snickered. “And have you heard this one?”

If you’re ever unhappy and in need of a distraction, Bernie is the one to see. Even when his jokes don’t land, he never gets discouraged. My brother learned from him and look how far he’s come. He’s almost as entertaining as the TV guy.

Big Robot Bil

I’ve been asked not to include Bil in this collection. While he lived on the Hood, he was venerated. He had kept Hoborg safe on his travels and he’d sacrificed his life to reinstate him as the rightful ruler. He even had his own rack of favours, though he didn’t have to do public service because he was too big for it. But the matter of the fact remains: Bil could not move the lever in his chest cockpit between “good” and “bad”. So, beloved and respected as he was, he wasn’t among those who can choose.

Bil is a builder by vocation. On the Neverhood, however, there wasn’t much for him to build from. For most of the time he spent here, he was simply bored. In the beginning, he’d walk around, careful not to step on anyone, and observe the little ones at their daily games. But by the time my brothers and I arrived, Bil rarely ever left his Pit. He’d play with his Teddy and hum, lost in thought. Willie said Bil was building in his head, designing a castle. There was no evidence, but we went with it. Bil didn’t speak beyond “me Bil”, and while he was skilled with toys and mock-ups, we never saw him perform the thing he was made for.

Bil stopped his brooding on the day Ottoborg first came to the Neverhood. He climbed out of his Pit and followed his king around like a gigantic puppy. When he learned that the world that had been shattered was a prosperous kingdom once more, he decided on the spot to travel to the Brokenhood and live his days out there.

They all set off together, Ottoborg, Bil, Willie and Caline.

Only Willie came back.

He said that the moment Bil had touched the ground of his new home, he began building. Working day and night, without pause as if he knew each brick by heart, he built a beautiful castle. Ottoborg moved in at once. Thus the first Brokenhood Manor came to be. It has been rebuilt many times since then, always by Bil. I think the old robot is very happy there, doing what he was made to do.

I don’t think he misses Willie half as much as Willie misses him.

Triangle and Square

Triangle and Square are brother and sister, as much as one can be in their circumstances. They are both beings confined to the darkness of a small tree-like object. The “tree crown” is conical in the case of Triangle; box-shaped in the case of Square. Like the TV guy, they can’t leave their “tree”. Or, in another sense, the “tree” is their body. Anyway.

Hoborg made Triangle and Square to help him with cooking.

Triangle is a wellspring of cooking recipes. Tell him the ingredients you have and he’ll whip out a recipe. He’ll explain all the fine details, like how long you need to simmer the butter before you dust it with flour, on how high a heat, in what kind of pot, with a spatula made of which wood and how long since the tree should have been cut down. He isn’t interested in discussing anything but food. If you don’t honour that basic courtesy, Triangle will be angry that you’re wasting his time. He’s called “the rude guy” a lot. But I prefer to call him by his name. He taught me how to make sandwiches with grapes and cheese, and for that I am forever in his debt.

Square, Triangle’s sister, was made to cook food. Her box has a front door and two round dials: heat intensity and time. If you put something into Square and turn the heat on, she’ll happily hum and purr and bob on her “trunk”. “Ding!” she’ll say when the timer is up. “Your food’s ready! Mmm, smells delicious!”

To be clear, Square has no sense of smell or taste. If you mishandle the dials, she’ll happily burn the food to a crisp. But, if you ask her nicely, she can tweak her heating system. She can heat the food uniformly, which is ideal for cooking. She can roast the food from above, which puts sandwiches on a whole new level. She can blow scorching hot air on the food, which makes potato chips absolutely delightful. Most Hoodians don’t cook with her, and she couldn’t serve the whole Hood in time anyway. So she usually stays in the Kitchen where she’s at Hoborg’s hand.

Triangle and Square hate each other.

I was still a one-day-old when I found you never mention one in front of the other. I told Triangle that I didn’t need to get zag wood, a tripod and a pot to boil potatoes – I could just put them into the microwave in the Castle Kitchen. Triangle spluttered before he managed to say: “Did the Serpent put you up to this? Well! So she thinks she can boil potatoes as well as salted water and zag wood! That’s it! I’m going to have a word with her.” And to my astonishment, Triangle pulled himself out of the ground and hopped toward the Castle. It wasn’t a talking tree, which I’d taken it for. It was a being with one leg that just didn’t like to move around.

Triangle and Square don’t have a way to hurt each other, fortunately. They just yelled at each other and headbutted their “treetops”. Triangle concluded that he’d never leave the North Plane again and hopped away. Square shouted after him: “As grumpy as Triangle!”

“As dumb as Square!” Triangle shouted back.

Since then, I take care not to mention to Triangle that I’m going to cook with Square, and I don’t tell Square I have the recipe from Triangle. Some Hoodians think it’s funny to make them fight, but I prefer to enjoy my food in peace.

The Serpent

Beneath the roots of the Spiky Tree, there lives a snake with two tails and no head. He’s two metres long and striped with yellow and green. He comes out on occasion and whispers to those who can choose. His purpose is to tempt them toward evil.

The catch with the Serpent is that he’s as dumb as Square. Hoborg wanted him to spark discussions about morality, not to actually turn someone. So the Serpent is hilariously bad at arguing. He makes for such an easy target that engaging him seriously brings no joy. He only has one friend, and that is Square. She lets the Serpent curl up on top of her, turns on the heat, and they chat for hours. Some say the Serpent’s influence is why Square burns food so often, and Square’s company is why the Serpent is so dumb. I find the duo interesting, though, because it’s emblematic of our customs around food.

We don’t cook much on the Hood. You don’t realise it when you live here, but the contrast is jarring when you visit the Brokenhood. So much time is spent preparing food there, not to mention growing it. Of course, we can’t stockpile food because it doesn’t survive the night. There’s no point in cooking preserves when the jars are going to be empty in the morning. But it goes deeper than that. Call me wrong but the less processed a meal is, the better it is for you, isn’t it? Case in point: should you eat mulberries whole, or leave the core? The burping is an inconvenience; the core is bitter and scratchy. But we still eat them whole. Because that’s how Hoborg made them. You aren’t supposed to improve upon perfection.

Except Hoborg also made Triangle, a well of recipes. He also made potatoes, beans and mushrooms, which don’t taste good unless they’re cooked. He tells us not to eat raw eggs and meat, although there are no health concerns except for the meat wriggling in your mouth. And we hold many traditions, such as weasel hunts or the Bread-Making Day, whose entire point is long and elaborate cooking. So what gives?

I thought of an answer while I was watching the Serpent and Square one day.

“I’m bored,” Square said.

“Let’s play White, Red, Brown,” the Serpent hissed.

“Okay. Name something brown.”

“Brown is to eat a sandwiches every day.”

“I heard that,” I said.

The Serpent hissed with delight, and I realised I’d been baited. Just as well.

“Can I join you?” I asked.

“Of course,” the Serpent said. “Krevel, name something white.”

“White…” I said, collecting my thoughts. “White is to be as you were made. If some sin grazes you, you forgive and forget until you become as you were when Hoborg made you. Full of wonder and good will. Now, Serpent, name something red.”

“Cooking is red,” the Serpent fired off.

“What,” Square said. “You just said cooking was brown.”

“No no,” the Serpent said, “cooking the same thing every day is brown. Cooking new things, delicious things, is red. The more effort you put into it, the more you spoil it. The better it tastes, the more sinful it is.”

“Red isn’t sin,” I objected. “Red is joy.”

“It is sin,” the Serpent said. “And I know of the reddest, tastiest fruit. It’s sweeter than mulberries. Do you want to know where it grows?”

“Is this about Hoborg’s crown?”

“Mmm,” the Serpent said surprised, “yes…”

“I’ll pass,” I laughed. “I know which fruit you’re speaking of. But you should also mention that it goes bitter in your mouth. And then you regret you ate it.”

When Klaya came to the Hood, she was in awe that no one had taken the moniker “the chef”. It was such low-hanging fruit, too. No one can cook. My daily sandwiches are considered fancy. I tried to explain to her that only that which came straight from the blessed ground was pure and safe. She scoffed at that. No wonder Triangle was so grumpy, she said. We’d mandated him evil and useless. She, for one, had five sons and she was going to feed them well.