The Inaction Man Read online

  Chapter 12

  Escape from Asylum

  As Inaction Man had predicted, the goblin Hiver was drugged and catatonic by late afternoon. Empty margarine containers were strewn all around him. Other rubbish lay carelessly under the trees branches and a mange-ridden cat prowled among the debris of the ravaged bin. Clear evidence, if any were needed, that the tree was an access point for the dark lords. An important one too, and it would not have been left under the protection of the addled and addicted Hiver if he were not so closely related to Lord Lagus. A direct line, albeit an illegitimate one, ensured that Hiver was present, in body if not in mind. His long green ears flopped over his forehead and his pointed nose, smeared in bubbling margarine, glistened in the bloody red sunshine. His back rested on the oak tree that was his home and he snored his windy snore.

  Illogical Woman worried that he might only be pretending, so she shook him violently to check he was really asleep. In case their escape might wake him up, Inaction Man spun a circle of urine around where the goblin slept, which would imprison him until evaporation robbed the circle of its power.

  Illogical Woman, as svelte as a cat and as strong as a rat, climbed the tree with ease. With her aid, a grunting Inaction Man managed to reach the branch of freedom. He sat on the branch and moved along it. Slowly, carefully and with the gentle encouragement of moss and leaves, he came nearer and nearer to the tall wall that surrounded the psychiatric institution. Illogical woman, who had already walked along the branch, with one eye closed to help her balance, waited for him on top of the wall and sang nursery rhymes backwards to ward off bad luck.

  With the help of the foliage and assorted flora, and Illogical Woman’s lilting voice, Inaction Man made it to the wall. Both heroes sat there for a moment and looked into each other’s eyes. He wanted to give words to the intense emotional attachment he experienced but words failed him. Illogical Woman had no such difficulty expressing herself. She used her tongue to write “I love you” on the inside of her cheek and drew the largest of exclamation marks on her palate. Inaction Man didn’t notice, his powers of perception weakened by the chemical compounds polluting his bloodstream.

  Instead he directed his own tongue to pondering how they might reunite their feet with the ground. Their feet dangled in mid-air and Illogical Woman counted them, backwards then forwards, but this didn’t bring any of their feet closer to the ground, as she had predicted it would. Inaction Man suggested they hang from the wall to reduce the distance of the fall back to Earth and thereby limit the accelerative powers of gravity. Reluctantly, Illogical Woman did just this, but she wouldn’t let Inaction Man jump until she had measured the approximate distance of his fall with her hands and assured herself that it wasn’t thirteen hands worth.

  The moved away from the wall. Inaction Man walked forwards, careful to cleanse his mind of any thought of a destination, and Illogical Woman skipped backwards. As evening crept upon them it began to rain and the weather turned much colder. Both superheroes were without coats because Illogical Woman feared putting them on might have aroused suspicion in the psychiatric home. Inaction Man pointed out that the other patients often wore coats when they went into the garden, but Illogical Woman was convinced that only wearing a t-shirt on a cold November day was inherently illogical and therefore must be the right thing to do. Inaction Man, who had been homeless for years and knew what cold could do, didn’t press the point, since the principles of inaction strictly forbade him from doing so.

  As the cold and wet bit deeper and deeper, he couldn’t help but worry that the philosophy of inaction meant that he must leave all decisions in the hands of Illogical Woman, who was determined to choose the worst of any two options presented to her, simply because that was the alternative that made the least sense. This thought and the darkness of the night placed a barrier between the two heroes. The cold hardened this barrier and the rain glued its mortar.

  Through the rain and the chill wind, shivering and hungry, Inaction Man and Illogical Woman tramped on through the damp streets of Paris 75005, the Latin Quarter. Their t-shirts and everything else they wore were wringing wet because Illogical Woman refused to shelter from a downpour but rather embraced it. She also challenged several pedestrians to walk on the right side of the pavement, as she felt that was the right thing to do, semantically speaking.

  Inaction Man realised that he and Illogical Woman were two very different kinds of superheroes. While they may have been united in purpose, they were divided in methods. He was a master of disguise, a prince of invisibility, whereas Illogical Woman flaunted her superpowers, recklessly and needlessly incurring the wrath of mortals, to whom she paid no heed. More worryingly, she was no doubt alerting every agent of the dark lords to their presence.

  A flash of lightening showed Inaction Man that this night would be the last night; that they would either defeat the forces of evil or be defeated by them. With Illogical Woman there could be no half measures. Perhaps it was for the best, he thought. No more lost years of trying to discern his mission in the fall of a leaf. The night of reckoning was at hand, and he was glad of it.

  With a roar of laughter he understood now that the weather had been a dark lord trap. He walked into the middle of the road and held his arm at a ninety degree angle, his index finger beaming his message to every gargoyle in Notre Dame.

  “Mark you this, hellhounds large and small. The seraphim of the non-sensical and Inaction Man are united. We are one. Let the dark lords conjure up all the storms of Hell. Let Hell itself breathe down sulphurous winds and pour acid rains upon us. We will weather all storms. We are one and we will win!”