The Flash Club Galactic Wildlife Revue

Joe called an emergency conference at once. He’d never known Mini-Flashes to riot, but one thing he did know was that in this galaxy you could afford to rule nothing out. This programme from the past that the boys were so noisily demanding couldn’t be the one our hero sought – he could see already it was far too widely and vividly remembered for that. None of which helped Joe to any revelation on what his event’s most requested show so far might be.

Nor did the impromptu meeting with his fellow organisers promise to shed much light. Flashtease, who could surely be expected to have known, was mysteriously absent. Neetra and Dean weren’t from this sector. Croldon Thragg was, but he didn’t watch television. Mini-Flash Splitsville, female and of the Special Program and also presumably too young, was drawing one big blank, daddy-o. That left the two young men. Thomthar was of limited use, for he explained to Joe that although he loved television and the cinema, this was only because the screens lit up at night and he liked to throw himself against them for hours on end. Sludge-Man on the other hand paused only to pop several bubbles on his enthusiastic oozy body then leering pronounced in unadulterated lustiness:

“Got to be The Flash Club Galactic Wildlife Revue. A minor masterpiece, dudes and little dude-ettes, which this funky film-critic would be stoked to see again!”

“Made by the man means strictly hands-off for our side of the strip, heart-throb,” Mini-Flash Splitsville advised Joe doubtfully.

Our hero wracked his brains for the full guest-roster. “We have one of its stars, have we not?” he ventured. “Flashstanch, middle dancing gantrative. Might we invite her to give a talk?”

“I think she’s shaken her feathers,” said Neetra, not without a smile, for she’d seen which direction Flashstanch went and with whom.

“Joe my brother!” erupted all at once from Dean. “There are situations like when you and The Four Heroes created Nottingham, yeah? And then later, when you and Neetra here created this Nottingham – and Neet, babe, if we were the same age and we’d met earlier in life, the universe would be a different place because seriously, that’s the kind of commitment and decisiveness Louise-Claudia should have been bringing to our relationship, but,” Dean smote his bare breast for emphasis, “then there are the situations like now. Does any one of us except Sludge-Man know like the first thing about what these Mini-Flashes want to see? I mean, if I’ve ever asked a rhetorical question, that was it. None of which can matter! Sometimes you’ve just got to catch the wave! Croldon Thragg my dude, can you pull us a bootleg rip?”

“That would be well within the limits of the Wonder-Tool’s design,” replied Thragg. “The only question is the copyright implications – ”

“Do it, Thragg, our breaker’s turning to whitewater and it’s now or never if we want to ride that tube!” Dean bawled. “Thomthar, I’m going to need the best mood-lighting you’ve got. Splitsville! Bongos!”

Seizing a microphone Dean flung for the stage. Dutifully Mini-Flash Splitsville took up her tom-toms and followed, assuming her customary position cross-legged by his feet.

“We’re taking you back,” intoned Dean booming unto the boisterousness. “Back in time. And further than that. Back to nature.”

Splitsville on cue struck up a low knocking of indigenous drums. Thomthar, having flapped to the electrics desk, dimmed the lamps on a deep green shade and added some animal noise. Now that, thought Joe, was how you worked a crowd in this quadrant. A few carefully chosen words and Dean had them.

“Because I’m hearing it,” that one continued. “Those bygone summers aren’t spent. What they gave to you stays. The undergrowth heaves and breathes with it. It’s there in every primal call. Doesn’t matter what planet you came from. At heart, we’re all wildlife.”

Speaking of magic words. The ecstasies spilling from Dean’s self-made dark continent were testament to his every asseveration. Joe watched as he glanced at the gallery, and Croldon Thragg gave him a thumbs-up from above. Splitsville meanwhile had jammed with Dean often enough to know when a crescendo was nigh.

“Mini-Flashes of Nottingham,” Dean exulted amid the frenzied pounding of her palms. “Welcome to the jungle.”

And behind him the enormous cinema set-up which served the whole hall came alive with music and light and colour.

Joe wasn’t using his psychic powers. It felt somehow intrusive, even though a sentiment shared by every boy of a certain age could hardly be described as private. Nevertheless, what washed into our hero from the first seconds of playback was akin to the tide Dean had spoken of, and like any ocean it plunged to depths. There was far more to it than the mere nostalgia which fondly remembered footage might have been expected to spark. Even excitement was too mild a term, though that had been the prevailing emotion during the build-up. Gone however was rowdy rambunctiousness, and over an all-but absolute hush reigned intensity sufficient to make even Joe vicariously hold his breath. He looked on, nothing short of intrigued.

Flashtease and Flashstanch hastened into the latter’s hotel room. He quickly closed the door, then leaning back against it with a tremendous thankful sigh let go his hemline, which for the last stretch of the journey he’d had to crush down forcibly with both hands in front.

“Your TV debut was when every male Mini-Flash discovered the design flaw in these tunics,” said he.

“Told you you had something I could sign,” Flashstanch smirked.

Little shapely legs in stockings styled to resemble scaly hide were prancing across the big screen. The first number seemed to be about frilled-necked lizards. Each Mini-Flash in the chorus-line poked her cheeky grin out from between bulging foam eyes the size of basketballs, for the costumes were so crafted that the tutu-skirt was the frill, and everything from the waist up a giant reptilian head. The girls sang, and used both arms to operate their toothy maws, and demonstrated through pretty twirls or two-footed jumps the action for which the creatures they portrayed were known.

When they did, the auditorium was silent no longer. Joe confessed to being a tiny bit bemused. It was true that among the female viewers he could detect a certain eye-rolling tolerance, but the reactions of those older Mini-Flash boys still baffled him outright. To our hero the proceeding wasn’t without an element of the absurd. Surely there was something strangely out of proportion in so raw and voluptuous a response?

Then all of a sudden it hit him. Joe should have focused less on content and more on simple mathematics. Flashtease’s age, Mini-Flash Splitsville’s age, and the advent of the second gender.

This had to be the first Flash Club production to feature girls.

Of the old power-blocs, obviously the one most affected by the surprise proliferation of that hitherto obscure sex was also first to confront the reality that millions of female newcomers weren’t just going to go away. The Flash Club’s earliest attempt at addressing this problem had certainly been novel, but what a stir that premiere must have caused across the galaxy all the same. Joe could at last begin to picture it. As for the male Mini-Flashes however, and the discoveries they made that night, there was no need for Joe to use his imagination. He was playing host to what sounded like well over half their generation this very hour, and it was now small wonder to our hero that The Flash Club Galactic Wildlife Revue had never been forgotten.

Flashtease felt silk sheets underneath his two hands, and gazed on the vision of alabaster smoothness lying between. Was she real? It was not Flashstanch’s physical immanence at which he marvelled, for this was all but obscured by the constellation of yearnings and awakenings which at a prior point in his life she as a concept had been responsible for. Maybe Flashtease had stumbled on the secret of the silver screen. Maybe his awe was where inhered that immortality stardom was said to impart.

Flashstanch couldn’t help giggling. “Er, seriously, Flashtease,” said she. “I’ve been on telly once. Playing one of three flightless birds. Who did a dance and sang a silly song.”

“Then you can’t know,” he told her. Gently with one fingertip he traced the lineaments of her sweet features, from her nose to the curve of one cheek. Even so tiny a touch set him a-tingle. Flashtease felt as if he’d reached for the projector’s limpid glow and somehow made contact with his celluloid dream.

“There’s more,” he whispered. “That flightless bird dance of yours was one of the bonus features on a recording-pyramid I was once very scared of seeing.”

“I thought it never came out on home video,” said Flashstanch, puzzled.

“It wasn’t a real one,” Flashtease explained. “But that doesn’t mean I never saw it. That didn’t stop someone from showing it to me.”

“So it was real?” asked the girl, trying to keep up.

Flashtease smiled.

“Yes, it was,” he said softly. “Real, and a part of me. I had some trouble accepting that at first. But I know it now. And I wanted you to know, because you’re part of it too.”

Then there was the taste of her lips, and the scent of her hair, and Flashtease was beyond the proscenium in a living luminous land.

Joe had to admit, this drew you in the more of it you watched. The lonely conservationist on his expedition between worlds could not have been disappointed, when every seductive species native to forest and coastline and swamp shared saucy secrets amid enticing verse. Here rumpled plumage was the rustle of petticoats, mammals warmly invited a snuggle, and every step on the scale from jellyfish to the most advanced vertebrates had a flutter or a flirt meant just for you. The abandonment pervading the theatre was by now absolute. As when each rapt attendee wore beige, platypus and bat in breathtaking ballet summoned swirling from the backdrop’s blackness those pastel-painted dells spangled with dewdrop octaves, and for the Mini-Flashes of today each tantalizing twang plucked afresh from heart-strings the very cadence and pitch it had commanded then. Joe supposed everybody found it somewhere. And to be unflinchingly honest for a change, more than once he’d caught himself thinking of Neetra and looking ahead to when the last of their visitors had departed.

Ah, gantratives. Joe concentrated on the middle one, since he might have to recognise her later. It wasn’t easy though, as her feathered costume did a better job hiding her face than it did her underwear. Indeed, Joe suspected Flashstanch’s song would stick in his head far longer than any notion of what she looked like.

Gantratives can’t fly like you girl Mini-Flashes…

“But it’s what we do with our eyelashes,” Flashstanch sang happily, eyes closed.

And when there are pheromones to be had…

Her hand plunged deep into the tumbled dampness of Flashtease’s locks.

“It is very good,” gasped Flashstanch, each syllable a puff of air caressing the side of his freckly face, “to smell...very...”

She clenched her teeth.

That was the show-stopper for what Joe’s critical faculties were worth, and it appeared the fan-base agreed with him. Our hero was amazed any gantrative trio could charge their act with so much ambiguity and allure, that a veritable tumult of hooting howls lasted out the pinion-flourishing finale and the strut offscreen. Even backstage must have trembled, for Thomthar let off some indoor fireworks and ignited an encore of appreciation.

Joe for his part knew several others who were due the same from him. His friends had outdone themselves, probably saved the day in fact, and our hero was truly grateful. He only wished he had something to show for his own quest in turn, which thus far had yielded the sum total of nil. In the example he had been set however by Thragg, Thomthar, Splitsville and Dean, Joe saw well enough his duty to go on.

And Flashtease and Flashstanch, both still some way off from words, looked at each other with their heads on the pillows and grinned.

NEXT: SECOND INTERVIEW (LAURANCE LO)