Elvis & Chlôe E-Book

Ulf Skei

• Herausgeber: Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 234

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2016

Beschreibung

The continued adventures of our heroes Elvis and Chlôe. Part two in the trilogy. The mad as two hatters South African gangsters return. The endless existence in eternal corridors stretching from edge to edge of this old universe continues. Existentialism is ever present, at times our heroes stumble across Jean Saul and Simone in this or that cafe. And what about the gigantic library? Yes, it contains all known and less known knowledge. It is heaven. Or is it? What is, and what is not real? Do we really exist? It is a comedy, but there are certain passages of a slightly intimately oriented nature. Violence is also known to appear. At random. Any and all readers have hereby been advised.

Leseprobe

Table Of Contents

Elvis & Chlôe - Part two of the European Love Affair Trilogy

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Copyright

Elvis & Chlôe - Part two of the European Love Affair Trilogy

Introduction

This is part two in the astounding stories of Elvis Karlfeldt and his beloved Chlôe Lavigne. The interested reader will recognise many of the personalities appearing. Others will be new. The localities are mainly the same as in book one. Office landscapes, corridors, Bergsgatan, the street on the island Kungsholmen in Stockholm. Palermo. Cafés and restaurants all over the known and less known universe. Holographic cityscapes and persons. Nano weavers. You name it.

You are warmly welcome to join me on this trip through the channels of my warped mind.

Here we go.

Chapter 1

They tried to be discrete about it. Their families would never accept them like this, kind folks though they were. Their lips met once more aboard that airport transfer. He could feel her heart through the stillness of the vehicle.

   “One more hour.” He hardly recognised his own voice.    “I know.” She reached for his hand. “Come here.” Two spirits went walking in some imaginary garden. Souls adrift on a sea unknown, if you will. In that garden there was a sky of azure.    “È azzurro” Her voice was warm like a velvet sun. Her eyes the depth of the universe. They walked silently, except for the soft sound of feet on the smooth, soft path through that garden. It really was only a reflection of  love projected across the private corner of the world  conquered.    “Ti amo…”    “Ti amo…”

The magic was broken by a voice in a speaker telling that in a few minutes the transfer would arrive at Gatwick International.

They would never forget the utter pain, emptiness, terror, of that last hour together.    “We are one.”    “Si, one, sempre come uno.”

At a distance they saw the silhouette of Gatwick airport. Just some boxes of concrete put together outside of London. A silent reminder of human ingenuity. With planes not silent at all. Arriving and departing in a stream unbroken. Around the clock. To them it felt like an execution. Chlôe’s eyes whispered a song of sadness and loss. Oh, how he loved her then and there. Still does, of course, but the mumble of the mixture of languages and all those unfamiliar faces made it seem so acute.

The espresso at the cafe was nice, as was the pastry, but minutes ticking away and the tears blurring the view made it difficult to appreciate.    ”Better go to your gate.” His throat felt dry and the words struggled to pass his lips. She looked straight into his eyes.    ”right, better go.”

The walk through the airport to the departures section was awful, and the embraces and kisses could not take away the pain.    “Love really does hurt.” He whispered.    “It does.” He had never seen anything as beautiful and sad as her then and there. Slowly backing out from the gate as she disappeared onboard that plane for Malpensa was the worst thing he had ever been through. The dream was abruptly cut all too short. Reality, our nasty little friend, had once more come between two souls supposed to never be apart.

The sky looked at a sad cormoran crossing a bay outside Juan les Pins. There were mailboxes and a trolley by a silent roadside. A tune could be heard in the warm breeze. They were there. They sat at a lonely cafè feeling like lovers do. Like lovers should always feel.”

Chapter 2

Leonard Carlton, for all intents and purposes a very good private investigator, sat silently glancing through the typed out sheets of paper he had found all over the floor in a tiny one room apartment on Camberwell Church Street in south London. From a distance could be heard ‘Almost True’ by Chet Lake. The tiny window to the right of the cupboard was still open to the relative stillness outside. The bed unmade, an empty bottle of courage next to the full ashtray. Carlton looked out the window. Across the street the curtains of a second floor window moved slightly, somebody wanting to see but not be seen moved like a shadow of something evil behind those drapes of cloth.    “Aah, playing games, are we!” Carlton suddenly felt an urge to walk across the floor, scream out the window and perhaps throw a waste paper basket towards that window. On second thought, though, he figured he would never be able to throw the thing across the street, and even if he could manage that, he probably would just hit the wrong window. Being a man of the world Carlton decided not to throw things at his would be adversary. There were only a few items in the room. A wobbly old table, scratched and worn. A chair of the same quality, and a typewriter of the old mechanic kind. An Underwood. The manuscript had been spread out on the floor. About 73 pages of writing.    “Elvis & Chlôe, a European Love Affair” by E. P. Karlfeldt. Carlton scratched his balding head.    “So, my dear Elvis, playing hard to catch, eh?” His voice had a timbre of disgust as he pointed dramatically at the old typewriter.    “Well, we shall see who gets to compose the epilogue to this sad story, shall we not?”

Carlton had been a member of the local theatre company in Lambeth during his school years. His dream had been to do Macbeth, to be ‘discovered’. The closest he got was an extra for a newspaper salesman in the production of “Coffee and Cigars”. He figured this might be his moment, his bounce back. He was wrong, of course. Leonard Carlton was often wrong. Destiny, our little friend, giggled and danced the Polka. It did this now and then, mostly when plotting something amusing. Presently it did just that. Plotted some funny twists in Carlton’s bewildered near future. Carlton glanced through the papers once more and reached for the phone. He dialled the number to his present employer, a Mr Conrad Betelgeuze Karlfeldt, and listened to the signals going to wherever phone signals go to call. He was in a peculiar mood.    “Odd” he thought aloud to himself.    “Yes.” The voice of the old man was dry like paper.   “Carlton here. Just thought you’d want to be briefed as to the current situation.” Leonard Carlton knocked at the desk with his Ball point pen. The sound was very annoying, and could be heard through the phone line by his current employer. Conrad Betelgeuze Karlfeldt hated people who behaved annoyingly.    “Stop that.”    “What?”

   “Well, whatever it is that you are presently doing that is producing a clicking sound, or I will send somebody to handle you and your annoying activities.”

Leonard Carlton, P.I. looked at his pen and realised how disturbing that sound might be to somebody not producing it.    “Right. Not to worry. Already stopped. Just a bad habit. Well, I found the hotel room, or I guess it could be called apartment, in South London. It was very sparsely decorated, not much to go on. I did, however, find some kind of manuscript for a love story. It appears to be autobiographical. The plot seems to be dealing with your son and his lady, a certain Chlôe Lavigne. Does it ring a bell?” Leonard cought himself in the act of tapping that pen again, and stopped it instantaneously.    “Mm…I recognise that name. Lavigne. Her family is in coffee I believe. Sicilian. Related to the Costas.” The old man had to stop and catch his breath for a while. Leonard looked out a window. Down in the street a blue sedan stopped by a pharmacy. A man in marine pinstripe suit got out of the vehicle. He leaned himself to a light post and stared at a man wearing very dark sunglasses. The Sunglass Man nodded slightly and threw a folder of papers in the gutter. He started dancing a very odd dance.    “There will be blood.” The pinstripe man took a bow, howled momentarily at a puddle of water and pointed his crooked finger at the window of the room, even though I doubt he could see me, due to it being very sunny and you know, what with reflections and physics and such. I decided it was time to disappear for the time being.    “I shall have to make myself scarce for some time, Mr Karlfeldt, so if you need to contact me I advice you not to use this number.”    “Well, how, then, am I to get in touch with you?”    “Go by a Westminster P.O. Box under the name Willard P. Jennings.”    “Ok. A dopo, Mr Jennings.”    “Later, Mr Karlfeldt.”

As the phone clicked a last fare thee well, something sinister passed through the streets of Lambeth. A shadow in a dark blue Bentley whispered directions for a driver. The vehicle moved across one of the many bridges crossing that old river Thames.

Chapter 3

A sad butterfly whispered its velvety tones across a stretch of lawn presently occupied by a local cricket team. A strange little character and a pinstripe man sat on a park bench enjoying the sport. The pinstripe man lit a cigarette and spat at a oddly familiar stray dog approaching the couple from a shrubbery by a tiny kiosk like structure leaning towards reality in what might for all intents and purposes be likened to a drunkard being held upright by a police officer during transport through the walkways of a minor county jail. Well, or something of that particular order.

At the same time, or slightly before, say 12 minutes before, a person with the ability to be at two places simultaneously might have noted that a small house was in the process of being built on the outskirts of a village on a tiny planetoid called Cardigan m2. So while seeing a discussion regarding luncheon and a mullygrubber this person would also be seeing a tiny door being fit to its frameworks and if watching from the correct angle the onlooker would also be stunned by noticing a group of men from a local phone operator walking towards a pub for a pint after work. So you see time is very relative, while at one specific point being 12ish, in another reality we would be faced with 5 strikes of a bell. Or shots of a gun or whichever means of denoting the passing of time the local dwellers made use of. Hitting one crab with a lobster, or with another crab. Or hitting said crab with a tiny dog. Which would be not only impractical, but also cruel. Well, relative anyway. Relative not only to itself but also to location. A person could be seen in a far distance. The person appeared to be looking for something. From some diffuse location could be heard the crying horn of Chet Lake. 'You can't go home again'. Sadness was more than a state of mind and above all it had a distinctly disharmonic feel to it. Jazz. Somebody started running down a green hill. He had strapped himself to a kite of sorts. Not the professional kind one might encounter in some kite contest. Rather a homebuilt one made out of thin rods and a huge piece of cloth of some synthetic material. The little group of bystanders cheered him or her on vividly. Hooray, There ya go, and Wowsie could be heard. It all ended when the man ran on down holding his gigantic kite. He struggled to keep its nose in the correct angle. Suddenly his eyes opened widely and he started shouting. 'Aaaarrrrggghh'. That was the mad vocal concoction flowing out between his lips as he left ground. Rupert Gargamel Bendix had left the little planetoid. A sigh was heard from the group of people. Their civilisation had entered aviation. Rupert, however, would not be among the persons celebrating this fact that night. Rupert Gargamel Bendix lived exactly 23,4 seconds after leaving ground. His homemade kite started behaving oddly, a strap holding it together started loosening. Suddenly a squeak could be heard, followed by a mad howl from Rupert. Everything was falling to pieces. Rupert grabbed his control rod, it did nothing to rectify the situation which was indeed going from bad to worse. Rupert fell down towards the flat, black tarmac of the central city parking. I don't actually know; nobody does, but I suppose it would not be totally wrong to suspect Rupert's last word was 'Aaaaarrrggghhh'. Or something similar. Now Rupert is no more, but his death made a lot of people think about kites, and flying, and of course stupidity. As we will learn in a few pages, one of those people who started thinking about kites and such, Erroll Corderoy Barnes, would become famous in his own right for actually discovering jet propulsion.

Oh dear.

The sun shone brightly over a deep greenish sea. A seagull flew across what had once represented a local fish seller. It was what remained of a bleak building. A meagre construction of boards as thin as cardboard, painted cream white. A sign telling of times gone by, about cod at 30 cents an ounce. A little fish trapped in a puddle after the tide withdrew tried and tried but failed to get away from the beak of a gull searching for food. There, nature for you. There is nothing fair or unfair in eat or be eaten, it's just nature’s way. And while a little fish was eaten by a seagull, on a whole different note there was a little dog walking serenely beside its master, then suddenly it started yelping away, trying but failing to get away from the bookshelf it saw descending from the window on third floor on Bergsgatan in Stockholm from which it was thrown by a South African gangster.

Those who read book one in this mad story know it was from Elvis’ apartment the bookshelf was thrown. Be that as it may. On Cardigan m2 people were a tad sad about Rupert Gargamel Bendix’ early demise. Many inhabitants walked about with tiny paper hats balancing on top of their cone shaped heads. It was a peculiar tradition on the little planetoid. Sadness and sorrow was displayed by the wearing of paper hats. Some of the local book stores made quite a nice little profit on the side selling said paper hats. Yellow. Or turquoise. Well, those were the most popular colours. Moreover; it was considered bad taste to look at a person one met on a sidewalk if the person being met wore a sad hat. Therefore people always carried a blank sheet of ordinary A4 printer paper to be held in a fashion hiding the sad hatter. This was clever indeed, though it brought with it some inconveniences, such as for example the fact that some of the ‘carriers’ failed to note obstacles in their path and stumbled and fell over after passing the hatter. In this connection it might be noted that the dwellers of Cardigan m2 had paper thin skull bone. Their cranium was thin as a birch leaf. Needless to say this resulted in many many casualties. For this reason the department of street scrapers had been installed by local authorities. Street scrapers were recognised by the green overalls they wore, and their rubber scrapes used to push remnants of dwellers having crashed and smashed their paper skulls. Scrapers were considered the lowliest of people. They had no friends. They lived in a society on the outskirts of town. People said they smelled bad. They were forced to at all times carry a dead herring about in a particularly nasty fashion. This, of course, so people could distinguish them by nostril. So to say.

In the meantime a young lad, one of the Cardigan Barnes’, Young Erroll Corderoy, was playing with his tech things in his father’s garage. He experimented with various forms of flammable liquids just for fun. During one of his experiments he accidentally made a tube fly through the wall and out into the street. A lady passing by walking a little dog was hit over the head by a flying tube. Needless to say said lady ceased to be among the living. Her name was Edna Meadow Bibbs. She was one of the few remaining heirs to the elderly and feeble minded Herman casserole Bibbs. Her little dog, the nasty ‘Biff’, was a poodle if ever there was one. Now, a person in the know may say that in fact the were no poodles on Cardigan m2. In saying so this person would indeed be right. Biff was not a poodle per se. Biff was the closest to a poodle without actually being a poodle there had ever been and, indeed, would ever be on Cardigan m2.

There.

Time passes

More time passes

After what would here on earth (if earth is where you are, dear reader. Otherwise simply disregard this passage. Or adapt the wording to fit your situation...) be regarded a substantial amount of time. actually some thirteen years, young Erroll Corderoy had grown up to become what we call a 'geek'. meaning he never got the girl at dances, he was always the last to be picked out for cricket, he spent his leisurely hours reading about the origin of the universe. He also, it should be noted, spent countless hours developing the rocket engine. the source of thrust and propulsion which was sorely needed for his species though thin skulled to reach outer space. The basic idea arose from the flying tube that ended the life of an innocent elderly lady as it flew murderously, with complete lack of compassion, through Cardigan m2's thin and very dry atmosphere. The rumour of the talented youngster reached the central bureau of technical development when our by that time 17 years old friend won a gold medal in a competition for high school kids wanting to go for a future in tech or computing. Erroll Corderoy received a letter from the bureau inviting him to develop his ideas at their central facility.    "Yes." Said Erroll. "I knew it."

Erroll would have his own lab and a nice desk with a personal stamp and coffee cup. There would also be a laptop on the desk, and a sign with his name printed in smooth and friendly letters on it. This desk would be Erroll's home for a number of years. Between you and I, Erroll would also ask his future wife – Agatha Wordenskjold - if she wanted to get a joint income declaration account with him at this very desk. She was an economist with the bureau, and had had several on the verge of intimate meetings with Erroll discussing funding and development locations for his project. She said yes. Maybe she didn't know what she was doing, or perhaps they were as good a match as Erroll thought they would be from the first time he saw her fold her paper napkin carefully before wiping excess coffee off from her blue lips. Later on the couple with the paper thin skulls would be part of the same crew leaving Cardigan m2 for an attempt at reaching a galaxy far, far away. The galaxy they tried to reach was our home in eternity, the galaxy known to us as the Milky Way. The Cardigans didn't know what milk was, or a way, they transported mainly on sidewalks. They called the sidewalks 'Brux'. They called the galaxy 'Berrthigh 37'. The vehicle, rocket, spaceship transporting Erroll, Agatha and 29 other Cardigans was not built to travel across the infinity of outer space. It had the capacity to roar through space for 3 days, 2 hours and 32 minutes. Which is exactly what it did. then it coughed lightly, shook a bit and rolled over to rest on its back like the dead whale it was. Space travelers would pass the wreck, the whale, thousands of years later. The ship would become a tourist attraction. Indeed, there would be huge signs floating about within close proximity of the old hull. Cruisers on their way to the lesser Magellan Clouds would make it their business to go off route to be able to offer a glimpse of one of the saddest mistakes in the history of existence as such.

There, if that doesn't make you worried I don't know what it might take.

Chapter 4

In the meantime at a cafè in Milano a couple sat drinking caffè and holding hands. They looked at each other and there was warmth in the afternoon air.    “Come uno.” Elvis smiled and felt the sweet sensation of two merging spirits. Muffled voices from the outside. A cat walking by, looking at the waste paper basket by the door. A paper napkin fell to the floor, the cat was on it like one of its relatives on a wildebeest in Serengeti, Africa. The cat broke the napkin’s neck and bit to choke it. The napkin gave up. A victorious hunter took its victim and walked proudly displaying it along the pavement.    “Come uno.” Chlôe looked into his eyes and tried to sink deeper into that blue grey hue. To enter the northern spirit, as she used to say. There were communication even though they remained silent. Bytes of information flowing between their eyes. From blue to dark brown. From dark brown back to blue. The mix was warm  and sweet. Like dark coffee. A cup of Kembe.    “There has been an intruder into the London room.” Elvis scratched his neck.    “What, is anything missing?”    “Yes, our manuscript and a notebook with some important information.” He looked worried.    “The manuscript is ok, I have a backup, but the notebook with contacts and addresses. A bit worrying. The man in Venetia, I shall have to contact the office in Antwerp again.”    “Aah, si, then I understand. The man with the first edition of Salvado. Will we go to the Sicilian meetup?” She turned to the window, and he knew there was something more she wanted to but could not say.    “Yes, I think we have to. They have planned it for quite some time. Franck and Eve is coming, and the sale will be discussed. And we should go to your father’s cousin, Don Alessandro. You know they expect us.” Elvis put the cup down after noticing it was almost empty. ‘What a nice cup of coffee’ he thought.    “Ok, I’ll book flights and coaches.” Her eyes got that sad feel. She understood the importance of these family things, and sometimes enjoyed the meetings with la famiglia, but thoughts would inevitably roam the locations and involve the people from another time, another life. It would be nice meeting the cousins and their parents, and Palermo was always nice. She knew Elvis appreciated the island, and he enjoyed seeing people he used to meet there. People in the maintenance business, as he used to say. We know it was the weave repairmen on their Scooters, they used to have vacation in Palermo and New York, as the reader of book one in the series will merrily recall.    “If we are lucky we might run into Luigi. First degree repairman. He should be approaching Palermo on the other side in a week or so. Chlôe recollected Luigi Decarlos, the man in the blue overall riding the 150 CX. He was nice.    “That might be nice, to talk of old times.” She smiled remembering last time they met Luigi. On the outside at a filling station near a portal in Yorkshire. He had bought ice cream and coffee. The sun had been hot. The hologram depicting a serene italian countryside scene had been perfect. Being on the outside, or backside as some people said, was always fun, and since they met in Stockholm they had seen more of this world than most people ever do.

The sun had passed its highest point. People who knew understood it was all artificial. They knew it was a weave holding pixels together, and that it sometimes broke or got ripped or cut. That is when the repairmen like Luigi Decarlos and his colleagues were called in to go to the faulty pixel and fix the stitches or perform modifications. Things that would appear as storms, odd phenomena in the evening sky, or be reported as ufos by people who would be considered a bit strange, and ignored as the phenomena would never be repeated. Not in the same fashion or position. Many odd things happened on what was believed to be earth. Yes, not only on earth, in space too. You didn’t think space was real, did you? Well, it is real, but not as most people see it.

From an open window a mellow and sweet jazz was flowing. A trumpet whispering its soft and warm notes into the outside world. Theo Brenn’s ‘It never hit my mind’ hit Chlôe’s eardrums like a reminder of times long since gone. She thought of that time in Belgium, of the odd company and the african connection. Of the busride in Congo. The man in South Africa, Elvis’ father.    “Come, let’s go to the hotel and eat something.” She said. Elvis noddingly agreed and they went to the hotel on Corso Porta Romana.    “Let’s rest a few minutes before eating” He said. The corridor outside was a chaos of kids and their parents, packages filled with toys, candy and clothes. The German family down the hallway had been out shopping.

While they lay down for a while some signs of activity on the other side were noted. Sudden lights flickering and sliding along a wall here or a ceiling there. They hadn’t been on the outside for a while, but in a week, in Palermo, they would definitely do some otherworldly sightseeing. He enjoyed the thought of meeting the old repairman gang again. Jim Albertsons 'My Daisy' slipped by on its way where jazz tunes go to sleep.

But we will leave our heroes for now, to venture elsewhere in this vast and old universe. A silent man sitting on a bench in old Stockholm feeding pidgeons with poisoned bread crumbs. He giggled to himself while watching the little birds twitch and jerk as the substance in which the bread had been dipped did what it's supposed to do. He was a very unkindly type of person. His name was Rolf Bjurhager. He was a chartered accountant. His main purpose was to handle monetary transactions. He had developed a very cruel personality. In short: he was the kind of person who might steal a retired bus driver’s cheese. Actually, once he borrowed a book at a library without even planning on returning it.

'Why are we discussing this man?' I hear the observant reader ask himself. Well, fear not. I shall reveal his part in the sad plot eventually resulting in this novel. The man, Rolf, walked to his apartment after poisoning some innocent birds. A dark and evil shadow approached from the east. It was singing ‘Venice On My Mind’. Rolf Bjurhager started crying. He always did this when hearing that particular tune. Saxophones and tambourines were doing their thing. A blackbird chirped and knocked at a window in the room Rolf Bjurhager called his ’office’. It was a tiny room facing Dalagatan just off the crossing at Odengatan, Vasastan. Bjurhager hit the window frame with his ruler. The ruler was a wooden one he had inherited from his uncle Ephrem Sanders, Esq. Rolf laughed at the terrified bird taking off for safer pastures. He held the ruler, a ’Sandringham B4/0.5’. ’What a marvelous construction’ he thought to himself. He looked at the metal strip reinforcing the measure edge. ’Such precision, refinery, such I don’t know what.’ He was in heaven. The only thing he would enjoy more was a new hole puncher. Well, not new per se, new to him. He had a Wilberforce Cuttinger 37, the light blue metal model from 1929. He loved it, it had just that little extra that would make a person of Rolf Bjurhager’s specifications go nuts and spend a month’s salary on acquiring. It had served him fine for years and years, but lately it had started feeling a bit shaky. The precisely adjusted fit of the punch was a bit loose. He could not measure it but he instinctively knew the holes it punched were a bit off. They had started migrating about on the papers. Sad story indeed. So the interested reader might understand how pressing the need for a new hole puncher had recently become.    ”I wonder if I should venture towards the office utilities purveyor around the corner?” he serenely asked himself. The question was of course rhetorical. He would indeed take the nice walk down to ’Gentleman’s Corner’. Said and done, after consulting his clock and noting he had 45 minutes to spare he sipped his single shot of Kembe espresso and brushed his brown loafers for a discrete walk downstairs. Outside his door he noted a tiny envelope lay strewn about. ’Mr R. Bjurhager’. ’Strange’ he thought, picked it up and distractedly put it in his pocket. It would have to wait until later, ’perhaps at about half three in the afternoon’ he thought. He locked his door and turned to walk down the stairs.    ”Oh, mr Bjurhager, good!”

Rolf turned and saw the source of the words. It was none other than the caretaker’s wife, mrs Berner. He felt a chill to his spine and prepared to start ignoring everything for the next five minutes.    ”Yes, you must excuse me, I am in a bit of a…”    ”Nevermind, I just have to tell you about the new couple in apartment 43, the young couple with the dog, you know…” the caretaker’s wife was now very close to Rolf, who had feared this. ’The woman must brush her teeth with sardines’ he thought.    ”I am sorry mrs Berner, but you shall have to excuse me, I must dash. Meeting…” Rolf saw she was disappointed but started moving towards the flight of stairs. She looked sadly at the disappearing mr Bjurhager and shouted;