Doughnut - By Tom Holt Page 0,125

am here. I mean, we’ve got light, heat, furniture, games. Each other,” he added, just a fraction of a second too late. “What more could anybody ask, really?”

“Max.”

“No. Forget it. I’m not going.”

“Look.”

The doorknob was turning. Max whimpered and grabbed a cushion. The door creaked, swung slowly forward, then abruptly vanished. In its place, sitting on the floor, was a jar of pickled walnuts.

“Oh,” Theo said.

Max peered out over the top of the cushion. “Has it gone?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that?”

Theo peered. “Pickled walnuts.”

“Food?”

“In a sense.” Theo frowned. “No, stay there. I need to think.”

“It’s all right, I’ll save you some.” Max was on his feet, heading for the jar.

“Max.”

“Theo, I’m hungry.”

“Sit down. I think I know…” Theo tailed off. It sort of made sense, except that it was the kind of sense that had no trace of logic about it whatsoever. “Oh come on,” he said suddenly. “It can’t be. That’s just silly.”

Max stared at him in agony. “Theo, what are you talking about?”

“That.” He waved towards the jar. “I mean, yes, it fits. But it’s so childish. And it doesn’t mean anything.”

“What?”

Theo let go the deep breath he’d been holding in. “Think about it,” he said wearily. “What’s the oldest, feeblest joke in the world?”

Max frowned. “Why did the chicken cross the road?” “The other one.” “When is a—Oh.”

“Precisely. When is a door—” The wall started to glow blue. “Not a door.”

“When it’s a—”

“Jar, yes.” Theo folded his arms and scowled. The blue door glowed and faded. “Thank you,” Theo said. “Sorry, right. When it’s a jar. Hey presto, a jar.”

“Pickled walnuts.”

“Probably just a random selection.”

“I like pickled walnuts.”

“Then it could be your subconscious mind affecting the otherwise random choice of contents, that’s not the point. It’s meaningless. It’s a stupid, boring old joke, that’s all. That’s the point.”

Max yawned. “In that case, maybe it’s part of the entertainment and leisure facilities,” he said. “Actually, that wouldn’t surprise me in the least.”

“It’s got to mean something,” Theo persisted. “Otherwise, what’s it doing here?”

Max leaned forward. “If you’re right,” he said thoughtfully, “and if the pickled walnuts are just random contents, possibly influenced by my subconscious—”

“Yes?”

“Then it won’t matter if I eat them, will it?”

Theo growled, then shook his head. “Go ahead,” he said. “Be my guest.”

“Thanks.” Max vaulted over the end of the sofa, jumped across the room and grabbed the jar. “Oh,” he said. “Shit.”

“What?”

“They’re out of date.”

“Max.”

“But you’re not supposed to—”

“Think about it, will you? Where we are? Time has no meaning here.”

Max turned the jar round slowly in his hand. “So you reckon they’re probably OK?”

“Time has no meaning.” Theo hadn’t meant to shout, particularly not a phrase that made him sound like one of those strange men who preach on street corners. He lowered his voice a little. “So,” he went on, “if we’re in, effectively, a time-free zone, why is there a date on the label?”

“It’s the law. Trading standards.”

“The jar came from somewhere else.” He rubbed his forehead with his hands as though he was trying to cold-start it. “Let’s think about this,” he said. “That stuff on the TV. You can get in here if you’re a registered YouSpace user.”

“Are there any?”

“Me. Or I was. Don’t know if I still am since the bottle got broken. Pieter, I guess, but he’s stuck on the Beach Boys planet.” He scowled ferociously; he was missing something, something really quite obvious. When is a door…?

Blue flicker, again. He ignored it and sat bolt upright. “When it’s a jar.”

“What?”

“The joke. It’s a clue.”

Max drew a deep, sad sigh. “You know,” he said, “I never could see the attraction in leaving cryptic clues. If it’s important, you run a very real risk of nobody getting it. If it’s not important, why the hell bother? Much safer just to say what you want to say; the treasure’s up in the roof, George killed me, I didn’t actually write this stuff—”

“Max.”

“All right, it’s a fucking clue. What does it mean?”

“I think—” Theo was staring at the wall where the door-that-wasn’t had been. “It’s – well, one of those things we don’t talk about. But when it’s not one of those things we don’t talk about, it’s a jar.” Suddenly he sprang to his feet, crossed the room in three giant strides and snatched the jar out of Max’s hands. “You know what this is?”

“Don’t you start.”

“I think,” Theo said, “that this isn’t a jar. It’s a bottle.”

Max frowned. “Nah. Neck’s too wide.”

“I think it’s a YouSpace bottle,” Theo said, in a