The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities

This time, the apparatus was back in minutes, rocking crazily and empty of most supplies. A crazed and battered Wolt, his clothing in shreds, fell from the gigantic bell and reeled to the rail of the crypt, mouthing a single word: “Shamalung.” And that was all. Next, he seemed to remind himself of something and, reaching into the jar, clambered back aboard the machine. He pulled two levers, then waved from the apparatus as it disappeared on another journey down the dimensions. The two observers were at a loss to control what was happening.

But the next time it returned, it came bearing a different passenger successfully up through stage five and four, and made it shakily through three before jamming at two, showing a small Orlando Bannister, brass crucifix in one hand, a Bible lying on the surrounds of the ruined electrics next to some loose notes,¹ as if from a book,² and a small Portable Harmonium, which, on further inspection, proved to be a perfect working model. The figure of Bannister appeared to be made of a very heavy metal, so far unidentified, and was exquisitely carved, impossible to tell from its original.

Tesla and the others knew exactly what had happened, realising the effect of repeated atomic shifts on a living creature, especially a creature of Bannister’s venerable years. His atoms had atrophied, as the few knowledgeable scientists of the day described the process. What was a lifelike statue to the world, was really the last remains of a brilliant scientific mind and a man of almost childlike faith in the workings of his Maker. The apparatus was eventually dismantled, after Tesla and Frieze-Botham had worked for almost a year attempting to reverse time and to rescue Wolt, but it was as if, said Frieze-Botham, growing increasingly spiritual, the Almighty had made it clear that these experiments, however innocent and moved by faith, were to cease.

To this day, people interested in such things continue to debate the meaning of the word “Shamalung,” but, as yet, no credible interpretation has been offered. It could be from any one of millions of microbe languages.

ENDNOTES

1. Subsequently much enlarged, each a perfect page of writing, sadly not sequential, in OB’s hand.

2. See above.

Pulvadmonitor: The Dust’s Warning

Researched and Documented by China Miéville

British Dental Association Museum

64 Wimpole Street, London

Xanthe Serkis (British, 1903–1953), Thomas Thomas (British, 1890–1964)

Pulvadmonitor; the Dust’s Warning (c. 1937–1952, 1952–1986)

Glass, wood, brass, leather, wire, mechanisms, dentures, dust

Undocumented (twice)

To be discovered is the task and telos of an artefact. Its historic mission is to be born, midwifed into the light like any other whelp, pulled out of the earth or delivered from a long-forgotten cupboard womb. It dies when it is born, of course: and its post-birth duties in the museum where we trap it are an afterlife in a most literal sense, and as drab, doubtless, as quotidianly dull as the afterlives that await us. It is best to avoid consideration of what it is we commit when we investigate: curation is an unkindness we perpetrate against objects and we must hope their revenge is endlessly deferred. After all, we must do it. To be themselves, all artefact are born once.

—THACKERY T. LAMBSHEAD, “THE VIOLENT PHILOSOPHY OF THE ARCHIVE”

when because it comes and

what may we say among those things

shall not be if we have shame enough for truth

that we were not warned

—UNKNOWN, “ODE TO EVERYTHING”

1. The Second Birth