The World Idiot Read Online Free Page A

need me. There is no place for an incompetent in your scheme. What purpose would he serve in the great task of rebuilding the world?”
    Dr Neble chuckles.
    “Funny you should mention that,” he says. “There is a place for an incompetent. Only one, mind you. Every planet needs its idiot, just like every village. Someone to look down at, to make fun of.”
    Henry is bemused. Dr Neble smiles and adjusts his spectacles. He offers Henry his hand.
    “Congratulations. You’re in.”
    Henry recoils. Dr Neble beams down at him in a fatherly fashion. He regards Henry as the perfect man for the job. The test shows him to be a complete fool. It will be easy to tell jokes about him in the New World.
    Of course, he had guessed Henry was suitable as soon as he walked through the door.
    Who wears a tie these days?
     

Loop
     
    Well the freak show was a disaster right from the beginning... We had a week to round up as many boobies and oddballs as we could. We did not please the management. The management was not pleased. Well we did our best... We drove up to the city and pushed leaflets through letterboxes, under doors, or scattered them in profusion from our moving vehicle. The sun was bright and children were playing. We cast bravely at the crippled ones but we were travelling too fast. The nets blew back in our bawling mouths.
    Nobody responded to our leaflets, we had a poor response, so we picked up the telephone, many telephones (cheap rate) and contacted the asylums. I say... I mean, do you have any... Gimps only eh? Well when you’ve seen the head bitten off one chicken... So we advertised in the local paper and that was that. From miles around no one came. We chewed our fingernails. We balked.
    The day was drawing near. The management were on our backs. How were they supposed to put on a gala without freaks? Hancock, the futures tycoon, would be there; and Grimes the natural death baron. All there for the charity night. So there would be food and drink and dancing girls (cheap rate) and fountains and music and gossip and McGuire the incest comedian (“sisters run faster in Virgin County” (not cheap rate)) and Purdy Absurdy, the actress, and her latest boyfriend, Philip Pew, pedicurist to the stars and lots and lots of needy gerbils shipped over from the islands.
    So we were growing desperate. And the management was not pleased. So we took a trip to the circus and tried to kidnap Tina Wertigo, the gyroscope girl. We crept in at coma of night (one hour before dead) with torches and dark clothes and a bolas thrower from Uruguay. But she span out of our clutches and drilled an escape hole through the ground. We hurled rocks and lions after her, but nothing more was heard. We thought about following, we mulled, but decided against it, four to one.
    Well the management were on our backs and time was growing short... Our numbers would be up if we failed, divided or square-rooted to nothing. Wilson regretted that time was growing short. We could make our own freaks otherwise, he said. In jars and stunted with knotgrass and blows from an iron hammer. Newby was of the opinion that iron hammers were difficult to come by these days. Grant hinted that he knew a man who knew a man who was an ironmonger. Dalton wanted to know his rates. Cheap or not cheap? I made expansive gestures.
    The management sent us a memo. There was an ultimatum. Freaks or welfare... So we redoubled our efforts. We tripled them and mixed them with the cola of genius in the shaker of necessity. I visited the zoo and borrowed a gorilla. A quick bout of electrolysis and we had a missing link. The gorilla escaped up the chimney. Wilson tried to hire poverty-stricken drama students. Newby and Grant opted for the morgue. Dalton set fire to his hair.
    Down in the old town, lovers waltzed to clockwork gramophones and lepers lent a hand to jugglers and usurers. There were a million candles illuminating the dusk. Well we sauntered along the cobbles... Well we overwound