Chapter 4 - in which Chumba Wumba causes a disturbance

“Lost for aught? What on earth is that meant to mean?” – booms Chumba Wumba, shattering the shadowy silence of g-nome’s upper reading room, and well he might object. Trolls, as you know, are not exactly renowned for their sensitivity or empathy, and Chumba Wumba whose name means “forked lightening” in the native tongue, is no exception. Fidgy Temoral, the head librarian, sensing this to be a delicate matter requiring immediate personal assistance, scurries over to where Chumba is glowering menacingly, past several venerable g-nomers who look on as the portraits of former headmasters on the wall of a school assembly hall might.

Fidgy faces a dilemma: on the one hand to provide literary assistance to Chumba, a troll of limited emotional range who is nonetheless a respected and highly valued g-nomer, on the other to avoid incineration – the “forked lightening” part of Chumba’s name can and should be taken literally in moments of righteous indignation such as the present.

Fidgy opts for ingratiation. “Ah, I understand your concern Chumba. Josh, you see, is having a minor existential crisis and, being somewhat maudlin by nature, feels bereft... alone... lost on the wide open sea of life, particularly now that he’s beginning to experience Faery’s quantum field of material indeterminacy.”

Chumba isn’t impressed. He crackles and sparks dangerously. If there’s one thing that trolls can’t abide it’s self-indulgence or self-pity – both of which are oozing prolifically from Josh’s closing “lost to aught” remark.

“We’re bringing this kind of material into the hallowed halls of g-nome?!” Chumba splutters. “He isn’t ready. His link has crashed – look at the state he’s in.”

Fidgy takes a careful look and sees that Chumba is right – Josh’s g-nome uplink via Gill and Roger has indeed crashed as a result of the wave of self-pity that washes over him.

“Well that’s easy enough to fix,” Fidgy smiles pleasingly, reaching for the remote control.

“Fix? What’s the point? A dark night of the soul erupting from a tea cup of little depth or breadth. What has Josh to complain of? He should be singing with joy that at last he has access to Faery, that he can finally re-engage story that’s been on hold all his lacklustre life. He should be...”

“Well yes, Chumba, I know exactly what you’re getting at, but we have to assume it wasn’t Roger or Gill’s personal decision to reconnect Josh – that they were guided by Faery to do so, and that, despite appearances, he’s probably ready for this. You know what Earth humans are like – prone to melodramatics – it’ll all settle down soon enough. Always does.”

Chumba still bifurcates unconvinced, and how would you convince a troll that human emotions, though somewhat excessive, are part of our creative genius.

It’s like pathos. For one person it could be deeply touching and move them to tears, but for a troll it’s simply pathetic.

So we’re at a stalemate – story cannot proceed as long as Chumba stands like a heckler in the Globe theatre, shouting at Othello to stop being such a bloody idiot – that Desdemona didn’t do it. The fact that he's right is, of course, immaterial. Fortunately, Fidgy Temoral has both the experience and cunning needed to deal with this narrative hiccup.

It’s time to try another tack, he decides. The library is quietly rustling and signalling that it wishes order to be restored so Fidgy switches to plan B, slowly pulling a closely guarded ace from the pocket of concealment, and with a poker face of sweet innocence, he archly plays the Oneness card:

“Yes, come to think of it Chumba I agree with you. We should call Roger and Gill off the job... Josh is evidently not up to it, and yet I feel we owe it to Faery to ascertain the Oneness of this situation before doing so. It is after all our motto and belief here at g-nome that all is one in Faery – “Omnia est unum in Faeritate”. So, let’s quit talking and log in to i-story.”  

“I-story? Er...” suddenly Chumba looks flustered... troubled. Logging in to i-story will undoubtedly help his emotional development as a troll, but it’s going to feel anything but comfortable experiencing Josh’s tale from the first person perspective. “Er... good suggestion Fidgy. Unfortunately I’m hard pressed for time at the moment. It’ll require two or three hours, maybe more, for me to work through Josh’s emotional upheavals. Another time. Next week...” and Chumba meekly settles back into his comfortable leather chair and continues story from the safer 3^rd person perspective, as we now may too, unless you’d prefer to log in to i-story, in which case I’d ask you to proceed to bio-library reading room downstairs. My colleague Bryn Fennel will be happy to assist.