4. Polish punchline

Nobbi conjured up an imaginary football to toss at Icon.

“How long have you been hanging up here?” he asked.

Icon made to return the football to Nobbi — but decided to hold onto it.

“Oh, you weren’t yet even a human soul when I finished my final incarnation,” Icon told him.

The answer surprised Nobbi.

“But I thought you were only in the very early stages of your post-incarnation training,” he said.

“You’ll find everything goes very slowly up here,” said Icon. “That’s why it’s important to find ways to amuse yourself. One can sit here for eons twiddling ones thumbs waiting for something to happen.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t just keep incarnating for eternity — like everyone else.”

The blue light which illuminated their section of the dark space started to pulsate slowly — and both of them felt a slight twinge of panic.

“I guess that’s not good,” said Nobbi.

Icon returned the football.

“There are some discussions that are not looked upon favorably,” Icon explained, “and are best never started.”

“Man, this is taking some getting used to,” said Nobbi. “I just can’t believe I never get to live down there again — ever! And that I’m going to be Nobbi, with this goofy hair, for the rest of eternity.”

“The goofy hair suits you,” Icon remarked. “Just like these big teeth suit me.”

Icon grinned and the blue light settled down.

“Why did my mentor pick you for me to shadow?” asked Nobbi.

“Oh, you’ll get to shadow plenty of others,” Icon assured him. “I really think she just thought you’d have fun hanging out with me to start. There’s no reason to hurry up here. All the time in the universe.”

Nobbi cracked a smile and made to throw the football back at Icon — a little harder this time. But Icon’s thoughts intercepted the ball, made it do a U-turn, and then whizz past Nobbi’s head, grazing it at a whisker’s distance before disappearing. Nobbi ducked out of the way rather fast and ended up in an ungraceful somersault.

Nobbi righted himself and grinned sheepishly.

“I guess there’s no reason to do that really, is there?”

“That will take a bit of getting used to,” said Icon. “Your reactions are still conditioned to the material plane — where ducking out of the path of a fast-moving object is rather advisable. Now get the ball back and throw it at me again — just like you would normally on the football field. I’ll back up so you can throw it deep.”

Nobbi conjured up another ball and threw it to Icon. But Icon just folded his arms and calmly watched the ball fly towards him and stop just in front of his face before it disappeared.

“You can use your mind to make the ball do what you want,” he explained. “Of course, you can let it hit you if you want. That’s sometimes good for comic amusement when you have an audience — and your mind can control how much it hurts. Not that it has to hurt.”

“Then why would you make it hurt?” asked Nobbi.

“Beats the heck out of me,” said Icon, shrugging his shoulders as he made his way back to Nobbi. “Surely we saw enough hurt and pain in our lives down there. But there are some real wackos up here. And they sometimes have competitions to see who can stand the most pain.”

Nobbi looked both worried and baffled.

“You don’t have to get involved in any games like that,” Icon assured him. “But there are times when the ability to endure intense pain is useful — so those with a fetish for such stuff are encouraged to play for practice.”

“But you just clown around?”

Icon pretended to look hurt.

“Look, some of the stuff I do matters — occasionally. There’s purpose in every single possible thing a human might do. You’re very lucky no one witnessed your little somersault. When I do something daft, an audience usually swoops in to laugh at me. And you saw some of their antics that day you arrived.”

“It’s all just play up here isn’t it?” said Nobbi.

Icon produced three juggling balls and made a show of juggling effortlessly, his mind keeping the balls circulating in time with his hands. Then he took his eyes off them to address Nobbi — and the balls disappeared.

“With enough practice,” Icon explained, “I should be able to do the juggling trick while maintaining eye contact and conversation with another person.”

Without announcement, or invitation, two unknown guides appeared and demonstrated. They joked about the cluelessness of neophyte guides while together they juggled not only balls, but football helmets, whiskey bottles, garbage cans, wheelbarrows, and for a few rounds during which they had to pull back from each other, the ubiquitous Volkswagen Beetle — after which they promptly vanished.

Nobbi applauded with delight.

“Now THAT was cool! And very impressive! But I don’t see how that could ever be useful down there — on an Earth.”

“We no longer interact physically with the material world,” Icon reminded him. “We have to use our minds to make things happen. And sometimes we need to be able to manage more than one thing at a time. This is just a fun way to practice. But it doesn’t have to be juggling. Some guides like to play billiards — and sink shots while holding a conversation. Basically, you just need to be able to keep the motions going while you are conversing.”

Nobbi and Icon enjoyed a few moments following the hilarious interruption.

“Nobbi, do you realize that ten percent of the population of Edinburgh are Polish?”

Nobbi laughed in surprise. He was still flabbergasted at the way Icon moved on to a new subject without notice. But he was learning to just go along with whatever Icon suggested.

“Where is Edinburgh?” he asked. “And what is polish?”

Icon projected a map of Europe.

“Edinburgh is the capital of Scotland,” he said, pointing at the northern part of the island of Great Britain. “And Poland is a country on the European mainland. It comes and goes — does Poland. Gets bigger. Gets smaller. Sometimes even disappears from the map altogether. But the Polish people know who they are — and so does everyone else. They have their own language. And they’re great fun!”

“What are they doing in Scotland?”

“Long story,” said Icon.

“Oh dear,” said Nobbi with a sigh. “You have a way of making a short story long. How in heck are you gonna tell a long story?”

Icon conjured up a newspaper, rolled it up, and then whacked Nobbi hard on the head with it. Nobbi winced and instinctively put up has arms to protect his head — but stopped himself and let Icon hit him. He was surprised and happy to find out that it didn’t hurt.

“Hey! I think I’m getting this!”

“It’s not hard,” said Icon. “Now you hit me with it.”

Nobbi went at Icon enthusiastically with the rolled-up newspaper. He repeatedly hit Icon over the head while Icon just smiled back at him, never flinching in the slightest. Nobbi eventually became bored and tossed the newspaper.

Icon summoned two folding chairs and beckoned Nobbi to take a seat.

“I don’t get this sitting down business,” said Nobbi. “We never get physically tired so why do we need to sit down?”

“Sitting in chairs is a way of getting us to calm down and be attentive,” Icon explained. “It’s really helpful when working in a group. Those not actively participating in the moment learn to take a seat — then it’s obvious who’s playing the game and who’s not. Was it fun hitting me?”

“For a bit,” said Nobbi, a little surprised at the question. “But the smug look on your face was unnerving.”

“Good,” said Icon. “I’ve been working hard on that smug look. It might come in handy one day — when I get to manifest down there — on an Earth — if someone decides to beat me up. But in the meantime, we have something important to consider.”

“What’s that?”

“That ten percent of the population of Edinburgh are Polish!!” yelled Icon.

“Why does that matter?” asked Nobbi.

“Because Edinburgh just happens to be home to one of the largest arts festival on that Earth,” said Icon. “Comedy is a big part of that — and I have the perfect punchline for a joke.”

“Howdzit go?”

Icon stood up and pretended to straighten and imaginary neck tie.

“And it didn’t help that everyone was speaking Polish!”

There was no reaction from Nobbi. He just stroked the designer stubble on his chin and shook his head at Icon. Nobbi was beginning to enjoy not having to do maintenance work on his facial hair.

“You don’t find that funny?” asked Icon, looking rather crushed.

“Well give me a chance man,” said Nobbi. “A little while ago, I had no idea of the where/what/why of Polish.”

“Trust me,” Icon begged. “It’s funny.”

“So how does the joke go?” asked Nobbi.

Icon leaned forward, wrung his hands and blew on them. He motioned Nobbi to come closer.

“I haven’t written it yet,” he confessed with an impish smile.