Absalom
“Willie? Are you here?” Klaymen’s head poked into Big Robot Bil’s chest.“Klaymeeen!” Willie Trombone yelled happily from the inside. “Good to see you!”
Klaymen returned Willie’s embrace. “Good to see you too. Will you come with me?”
“Sure,” Willie beamed. He jumped out of Bil’s chest. “Bye bye, Bil!” he waved at the giant robot.
A greeting of “Me Bil,” echoed in Bil’s chest. The robot straightened, bringing this chest window up from the ledge where Klaymen and Willie were standing and high into the air. He waved at them and Willie and Klaymen waved back.
Willie grabbed his friend’s hand and they began walking. Klaymen listened to Willie’s blabber with a smile on his face. They passed under the Cathead Mountain (“Me Willie!” Willie shouted in the tunnel, overjoyed that his voice resounded in the mountain) and they used the teleporter to beam themselves up to the Pin Island.
Willie leaned against the short wall that skirted the island, while Klaymen pulled a sandwich out of his chest compartment and offered it to Willie.
“Willie happy,” the hoophead exclaimed, biting off half of the sandwich. Then he returned it to Klaymen.
After the two shared the sandwich, they watched the Neverhood below them.
“Look! Hoborg make a fountain,” Willie pointed at the North Plane.
“Klester’s playing with the Cannon,” Klaymen said.
“Boom!” Willie hollered.
“Boom,” Klaymen echoed. “Boom…” His eyes rested on a circular hole next to his elbow. He traced it with a finger, appearing pensive.
“What Klaymen think about?” Willie asked.
“Old times,” Klaymen answered.
Willie nodded his head. Old times were what they called the times before Klaymen saved the Neverhood. It was a few weeks of Klaymen’s life and a few years of Willie’s. It was a subject they often talked about, even though the old times had ended three years ago.
“Pull, Klaymen, pull,” Klaymen whispered to himself, remembering the pin that, in this very hole, used to hold the Neverhood apart.
Willie stuck his yellow finger in the hole, trying to reach its bottom. “Very deep,” he acknowledged. “Was it hard, pull out?”
“Yes,” Klaymen said. He eyed the spiked bridge to the Castle to his left. “Boom,” he murmured, remembering the cannon ball that killed Big Robot Bil there and sent Willie falling down from the Neverhood. “Boom,” he remembered another cannon ball, the one that threw Klogg through a wall and into the black emptiness behind it. “Boom,” he remembered Bil’s charred head. It was him, Klaymen the saviour, who shot the head off of Willie’s best friend.
He had apologised to Bil. The robot wasn’t angry. He just patted Klaymen’s back (knocking him to the ground) and said “me Bil”, as if that was the past.
“Klaymen boom too many,” Willie observed. “In old times, Willie sit in the Cathead Mountain. And he hear, boom! Boom! Boom! Klaymen shoot very many.”
Klaymen smiled. On his quest, he hadn’t noticed that there were cannon coordinates in the Hall of Records at all. So naturally, there came a time when he didn’t have a clue at how to go on. He wandered the Neverhood for two weeks, desperately searching for something he’d overlooked. He studied the Hall of Records carefully. He watched the moving carving on the wall in its cellar dozens of times, thinking.
Klaymen recalled his train of thoughts. The cannon looked like the one on the Neverhood. But were there any giant robots? The Hall of Records said that Big Robot Bil lived here. But where? At that time, the Castle was the only part of the Neverhood that Klaymen hadn’t explored. When he looked at it from afar, it seemed big enough to contain a huge robot. Maybe Klogg kept Bil there? Maybe he had seen the moving carving and decided to hide him?
Klaymen sighed. He had been so engrossed in the moving carving and the text in the Hall of Records that he didn’t turn the light off anymore. Which meant no cannon coordinates. Which meant many hours of combining symbols and shooting, shooting, shooting…
“Boom,” Klaymen murmured again.
In the end, he got the bright idea to ask Willie for help. The hoophead was hiding high in the Cathead Mountain. Klaymen found no way up. And apparently, there was no way down either. Klaymen smiled as he remembered calling Willie. Willie didn’t hear him well, but somehow he figured out that Klaymen wanted a plant pot. Of course, there’s no use for a broken plant pot, so Willie tried to throw all of his pots directly on Klaymen’s head, so that it would soften the fall. Then he ran out of plant pots.
“Where is Big Robot Bil?” Klaymen shouted, beginning to feel distressed.
“Me have no more,” Willie answered, also feeling distressed.
Finally Klaymen’s question reached Willie’s ears. The hoophead pointed directly in front of him. “There!” he said.
“There’s only a green wall!” Klaymen told him. But Willie was adamant. Big Robot Bil was behind that wall, he said. He saw him from his vantage point.
Once Klaymen discovered the correct combination of cannon coordinates, everything went so fast. Bil was set to right, they saved Willie from the purple weasel and Klaymen and Willie finally met. Bil headed right to the Castle. Klaymen barely had time to ask “what’s your name” before the Clockwork Beast was activated. Willie passed out… And the next time Klaymen heard the hoophead’s voice, Willie was falling away from the Neverhood inside his beloved dying friend’s chest.
“Klaymen sad,” Willie said, pulling Klaymen out of his reverie.
“No,” the Hoodian denied it. “Just… broody.”
“Klaymen cry,” Willie told him, pointing to his face. Klaymen touched his eyes. They were wet.
“Klaymen no cry,” Willie said, wiping his friend’s tears away with his palm. “All good now.”
Klaymen stared at Willie’s sympathetic expression. Then he pulled him into a hug.
“All good now,” Willie kept repeating, patting Klaymen’s back. “Klogg is gone, Hoborg is king. Klaymen is hero. Willie is alive.”
At the last sentence, Klaymen flinched and held Willie tighter.
“I was very lonely,” he said, voice constricted with sadness.
Willie nodded. “Willie know. Klaymen have nobody. When Klaymen see Willie on the disks, he cry.” Willie took Klaymen’s face in his hands. “But Willie is here now. Cry no more.”
Klaymen nodded and sighed unhappily. “I just keep remembering everything. I remember thinking that you died to give me a chance to go on. And then thinking that it was my mistake. That I should have woken you up and had you jump out of Bil before I did…”
Willie shook his head and frowned. “Klaymen too serious.”
Klaymen shrugged. “I was born to save the Neverhood. That’s some responsibility.”
“Klaymen should play,” Willie stated. “The Neverhood is a game. Klaymen should play it.”
Klaymen chuckled and let go of Willie. “You call this world a game?” he said, peering over the edge of the island. Suddenly Willie grabbed him by the shoulders and turned Klaymen to face his big joyful eyes.
“Klaymen play Absalom with Willie!” Willie chirped.
“Absalom?” Klaymen repeated. “Wasn’t that in one of your letters, ‘hang me from a tree by my hoop so I can play “Absalom”.’?”
“Yes!” Willie beamed. “Absalom is a game that Willie play with brothers. Ottoborg brothers,” he clarified. “Come, let’s find a tree!”
They found a suitable tree between the Cathead Mountain and Bil’s pit. Klaymen pulled a bundle of green leaves off its branch and Willie backed up to the tree so that the branch would slip through his hoop. Klaymen pushed the crumpled leaves back onto the branch and said: “What now?”
“Now we play,” Willie grinned. “Willie explain the rules.”
The rules were simple. If someone was sad because he had secrets, he would find a hoophead and ask him to play Absalom. The hoophead would be hung by the hoop so that he couldn’t run away. Then, that someone would tell the hoophead whatever secrets he had. The hoophead would say “Absalom” and that would mean that the secrets were let free and they didn’t have to make that someone sad anymore.
Klaymen contemplated this for a long time. “Secrets?” he muttered. “I don’t have any secrets before you, Willie. I tell you everything.”
“Klaymen is sad because of old times,” Willie encouraged him. “That means he have secrets. Klaymen tell Willie and all is good.”
Klaymen shook his head slowly. “Let me think.”
“Why Klaymen cry when he remember Willie dead?” Willie prompted.
“I missed you,” Klaymen answered simply. “You were the only good being that I met. You didn’t want to eat me, hit me with a hammer or drool all over me. You helped me. You told me what to do. You even named me. I am what I am thanks to you. You planted my seed.” Klaymen cocked his head to the side, suddenly distracted. “Does that mean that you’re my father?”
“No,” Willie shook his head firmly. “Klaymen’s father is Hoborg. Willie only plant. No good at creating.”
“Huh,” Klaymen said. “What do I keep from you…” Then his eyes widened. “Oh… of course.” Klaymen smiled and looked to the ground. “That.”
“Klaymen tell,” Willie said.
“I don’t know how to say it,” Klaymen apologised.
“Then show me,” Willie prompted him.
Klaymen nodded. He leaned forward and kissed Willie.
The hoophead blushed deeply. He wrapped his arms around Klaymen and whispered:
“Absalom.”
