Free The Smell of Telescopes by Rhys Hughes

demonstrate this analytical engine here. It is an early type of computer and can be programmed to perform a large body of functions, such as writing telegrams.”
    “How dare you talk of bodily functions in my presence?”
    “No ruler can afford to be without one.”
    “I am busy! Take it away!”

    Tears in the palace. A silver ring taken from a box, lovingly pressed to lips. “Once I was your barrel of sauerkraut. You whispered to me, ‘Liebe Kleine. Ich habe dich so lieb, ich kann nicht sagen wie’ , and I presumed you were asking to visit the bathroom. But now you are gone. And my life has become a telegram without news.”

    “You sent for me, your majesty?” 
    “Yes, Prime Minister. We have a problem. The tradition of sending telegrams to everything is one hundred years old.”
    “Then you must send a telegram to the tradition.”
    “But how? How can one send a telegram to a tradition? Who can carry it? Where will they go? I am bewildered.”
    “You must try, ma’am! You must try!”
    The Queen tries:

    Dear Tradition,
    Congratulations on reaching the centenary of being yourself.
         Best wishes,
           The Queen.

    No, it is too absurd. Something must be done. The law will have to be altered so that only old people receive telegrams, not everything. A secret bill must be passed.
    The Prime Minister weeps at the thought of change.

    A dream: a world where inanimate objects can rest in peace. Unemployed agents race nowhere in automobiles. Paradise! But a cloud looms on the horizon, cooling the idyll. There will still be much work to do. Wines, books, spoons, piers, guitars, floods, hearths, stables, gutters, pots, vendettas, crotchets, cuffs, doors, accidents, comets—these and many other items have been set free, but the population is increasing at an exponential rate. What if people come to outnumber things? How can this be avoided? Only a war, the like of which has never been imagined. That will stall the trend. But with whom? 
    On nights when the silver ring was kept in its box, Prince Albert gave her children. And these children have also produced children. One is named Wilhelm. Machine-guns, gas.

    We are not amused.

Depressurised Ghost Story

    My soul lives on a ledge. I have always been a climber: my first conquest was the north face of our family home in Colchester. Alarmed by the sight of her only child scrabbling among the ivy, my mother rushed out and held her apron to catch me. But I succeeded in gaining the highest chimney and remained there until starvation compelled me to descend to my punishment, which turned out to be more hunger—I was exiled to bed. Always prudent, my father nailed my window shut, but I spent an intrepid night clambering over the precipitous furniture. 
    Later, at Eton, I forsook lessons to begin a passionate relationship with the gables and turrets of the college buildings. At this time, I was introduced to the telling of ghost tales, courtesy of our Provost. Though untroubled by his morbid fables and anecdotes, I never became a confirmed sceptic of the paranormal. My fellow pupils exchanged the Provost’s tombic romances like farthings, but I was simply uninterested in anything which could not be scaled and it seemed unlikely a spectre would afford a grip for boots, even those fitted with crampons.
    After my wholly inadequate schooling, I attended university to study engineering. I excelled at mathematics whenever a quantity had to rise up the gradient of a steep formula; the rest of the time my failures were as immense and unlikely as a glacier. My tutor chided me one afternoon: “You have the loftiest intentions, but they reside in your feet.” Over my door I fixed an ice-axe, a symbol of reality cooler than any abstract logic. I was not alone; other acrophiliac students joined me in expeditions around the dour peaks and chalk cliffs.
    I graduated with a poor degree and immediately started out on a life above the clouds. First I wandered over the