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Time eunuchs

August 01 2026
© Chris Bird © Chris Bird

Another ludicrous time-travelling misadventure featuring O’Haggis, the wacky sleuth invented by Chris Sampson

A balding Rasta with a dreadlock comb-over didn’t give The Museum of Puddles a second glance as he hobbled past. But I was intrigued. “Featuring the World’s Oldest Puddle!” the signage boasted. I was in 2107 London on a top secret mission to find [Redacted: it’s top secret, so you’re not allowed to know!], but thought I’d have a look around the locale.
I entered the building and my eyes drank in the exhibits. The Oldest Puddle was cordoned off by a velvet rope, like a VIP area.

“Well,” I muttered drily. “That looks impressive!”

“That’s right,” said a sidling figure suddenly beside me. “It’s been in situ since 1471, before Columbus set sail for the New World.”

“Hmm,” I emitted. “Are you sure it’s not just a well?”

“Eh?” he blustered. “Oh, yes. Now you say it, it seems obvious. Damn! There goes our star exhibit!”    

“You’re the curator here?”

“Oh, yes!” he beamed. “Oblong Hoolahong at your service!!”

“Sorry, your name is Oblong? Who’s your brother? Dodecahedron?”

“Yes. What? It’s the future. You can’t expect everyone to be called Linda or Jeremy forever like in your era. Names have evolved. Don’t be so 21st century-centred!”

“Hmm. Museums have evolved, too, it seems. How do you know I’m not from this era?”

“Oh, you’re O’Haggis,” he snorted. “Everyone knows that! The Eunuchs tell everyone to look out for you.”

“Sorry, The Eunuchs?”

“Yes,” he tutted. “You know, the Time Eunuchs. You don’t mean to tell me you’ve never come across them yet during your temporal adventures.”

“Misadventures,” I corrected. “But no, I’ve not had the pleasure as yet.”

“Pleasure’s not the right word,” he chuckled. “They’ve got a bone to pick with you,” he taunted.

“Let’s hope it’s a funny bone,” I muttered.

“I doubt it,” he smirked.

I exited, throwing a final glance at the collection of prize puddles.

The next door building was a shop selling leather toilet paper, claiming it could be washed and reused for a lifetime. Hmm. Not the sort of lifetime I’d love, I thought.

Next door to that establishment was a company advertised as a Futilities Company. Well, some say life is futile. But it’s better than the alternative, so let’s soldier on, eh?

I next saw a firm of solicitors, with the ungainly name of Beak, Wyatt, Yew, Noyes, Eek-Hunt and Begone. They dealt largely with disputes concerning anti-social neighbours, I gathered from their strapline. A Ms Wyatt emerged to serve me with a writ.

“Eh? What’s this for?”

“You’re from the 21st century,” she explained coolly.    

“Yes. What of it?”

“Well, your century adjoins ours, the 22nd, and yours has been very noisy and anti-social.  

"And quite frankly, we’re sick of it. Hence the writ. You clutter up our history with noisy idiots and pollute our past. You’ve got until 2031 to remove Trump, Putin, Netanyahu and Michael McIntyre, or else!”

“Or else what?”

“We’ll invade, of course!”

“Invade? You mean your century will invade mine?”    

“And remove the aforementioned figures from our past, yes. Why? Are you fond of any of them?”

“You must be joking! But you can’t just murder them.”

“Murder?” she quote [What? Too good for puns, are you?]. “No, don’t judge us by your era’s disgusting standards.”

“Well, what then?”

“We time-nap the infamous and relocate them in an era where they hold no power and can do no harm. Pre-Inca Central America, for instance. Trump would make a nice village idiot, don’t you think? Babbling and boasting about his supposed achievements, instead of causing a racket through history with his dumb-assery.”

She had a point. “But what about Farage? Shouldn’t he be relocated, too, before he causes any more problems?”

“Oh, we’re making plans for Nigel,” she said.

“Wasn’t that a song?” I wondered aloud.

“Yes, by XTC, 1979. The 20th century. As for that horrendous epoch, we’d have to remove almost everyone to clean it up!”

“Hmm, Noel Edmonds,” I muttered. “Yes, I see your point.”

But anyway, why was she serving me with the writ?    

She looked at me pityingly, as if it should be obvious. “You’re a Time Traveller, aren’t you? So, you can take the writ back to your grubby little century and issue the ultimatum to your leaders.”

“How come everyone here seems to know who I am?”

She rolled her eyes. “The people and events of the 21st century are documented, so that we in the 22nd know who was who and what was what.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “So, are you one of the Eunuchs?”

Bad move. “What?!?” she thundered. “How dare you, you scabby little –”    

“Shh!” I grinned. “Keep the noise down.”

Another bad move. Before you could say uj-manki-wolloph-a-bwunqi, she summoned some surly guards and I was temporally relocated to Doggerland, in the 4th Century, BCE.

Coincidentally, uj-manki-wolloph-a-bwunqi was what the Doggers [no, not what you’re thinking] said in way of greeting. Doggerland once connected Britain to mainland Europe before sea levels rose. Shame. If we’d stayed attached, then there would have been no Brexit fiasco costing us billions of pounds per year…

To be furthermored…

< Together, alone Bring the heat >
August – September 2026 : Here and now

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