Moving pictures

Silverfish watched his own hand being strenuously made friends with, and grinned uncertainly.

'You are?' he ventured.

'All this-', Dibbler released Silverfish's shoulder just long enough to expansively indicate the energetic chaos around them. 'Fantastic!' he said. 'Marvellous! And that last thing of yours, what was it called now-?'

'High Jinks at the Store,' said Silverfish. 'That's the one where the thief steals the sausages and the shop-keeper chases him?'

'Yeah,' said Dibbler, his fixed smile glazing for only a second . or two before becoming truly sincere again. 'Yeah. That was. it. Amazing! True genius! A beautifully sustained metaphor!'

'That cost us nearly twenty dollars, you know,' said Silverfish, with shy pride. 'And another forty pence for the sausages, of course.'

'Amazing!' said Dibbler. 'And it must have been seen by hundreds of people, yes?'

'Thousands,' said Silverfish.

There was no analogy for Dibbler's grin now. If it had managed to be any wider, the top of his head would have fallen off.

'Thousands?' he said. 'Really? That many? And of course they all pay you, oh, how much-?'

'Oh, we just take up a collection at the moment,' said Silverfish. 'Just to cover costs while we're still in the experimental stage, you understand.' He looked down. 'I wonder,' he added, 'could you stop shaking my hand now?'

Dibbler followed his gaze. 'Of course!' he said, and let go. Silverfish's hand carried on going up and down for a while of its own accord, out of sheer muscular spasm.

Dibbler was silent for a moment, his expression that of a man in deep communion with some inner god. Then he said, 'You know, Thomas may I call you Thomas? when I saw that masterpiece I thought, Dibbler, behind all this is a creative artist-'

'-how did you know my name was-'

'-a creative artist, I thought, who should be free to pursue his muse instead of beingburdened with all the fussy details of management, am I right?'

'Well ... it's true that all this paperwork is a bit-'

'My thoughts exactly,' said Dibbler, 'and I said, Dibbler, you should go there right now and offer him your services. You know. Administrate. Take the load off his shoulders. Let him get on with what he does best, am I right? Tom?'

'I, I, I, yes, of course, it's true that my forte is really more in-'

'Right! Right!' said Dibbler. 'Tom, I accept!'

Silverfish's eyes were glassy.

'Er,' he said.

Dibbler punched him playfully on the shoulder. 'Just you show me the paperwork,' he said, 'and then you can get right out there and do whatever it is you do so well.'

'Er. Yes,' said Silverfish.

Dibbler grasped him by both arms and gave him a thousand watts of integrity.

'This is a proud moment for me,' he said hoarsely. 'I can't tell you how much this means to me. I can honestly say this is the happiest day of my life. I want you to know that. Tommy. Sincerely.'

The reverential silence was broken by a faint sniggering.

Dibbler looked around slowly. There was no-one behind them apart from a small grey mongrel dog sitting in the shade of a heap of lumber. It noticed his expression and put its head on one side.