An emoji story about strength, love (it’s always about love) mathematics and ducks

This particular emoji story was built around the following: 🍻 🦆 🦾 ☦️ 🇧🇪 🫶, and it's important to know that the person who sent them to me was at the time writing a dissertation involving Penrose Tilings and some very diffcult mathematics. You might be interested to know that Penrose Tilings are beautiful and mathematical and look like this:

 and to learn that Coxeter was a brilliant mathematician (what he looked like is perhaps less important). There. That is probably enough background.

This is a tale of mistakes, embarrassment, moments of discovery and self-discovery, geometric patterns, wallpaper, beer, Sacher torte and love, and it began, as things sometimes do, with a duck called Colin.

Colin, this morning, was sitting at the breakfast table in his rather fancy duck house, in the middle of a pond that had been built many years ago by a Tory MP, in the days when Tory MP’s spent their money on that sort of thing. (Well, I say their money, actually it was everybody else’s money but as far as the Tory MP was concerned, that was a minor detail.) Colin, as it happened, was unaware of the shocking nature of the origins of his house, and was tucking into to toast and marmalade whilst reading the Duckton Times, when, from outside came a gladsome toot.

Colin flung down the newspaper, which didn’t have much to say about life anyway, and waddled to the window. (We must have a bit of a duckgression here. Colin had always dreamed of being a grand romantic hero, the sort who wore top boots and a sweeping cape, but it’s a hard look to pull off if you are a duck. He was doing his best to proceed from A to B in something approaching a stride, but I have to tell you, I’m afraid it was still a waddle.)

Anyway, back to this morning and the gladsome tooting that was going on outside. There, on the far bank was his best friend, Lady Penrose Tilings. She was at that moment jumping out of her fabulous automobile (which went by the name of Wilhelm). She jammed her goggles up on her forehead and waved. Lady Penrose was very glamorous and usually wore quantities of floaty scarves covered in geometric patterns. Today, she was nattily attired in a boiler suit (also covered in geometric patterns. These were blue and green to show that she meant business).

‘Colin!’ she shouted urgently.

‘Lady P!’ Colin shouted back, spraying toast and marmalade all over the windowsill, on account of the fact that his beak was full. (Colin’s table manners were not helping in his quest to become a romantic hero.) ‘What’s the matter?’

‘I need your help!’ replied Penrose, waving her arms about to emphasize the fact. ‘Something awful’s happened!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Colin. ‘Fear not. I shall come at once.’ And abandoning the breakfast table, he flew out of the window. The breakfast was cleared later by Edwina, a grumpy moorhen, who was his housekeeper and despaired of her employer’s slovenly ways.

Colin landed next to Wilhelm and greeted his friend with a quack. ‘OK Penrose,’ he said, duckfully. ‘Fill me in. What’s happened.’

‘Oh Colin,’ said Penrose, (a little tearfully for her.) ‘It’s Coxeter. He’s GONE!’

Colin looked bewildered. ‘Gone? But Coxeter never goes anywhere!’

‘IKR?’ exclaimed Penrose indignantly. ‘But he has.’

‘Are you sure he’s not hiding somewhere?’

‘I’ve looked everywhere! And he had so very nearly reached the end of his V.I.R! I’m worried, Colin.’ She lowered her voice. ‘I think he may have been pignapped.’

Colin gasped as the reality of this situation and its implications hit him.

‘NO!!!’ he said.

‘YES!!!’ Penrose said. ‘But, I think I may have found a clue. I think…. He may have gone to BELGIUM.’

Colin nodded sagely. ‘That’s very interesting. Tell me more.’

[Duckgression number two: Coxeter was an extremely brainy guinea pig, who occupied the top floor of Tilings Manor. He had a laboratory up there full of test tubes and bubbling flasks of things that smelled exciting, but that was just for fun and relaxation. Coxeter’s main interest was impossibly difficult mathematics, and he was currently engaged on the VIR that Lady P had referred to (Very Important Research, do keep up) which was going to sort out lots of existential problems.]

‘So what is the clue?’ asked Colin.

‘Look,’ said Penrose, and she thrust a letter at him.

Colin’s eyes darted first of all to the signature at the bottom of the page. In a flowing, dramatic script, it was instantly recognisable. ARNOLD.

‘Oh gosh!’ breathed Colin.

‘IKR?’ breathed Penrose. ‘And look at the address. It’s a brewing monastery in the Ardennes.’

‘Oh dear. It’ll be full of monks then…’ sighed Colin.

‘Possibly,’ said Penrose.

‘But what could Arnold and a bunch of monks possibly want with Coxeter?’ And Colin thought of Coxeter’s dear little whiskery face, and enormous glasses and his innate ability to look at complicated equations and draw out meaning and beauty and occasionally fireworks. There was only one thing to do.

‘Come along then,’ said Colin. He hopped onto Lady Penrose Tilings’ be-boilersuited shoulder and Lady Penrose Tilings hopped into the fabulous automobile (Wilhelm) and off they set for Dover, where unfortunately all the ferries were on strike.

Luckily for them however, Wilhelm had spent much of his youth practising to be a hovercraft, so the strike was not as disastrous as it might otherwise have been. They landed at Knokke La Zoute, had a quick moules-frites in a tomato house on the beach (no beer because Lady P was driving and Colin was being supportive) and then pointed themselves in a south-easterly direction and dashed exhilaratingly Ardennes-wards.

‘Ja Wilhelm! You are killing it!’ they shouted as the wind tousled their locks/ feathers. Wilhelm tooted as he felt that actually, he was.

‘Oh I do hope Coxeter’s alright,’ said Penrose anxiously, after a bit. Colin quacked soothing platitudes at her to calm her down. He had once spent a summer with his cousins, the Duck-billed Platitudes, and had learnt much useful psychology while he was there.

By and by, the countryside changed and became hilly and tree-y and covered in castles. The Ardennes are good at that. After a while, Colin and Lady Penrose and Wilhelm stopped, so they could talk about how they should approach the next bit of their adventure, a) not having any idea where they actually were (in a forest), and b) not having any idea of what to do when they finally got there and had to confront Arnold, who as everybody knows, is very mighty and strong and says fearsome things like ‘I’ll be back’.

Colin said, ‘I think the best thing for me to do is go and have a bit of a reccy. Will you be alright?’

Lady Penrose said she would, and she’d use the time to give Wilhelm a bit of a checking over as she felt his engine was making some strange noises. So saying, she reapplied her goggles and picked up a spanner. Wilhelm looked (understandably) a bit nervous.

Colin flew up above the trees to see what he could see.

The Ardennes are very beautiful and as Colin soared and swooped over hills and forests and rivers and waterfalls, he very nearly forgot what he was supposed to be doing up there. In fact he suddenly had a bit of a revelation: this was way better than trying to be a romantic hero! It was Good to be a Duck!

And it was at that very moment that he spotted the most useful thing imaginable: an Orthodox Church. Now, as everybody knows, the upper part of the slanted beam  of the Orthodox cross always points north, and therefore can provide the lost traveller with a compass and thus, a means to reach their destination.

‘Bingo,’ said Colin, referring to their imminent destination, rather than the game, and flew back to his friends. Well, that was that. The Orthodox cross was most helpful explaining how to get to Arnold’s lair. They sped their way thither (such a good word – absolutely had to get that in there) and arrived shortly before tea, Wilhelm gasping and steaming with the unusual exertion.

Arnold was waiting for them, flexing his enormous muscles and playing in a sinister way with a phial of liquid metal. At least, that’s what Colin and Lady P imagined it was. It turned out later to be a carton of cream for the Sacher Torte, but it’s easy to see how they might have made the mistake.

‘Ha!’ said Arnold, mightily. ‘There you are. Welcome to Castell Beer!’

Lady Penrose Tilings stepped out of the car, Colin on her shoulder, and marched fearlessly up to Arnold. ‘What,’ she demanded, ‘have you done with Coxeter?’

Arnold looked bemused. ‘Who is Coxeter?’ he asked.

Lady P and Colin looked at each other and back again at Arnold. ‘Who’s Coxeter?’ they repeated.

‘Only the most gifted mathematical genius guinea pig ever!’ quacked Colin incredulously. ‘And you are holding him prisoner!’

Now Arnold looked properly confused. ‘Um, no….’ he said.

‘But this letter!’ and Penrose waved it angrily at him.

‘Was an invitation to tea,’ said Arnold, quite humbly. ‘To come and eat Sacher Torte and to talk about geometrical wallpaper.’

‘Geometrical wallpaper?’ spluttered Lady Penrose Tilings.

‘Yes, didn’t you read it?’

Lady P and Colin were embarrassed to say that actually, they hadn’t. They were so keen to look for clues that they had gone straight from the address to the signature, forgetting the crucial information in between. The letter read:

Please come to tea so that we can talk about geometrically patterned wallpaper.

They looked sheepishly at each other and back at Arnold. ‘Oh…Yes, sorry. But that still doesn’t explain what has happened to Coxeter.’

 ‘Did you say mathematics?’ Arnold asked. ‘Because it seems to me that there are some crazy mathematics going on with your car.’

They all turned to look at Wilhelm. The steaming and gasping that Lady P and Colin had assumed was from superautomobilian efforts to get to Arnold’s as quickly as possible, was in fact not steam, but a fine mist of mathematical equations floating up into the air. Lady P flung open the bonnet of the car, and there, curled up snugly, was Coxeter scribbling importantly.

‘Coxeter!’ they both shrieked. ‘What are you doing?!’

‘Sums,’ said Coxeter. ‘And you are interrupting. Please go away.’

‘No,’ said Penrose crossly. ‘You have to tell me what you are doing there first. We’ve been very worried.’

‘The attic was cold and I needed somewhere warm to think of course,’ said Coxeter. ‘It was nice and cosy and no one to interrupt. Apart from now.’ And he whiffled his whiskers severely at them. ‘Now please close the bonnet.’

Colin looked at Penrose, and Penrose looked at Colin. ‘I feel a bit silly,’ she said.

‘So do I,’ said Colin.

‘Why?’ asked Arnold. ‘You’ve done nothing silly. You’ve come to see me as I asked. Now we can discuss geometrically patterned wallpaper, and have Sacher Torte from Vienna and a stein or two of beer, and all will be well.’

Penrose looked at Arnold, and Arnold looked at Penrose, and yes my friends – it was love. Not quite at first sight, but very nearly. Arnold was the sort of man who could make the embarrassment go away, and Penrose was the sort of woman who could bring geometric patterns into life, the universe and everything.

And so, as Arnold had said, all was well. He and Penrose enjoyed romantic sunsets sitting on the zwiebelturm of the Orthodox Church in the middle of the Ardennes, consuming beer and Sacher Torte; Colin swooped about dashingly through the skies revelling in the fact that he was a Duck, and Coxeter and Wilhelm became best friends and travelled about, doing sums and seeing the world.

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