the tall , tottery walls which pressed in on them had been built from an exotic array of materials : cars which had been partially or completely flattened by the chunks of granite and steel placed on top of them ; marble pillars ; unknown factory machines which were dull red with rust wherever they were n't still black with grease ; a chrome-and-crystal fish as big as a private plane with one cryptic word of the high speech - delight - carefully incised into its scaly gleaming side ; crisscrossing chains , each link as big as jake 's head , wrapped around mad jumbles of furniture that appeared to balance above them as precariously as circus elephants do on their tiny steel platforms .