THE COSMOS COMMUNICATED

The cosmos communicated. It flooded his mind with stars and equations, with the formula for infinity. Everything was revealed to him. EVERYTHING. The reality of the smallest thing to the largest thing. There was no size. It was just a category, like the whole of time and space that stretched out before him. He saw the beginning of all and the end of all and he saw that both occurred at once. He saw things as God saw things. He saw that he was God. He saw that all was God. He saw that all was one. The ultimate truth was set in front of him and the intelligible was rendered elementary. The mysteries that had taunted humankind since its inception were solved and made known. The Universe had whispered in his ear and he had been granted the most absolute of privileges.

He alone saw all.

He alone knew all.

He alone knew what it was all for.

'Hang on,' he eventually said to himself, 'if I play my cards right, I might be able to make a few bob out of this.'

SWEETHEART COME

If you look at things close up, really close up, they cease to be what they seem to be. A person stops being a person with arms and legs and a torso and a head and becomes a vast epidermal surface instead. Look even closer and even this understanding is lost. Closer up than close up, everything becomes an indivisible hubbub of subatomic particles. We might see a room but really there is no furniture, no ceiling, no floor, no window and no door. At the most micro of micro levels the room is all just trashing static but on our macro level it takes on the illusion of separate objects. It's like a Monet painting, it's an incomprehensible mess close up and only makes sense at a distance. This distance from real reality is the range we operate on. We all know it but we put the knowledge of the eternal fuzz out of our heads. We operate under a required interpretation of 'reality' that is actually an illusion. We pretend that the world is an arrangement of things with contexts. To approach existence in any other way would drive us crazy.

Are you with me? Do you understand what I'm saying? Do you agree? You kind of have to agree. You've no choice. It's the truth. It's reality, really.

The above image is an extract from a letter written by a German woman called Emma Hauck. Considered insane, Emma was committed to a mental institution where she lived out what remained of her life. Emma had lost the ability to see things on our macro range. All context had broken down for her. She was being swallowed by the subatomic hiss, the eternal fuzz of what reality really is. It must have been like sinking in quicksand and she was calling out to be rescued. She was calling out to the memory of the thing that gave her life meaning. That thing was love.

On proper examination, you can make out that Emma wrote the same two words over and over and over again; a simple phrase in her native language, 'herzensschatzi komm'. It means 'sweetheart come'. Emma's letter was to the father of her two children. Emma sat and wrote 'sweetheart come' over and over and over again. The words, the punctuation and the letters merge and end up looking like the static snow on an old television screen. Did you know that the snow on old televisions is leftover radiation from the Big Bang, the Big Bang that created all reality? It is. I'm not sure if that's relevant but I thought I'd mention it in case it is relevant. Very relevant. Anyway, Emma wrote a great many letters like the one pictured above. She sat and wrote them all day. All day, every day. None Of Emma's letters were ever sent.

Now, I want you to imagine that you're sitting and listening to static emitting from a receiver of some sort. I want you to imagine that you are listening out for the voices of those trapped in Limbo. Imagine you hear the words 'sweetheart come' repeated over and over, lost amongst the hiss. Imagine you hear this pleading from a ghost. A ghost trying to communicate to a memory, a memory of a meaning, a meaning called love.

'Sweetheart come, sweetheart come, sweetheart come, sweetheart come', over and over in the eternal fuzz. Oh my. My oh my. Tell me now about this reality. Has it broken your heart yet?

LONG PIG

I see you long pig. Head down. Hands in pockets. Negotiating an Edward Hopper meets Mike Leigh landscape. Another round fought to another split decision. You're going the distance but what a distance. You make eye contact with a weirdo who thinks you're a weirdo. You find a tenner but you lost twenty. There might be something on the telly tonight but you know that there probably won't be. The telly's broke anyway. Dieter and Annabelle have invited you to dinner but you're not going because they sound pretentious. A friend texts you to tell you that you're a 'miserable bollocks'. You text back 'so?'. Somebody asks you what time it is and you tell them that it doesn't matter. You'd arrange a protest march against the indifference of the Universe but you know that no one would show up. The Universe wouldn't care anyway. All that can be said has been said except for all the stuff that should be said but never will be. This is getting repetitive. But what's that noise from above? Everyone is standing in the road. Look up long pig. There are crosses in the sky. It's the end of the world ...again.