if this makes any sense whatsoever, please reconsider

What do you mean there’s nothing there?! There’s gotta be something there. There’s always something there. Let me have a look.

Yes, I was evidently finding it hard to accept...

Accept what? What were you finding hard to accept?

Er... well I had a look. Actually I unceremoniously barged past Phil, intent on scorning his lack of common sense, when I found myself gazing at no thing whatsoever.

No thing whatsoever? Kind of nothing – you mean?

No. Nothing would have been something, in a sense. It would have been the absence of something. It would have made some kind of sense. “It’s just nothing...” that kind of thing. But this was no thing – not even nothing.

Er... how can you be so sure if you couldn’t even see it?

Oh, I could see it alright. There it was, clear as day. Making a mockery of my five senses. No thing whatsoever. A perfect vacuum, if you know what that is.

Hang on, wait a minute. A perfect vacuum – that’s a physical impossibility. Even space isn’t a perfect vacuum. There’s always something there.

True. But this wasn’t space. It was no thing. The zero to what would otherwise have been one.

One?

Yes – everything you can ever see or experience is always one – in some shape or form.

Even nothing?

Yes. Even nothing is one. Otherwise you wouldn’t be able to recognise it as such.

But how then were you able to recognise this particular no thing as zero?

...

Er, try me again.

Dot dot dot.

I thought that’s what you were saying. You don’t mean to say you encountered dot dot dot?

I don’t mean to say it but say it I do, unequivocally, no matter how paradoxical that may seem.

But ... is

a physical impossibility... True. Completely illogical – absolutely. Not even grammatical – a suspended, irredeemable, unreconcilable non-sequitur – yes, yes, yes. All of the above and more. To encounter it should have collapsed the waveform of conscious reality – and yet – here I was alongside Phil, gazing at... and still alive to tell the tale.

But wasn’t it just an illusion then?

Yes, if you want to give it a label, but the kind of illusion that revealed the totally illusory nature of everything else in existence.

But how can you be so sure?

I can’t. It shouldn’t be possible. And yet I knew and know without a shadow of a doubt that...

That what?

Dot dot dot – zero is now in play.

Er, run that past me one more time if you would.

Zero is now in play.

Yes, I thought that’s what you said.

We’ve entered a completely new paradigm.

How many times have I heard that one.

Nothing is sacred any more. Nothing is set in stone. Nothing can be defended. Nothing is what it seems – we’re free.

Free?

Free of the tyranny of what not.

What not?

Whatever – it matters not. Free. For zero’s now in play. No thing has entered the equation. Zero equals one.

Now hold on a minute. Isn’t that the old heresy? That was disproven centuries ago.

Yes. Most convincingly, until now, that is.

Until now? Which now are you referring to?

The only now that exists. The now that is now and no other possible moment.

The eternal now?

Now, and no other. Grapple with angles of deception. Try to get a grip but no thing is now in play – zero equals one so dot dot dot – now will have its day.

But this is so unreasonable. Surely you realise you can’t say such things. Surely you’re aware of

What? Of course I’m aware. Who isn’t. We’re all aware of impossibility and absurdity and non-sense and yet no thing – dot dot dot – zero equals one – the circle is complete.

The circle is complete?

Complete.

And nothing will ever be the same again?

No thing is ever the same what not.

Zero equals one – you’re absolutely sure?

Test it if you doubt what is...

Test it?

Test it if you doubt, if you...

I... I... I can... not. I’m encountering not what at all. I’m at a loss. I’m...

Free. You are free. Zero equals one. No more need you dot your i’s or cross your t’s. No more need you serve the fading chain of con-sequence, no more need desperately do to avoid the vacuum surrounding you – the void – the bottomless pit.

I’m doomed.

You’re free to turn and enter spin without the need for reference points, without the frame of reason, with infinite, infinite, infinite now, the is of is.

And all because you and Phil encountered no thing...

Whatsoever.

Who would have thought we were so close, that it could nullify our every precious point, that all our many of much, much of many amounts to nought.

Dot dot dot. I declare the set complete, null and void. One – it is... I am.

And thus we discover the stuff of dreams. The realm beyond reason. The isness of be. Let us rejoice beloved one and all, as we draw back the curtains of eternity and engage the consciousness drive once and for all.

Amen