ten minutes

Ten minutes?

 

Yep.

 

How can you possibly do Infinity drive© justice in ten minutes.

 

You can’t.

 

Then… what’s the point?

 

No point. None whatsoever.

 

I fail to understand your purpose, eM.

 

Yes. No purpose. No point. No chance. Doomed and gloomed from the very outset. That just about sums up Infinity drive©.

 

Do you have to keep using that ridiculous copyright symbol, eM?

 

No, I don’t.

 

But you’re going to anyway, are you, just to spite me?

 

Maybe. I’ve no idea what I’m “going” to do. The future is as yet unknown.

 

Ok. So that’s it – is it? Your ten minutes must be almost up and you’ve imparted, as yet, nothing substantive about your beloved infinity drive.

 

© You forgot.

 

Oh.

 

It isn’t just any infinity drive – you know, Zanussi.

 

No? Are there any others currently on display?

 

There may be, or may not, I couldn’t say – but mine is rather unique, though I say so myself.

 

Do you now? And perhaps, rhetorically, I’m supposed to enquire how or what makes it unique?

 

You could do so – but honestly, Zanz – with only three minutes remaining I fail to see how I can possibly explain anything meaningful.

 

It is, after all, infinite – is it not – which means, presumably, that it exists or can exist outside regular space and time – no?

 

Yes.

 

Which means you’re able to pop into zero time and continue at leisure if you so wish to do.

 

Yes, but will you and the subscribers be able to follow on my coattails, that is the question?

 

Well, we could try.

 

Ok. Here goes…

 

No, eM. Nothing happened.

 

Wait a minute – I need to warm up.

 

Ok. Honestly, it doesn’t seem to be working eM. Only one minute left and we’re still none the wiser.

 

Oh bother.

 

Perhaps if I remove this sticker.

 

No – don’t touch that, for goodness sake.

 

But it says – “please remove”.

 

And what? – only an idiot would do as a random sticker says. You have no idea of its provenance. It could be the plughole that keeps reality from flowing out into the abysmal void.

 

Oh. In that case – sorry. I couldn’t resist it.

 

You haven’t, have you?

 

Fraid so.

 

Bugger. Damn you, Zan….

 

Glug glug glug glug.

 

Reality takes precisely 7.4 seconds to flow out of it’s containment field into the abysmal void.

 

Er…

 

Well Zanzibobs – I hope you’re pleased with yourself.

 

But everything seems to be ok, eM.

 

Zeems to be, does it?

 

Well yes – apart from the fact that there’s a red light blinking on and off indicated we’re running on auxiliary power.

 

Yep, and apart from the fact that reality – like a burst balloon – technically no longer exists.

 

Well, at least that’s solved the time issue. I take it the ten minute count down was terminated?

 

You’re absolutely right Zanz. There is no time in the abysmal void.

 

But why call it the abysmal void if it’s basically identical to reality?

 

Basically identical? Is that what you think?

 

Well, I honestly fail to see…

 

Ok Zanzibar. I’m going to now turn off Infinity drive.

 

©

 

To hell with copyright, Zanz. I have bigger fish to fry.

 

You were going to switch off Infinity drive?

 

Yep. Just so you can compare the before and after.

 

Ok. I’m ready.

 

Gwizhflum. A powering down sound.

 

Er…

 

See?

 

No.

 

Precisely.

 

There’s nothing left?

 

Nope.

 

Nothing at all?

 

Nope.

 

It’s literally all gone?

 

Yep.

 

Oh Christ!

 

Beep!

 

Well, the beep is still working.

 

There’s something to be cheery about, at least.

 

But what are we going to do, eM?

 

We?

 

Well yes – I can hardly fix this problem by myself.

 

I honestly think you have no option.

 

But you could just switch on your wonderful Infinity drive© and everything’ll be hunkey dorey again.

 

Sorry Zanz – no can do. The Infinity drive was not created to cover for your mistakes or to generate a replacement universe.

 

Damn.

 

Beep!

 

There has to be some way of fixing this.

 

Of course there is.

 

There is? Well, what is it?

 

No idea. It’s between you and creation.

 

Me and creation? Like I’m just going to have a chat with God?

 

Look, Zanz – it wasn't my idea to pull off the sticker.

 

But how was I to know that reality was so incredibly…

 

Incredibly what?

 

I don’t know – ill-defended, fragile.

 

Honestly, you’re talking like you know nothing whatsoever about reality whereas in fact you’re part of it.

 

I’m just a person, eM. Hardly “part of reality” in any meaningful sense.

 

Very unlikely, Zanz. Let’s run it though my personal assistant and get some computation.

 

Er… you can do that?

 

Yes, why not.  Now – give me a drop of blood, please.

 

What?! A drop of blood? Do I have to?

 

No. But how else are we going to figure out your numerical coordinates.

 

Er…

 

Look Zanz – we could use saliva, urine or feces – hell – we could even use an armpit swab – but call me old fashioned – I prefer a simple drop of blood.

 

Ok, ok – you can have a drop of blood if that’s what you need.

 

Right. Put it here.

 

Where?

 

On this sheet.

 

Anywhere in particular?

 

Are you trying to be funny Zanz?

 

No, I just wasn’t sure exactly… ok… there you go. One drop of blood spattered on the sheet of paper that appears to have materialized from the quantum uncertainty of nothing very much.

 

Excellent. Now you’re going to watch a rather interesting process.

 

The infinity drive© doesn't mess around with short cuts. As it analyses Zanussi’s drop of blood the entirety of creation seems to pulse back and forth into it, and the distinct impression that reality is somewhere close at hand – doing it’s utmost to re-emerge through this single drop of blood fills Zanussi with a sense of hope.

 

 Right.

 

Well? Was it a success?

 

Yes. We have the precise coordinates for your blood.

 

And?

 

And now you can take those coordinates to the lost and found office.

 

I beg your pardon!

 

No need.

 

I mean – what on Earth…

 

The lost and found office might be able to help you relocate your reality.

 

You mean it still exists somewhere?

 

Has to, doesn’t it, Zanz – somewhere in infinity everything has to exist if only you can get the right coordintes.

 

x, y and z?

 

Funny one…

 

I beg your pardon?

 

Funny one Zanz – x, y and z coordinates ain’t gonna cut it where in-finity is concerned.

 

No?

 

We’re talking about locating a reality pod.

 

A reality pod?

 

A reality zip.

 

Not sure I exactly follow.

 

Realities don’t just remain inflated and fully-fleshed when they’re down-and-out.

 

No?

 

Nope. That’s only when they’re operating through a bunch of conscious beings such as yourself.

 

And when they’re not?

 

Shadows – mere shadows of their former selves – lurking, scuttling about the underpaths of infinity.

 

Ok. So how many coordinates do you actually need.

 

Ever wondered why the three spatial dimensions are x, y and z?

 

Er… to be honest, no – just a mathematical convention I always assumed.

 

Right.

 

There are other axes, you’re saying?

 

Well, it would make sense – wouldn’t it?

 

I’m not sure I follow.

 

Well, how the heck do you actually arrive at these three straight lines in so-called space when we’re talking about in-finity itself, Zanz?

 

Er… Like, how else could it be?

 

Well, that’s a start. At least you’re now considering the obvious.

 

Well?

 

We’re talking about shifting little by little from what is messed up beyond belief – where the number 1 or 0 are utterly inconceivable far-off ideals – to a place where you actually have a zero at the centre and ones heading off in three directions – four if you want to add in time.

 

Ok. So it’s more like a complete alphabet I guess.

 

You could say.

 

a to z.

 

I don’t want to dwell too much on the complexity – the mind boggles rather too easily when confronted with immense numbers or probabilities which make your very existence look like a statistical impossibility – but we are talking about a set of coordinates about the same length as the bible.

 

?!?! The Bible?

 

Yep.

 

You mean…

 

Yes, the Bible was/is in fact one of the key definitions of your reality – regardless of what is actually written therein.

 

Holy… But some people say that the Bible has been redacted.

 

As indeed it has – as has your reality – many times – but that doesn’t alter the fact that it’s close to the central core of the coordinate system of the reality you were operating within until, that is, an idiot wearing a MAGA baseball cap – where did you get that from – happened to drain it, inadvertently into the abysmal void, unwriting creation.

 

Draining the swamp.

 

Very funny Zanzi-bar – unless... who knows – maybe that was how she could get herself back on track.

 

By using me?

 

Yep, it’s possible.

 

So she just happened to put that sticker in a position I couldn’t possibly ignore.

 

More than that – she, mistress of your reality – placed it in such a way that you, perhaps, were guaranteed to drain reality at exactly the right moment and in exactly the right place.

 

Right place?

 

Well, reality isn’t fixed you know. There are disks and wheels and spigots and things all around, and beneath – and if she wants to get herself back on track – after the deviation into the so-called modern age of aberration we’ve recently been in – well – it needs to happen with almost perfect precision – bearing in mind we’re talking about in-finity.

 

So you keep saying.

 

Well, let me give you a glimpse.

 

Er… not sure that’s a great idea.

 

Trust me – you’ll like it.

 

I…

 

Zanzi-bar sees letters, colours, musical notes, mathematical notation, icons, images, mood and feeling glyphs flying all around him – above, below – through the place or person he thought he was – he thinks, somewhat erroneously he is – in short – the kind of experience several grammes worth of top notch psilosybin might possibly induce – if the mushroom spirits or Terence McKenna were favourably inclined on the day – further and further from his starting point – I am what I am – further and further into the who-the-hell or what-the-hell am I – even unto the am i in any way shape or form knowable-definable-determinable or was it all a rather insane delusion, a mathematical error on my part?

Time – time is no longer a factor. Zanzi-bar has zanussied beyond all cognition, all conscious-nessity – into the basis of what would conceivably be something – if conception were possible without any fundamentals whatsoever – without absolutes – without a distant shore where even in-finity finds itself crashing against something else even less knowable, even more preposterous… 

Over all – Zanzi-bar feels elasticity – like a piece of dough that has been kneaded and rolled and stretched ever thinner and bigger until it is everywhere and everything, and frankly speaking, the sensation is rather astonishing – to say the least. The notion that this vastness could ever return to the normalcy and compactness of a tiny body, a cramped, crowded mind is beyond absurd. How on earth could it possibly fit in – but at this very moment our astral pizza dough seems to hear a flute being played, and seems to be now dancing in a body, in a mind on the other side of space and time – in a reality that bears no semblance whatsoever to our own – where the first letters, the first numbers are yet to emerge – dancing and seeing across a vast ocean of quantum iffy-ness – or potentiality – or reality seeds ready to spring to life – ready to become worlds – should the need arise – should creators step in with words of their own – across – look – you too can see – the farthest shore – the end of days – the end of time – where the modern age finally collapses into a sucking gurgling plughole – and there you are – and there i am, and there we sit and think and wonder how, how we’re going to get things back together again when our world has come apart at the seams – flute – the flute plays on and the fact that the space between the two sides is in-finite – more than all of space and time in a material sense – yet merely pages in a book – separated by nothing more than, less than in-finity itself and a bicycle

 

A what?

 

Oh – it’s a bicycle – at the moment.

 

No!

 

Yes, why not?

 

Infinity drive© itself? Or reality?

 

Goodness – Zan – how serious you are. A bible. A bicycle. A drum. A flute. Breathe the psilosybin of infinity into these words, these motes – and what have you now?

 

Ah.

 

You have indeed a rather expansive ah – not a million miles from an all-ah.

 

Ah.

 

Nor indeed a million miles away from a No-ah.

 

Ah.

 

You have a vector – or vertices – you have some kind of connection or tree emerging out of the very depths of bottomless space-y-time-y-ness – in other words – you have a beginning – on which a new reality can…

 

A new reality?

 

New – old – what difference does it make? Water, does it not, has memory.

 

Ah.

 

And all of a sudden we’re back at square one.

 

Ah.

 

Square one. Everything is normal.

 

Normal.

 

Everything is perfectly what you’d expect except…

 

Except a tiny thread.

 

That’s right, Zanzi-bar.

 

A whisper of in-finity no longer excluded.

 

Indeed – how could it be?

 

So we’re back in a reality which has an active in-finity?

 

Yep.

 

And that changes every-thing?

 

Yep.

 

And we’re going to be able to work with it?

 

You tell me… I’m just a voice. A flute playing on the furthest shore – within ten minutes of the end of time, never less, never more.

 

0=1

₂₂₄₉