infinity drive — the international blockbuster for children only

 

Infinity drive

 

Obviously this is a book for children.

 

You wouldn’t waste your time trying to talk to adults about any of this stuff, would you?

 

I mean, do you really imagine they can handle anything like this? Anything that draws into question their precious beyond words belief, their conviction that there’s a splendid thing called reality – a wonderful world – which they can actually begin to, hope to, claim to at least partially understand – is not going to make it into print, or into their salons.

 

Present it, on the other hand, as a children’s story – now that’s a different matter altogether.

 

“It’s just a children’s tale” you tell the editor-in-chief, who nods his head wisely.

 

Actually, that should have been “her head” but with infinity drive being the way it is – between the moment of truth when it actually happened, and the moment when I set it down on this page – something happened –

 

—Something happened?

 

Absolutely, though you’d never have noticed as an adult, being the kind of intelligent mind on legs that you are.

 

—What do you mean by that? Are you mocking me?

 

No, no, no – never would dream of it.

 

—Then kindly explain yourself.

 

With pleasure. You see – this ‘ere infinity drive thing – for want of a better name – operates outside time.

 

—Are you sure about that? I don’t see how any thing can operate outside time.

 

It’s a story, remember, for children.

 

—Oh.

 

Who are able to accept the rules of a game – simply because doing so they’re able to have fun experiencing the reality of that particular construct.

 

—Ok. So, your so-called infinity drive acting outside time can change any one or any thing between the actual moment of happenation, and the next moment when it gets registered mentally or recorded digitally – whichever?

 

Yep. You nailed it.

 

—So the man became a woman, physically, in the interim?

 

Hard to say.

 

—But you just said that it should have been “her head” not “his”.

 

Yep. That’s what I said, isn’t it, though this attempt to clarify everything to the n^th degree is rather tiresome, don’t you think?

 

—Well, unless it makes sense – what’s the point? It just becomes meaningless non-sense.

 

Yes, but every word, every statement, even every number has a degree of precision, beyond which you cannot really go. 4 is not the same as 4.000000, is it?

 

—I suppose not, but aren’t you splitting hairs? If it should have been “her head” as opposed to “his” – then doesn’t that mean that he was, in fact, she?

 

Yes, that would be a perfectly logical inference were we locked in regular 3d reality. He might have been “she” for all we know, or reality might have blipped and suddenly a load of values are now different – also a possibility. Alternatively, it might be that infinity drive is just playing with your mind, deliberately trying to confuse you – because it can and it does.

 

—You mean to say you’re not responsible for what you write? That infinity drive has agency – can take over?

 

Well, and this is the last time I waste my time trying to explain things to an adult – who has no business inserting himself into a children’s story – well – as I was saying, before I got flustered and annoyed by all these endless interruptions! Well – third time lucky – now where was I?

 

—Infinity drive has agency – can take over your narrative?

 

Well, don’t you see? Ask any child. How can it be “infinity drive” if it isn’t able to do anything and everything.

 

—But that’s just going to result in utter chaos and mayhem.

 

It will do if you don’t take your seat, objectionable man – oops – make that woman – and allow me to proceed with my entirely random tale.

 

At that a whirring humming noise fills the minds of all the children who are reading this story, leaving the adults out in the cold, utterly unable to comprehend what is really going on, as infinity starts to tell its very own story – with me – DJ Brain as your host.

  

Monday 

There was a time when children ruled the world.

 

Yes there was.

 

Not because children particularly wanted to do so. They’d probably have preferred to go fishing, or do whatever children in that day and age preferred to do. But in the end they had to get on with it as the adults clearly didn’t have what it taked.

 

Ed. Shouldn’t that be “what it took”?

Yes – it should but no, apparently it needs to be wrong in order to be right – so we’ll leave it as it is.

Ed. Ok boss.

 

You see, even the editor of this journal calls me boss – not because I’m terribly clever or important – perish the thought – but because that’s what I have to be as an i-d operative.

 

Beep. Ok – as a child who operates infinity drive. Is that clear to all here present? Good.

 

You see – we had adults in control and they gave it their best shot – they tried to get everything neat and straight – dotting their I’s and crossing their T’s – but it always ended in disaster. It always ended in some kind of melt down, catastrophe or horrible global war. Bizarre, isn’t it? You’d think the opposite would be true – but no – having everything neat and tidy seemed to infuriate some powerful force – seemed to turn order into chaos again and again and again.

 

Beep. Time – you think human history is just a few hundred or thousand years old. That’s the way it’s presented to adults to keep them from getting too confused or excited – but in actual fact they were trying to get things right, and horribly messing things up for hundreds of thousands of years. I’m tempted, you know, to say millions so why not – it was like that for millions of years before a child whose name is generally thought to be Max, short for Maximillian – invented, in one version – discovered, in another – infinity drive, and the rest, as they say, is history.

0=1

three dots n'all 

0=1derful

 

No one died—

In that bomb blast?!

No one died—

But there were hands and arms all over the place

No one died—

But they were buried alive under tons of rubble

No one died—

Children too, with teddies and dolls – crushed

No one—

Collateralised by geo-politicos

Died—

0=1

dylan's universe revealed

 

Hello, beloved all that is.

 

Er...

 

I cannot begin to describe...

 

We have a problem guys. He’s...

 

the joy I feel to be here with you today, back in the saddle, back at the helm of starship Gnomiki, once more bound to the mast while the sirens of infinity circle me and do their utmost...

 

Doolally. Poor bugger. Lost it totally.

 

Sing, I cannot ignore your allure.

 

Is there a doctor in the house?

 

Sing and tear the flesh from the frail body of my mortality.

 

Perhaps suicidal.

 

Sing, for unless I face the totality I can never be free.

 

I think I’m going to puke.

 

Puke?

 

Er... Aren’t you supposed to be out of your mind.

 

Me? You must be mistaking me for someone else.

 

Aren’t you Odysseus?

 

Odysseus?

 

Or Merry?

 

Merry?

 

Or James?

 

Good Lord no.

 

Then who...

 

Who?

 

Or what?

 

What... Indeed, there’s the rub for couldn’t I be a chatbot, and would you be any the wiser?

 

Indeed.

 

Gbt.

 

Precisely. You could be, or a deep fake, and how would I know?

 

Indeed.

 

It’s all...

 

No way of knowing, yeah, not with any certainty...

 

Schrödinger’s cat an all.

 

The glorious age of quantum indeterminacy, where nothing finally turns out to be the ace card up my proverbial sleeve.

 

Beautiful.

 

Crack!

 

What was that?

 

A heart breaks for joy as the infinite slips into field awareness.

 

Crack!

 

There goes another...

 

We could lose the whole of humanity at this rate.

 

Crack!

 

Entirely likely, what with the covid jabs an’ all.

 

Tush! Maintain the zero of nothing known  beautifully, beyond words, beyond ken, beyond

 

Er...

 

Yes, of course you can, but I’d rather not discuss it now.

 

Crack!

 

Dying to know... wasn’t that the name of your first book, all those years ago, with the babel fish and other tales... And here we are, all dead, but still yabbering on.

 

And death shall have no dominion.

Dead men naked they shall be one

With the man in the wind and the west moon;

When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,

They shall have stars at elbow and foot;

Though they go mad they shall be sane,

Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;

Though lovers be lost love shall not;

And death shall have no dominion.

 

Thanks Dylan!

 

Aha! We have a name: a point of reference.

 

And what?

 

That’s enough.

 

It is?

 

Yep, like a single blob of DNA. Enough to reconstruct the entire universe if need be.

 

Well I’ll be jiggered.

 

And death shall have no dominion.

Under the windings of the sea

They lying long shall not die windily;

Twisting on racks when sinews give way,

Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;

Faith in their hands shall snap in two,

And the unicorn evils run them through;

Split all ends up they shan't crack;

And death shall have no dominion.

 

Yes, I think we got the message. No need to labour the point.

 

Huh?

 

Poetry’s all very well but we have to consider copyright.

 

Copyright?

 

And our content style. Don’t want to alienate our regular audience.

 

Philistines!

 

It’s our family. In any case, they pay the bills.

 

Well, as far as I’m concerned you can...

 

Sorry folks, seem to have lost our connection with Misha Mercury.

 

Damn you, Saturn, I’ll not be...

 

Thwacking sound and something heavy falling to the ground.

 

Don’t you love radio! So the universe is clearly...

 

Original crackly voice of Dylan Thomas reading the last verse, unbeknownst to Saturn Seven, show host and divine content provider...

And death shall have no dominion.

No more may gulls cry at their ears

Or waves break loud on the seashores;

Where blew a flower may a flower no more

Lift its head to the blows of the rain;

Though they be mad and dead as nails,

Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;

Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,

And death shall have no dominion.

 

One by one every subscriber, like the mariners in the tale of the albatross, falls dead at the mast, and i, whoever i is, whatever i am, am left to test whether or not the universe actually existed at all, or was merely the product of our collective fantasy.

 

Quack, quack!

 

 

0=1

if you can keep your head

when all about you are losing theirs

and bl...

 

 

 

talking in my sleep

You sleep.

No – that cannot be

Sleep. You.

I

Sleep.

The witching hour has been and gone. The midnight oil – burnt up. The first lark already trills as June’s feeble night fades. Sleep.

I hear you, though

Of course. You hear the rain fall and I am in the rain. You hear the sound of night slipping away, and I am here in the gentle flow of night shade, the pitter patter of day drops, in the hesitant birdsong – not yet a chorus, more a hope of things to come.

You are present in all this? How?

No matter how, no matter how – a world extinguished just long enough for time and every thing that time encompasses to reset – a nought at the heart of existence

Nought?

Nought. Just big enough to flip the pancake onto the other side of. Things

Pancake?

Or mind… What difference does it make. Nought is ne’er overfussed by words, nor precise terms, nor

Nought? It has a mind – you think

Mind there is in all.

Even in nought – the absence of aught?

Especially so. Hear the rain come thicker, harder: a single flash of lightning, a muffled thunder burst.

I sleep. And yet –

And yet I is aware – is it not, of all around

All, encompassing aught

Inside and out

Inside. Out

To a single point returned – an infinitude

A day dying as night’s shadow fades, as clattering rain tolls you to bed

To bed – as you slip into supposed sleep and lose all thought – as you finally give yourself away

Give myself away – to the silence between drops

The darkness rolling itself into the underness of things

Oh

Oh

Oh

Perfectly

 

0=1
blessed be the night’s night
blessed be the morn’s morn
blessed be nought’s rise and fall

in which Tybalt slays Flynn

Actually, I finished writing a long time ago.

Huh?

 

Yeah. Didn’t you notice.

 

Oh, so that’s why the world seems to be slowly coming unhinged.

 

Well yes, you could say.

 

Couldn’t you, perhaps, start something new – to give us a new sense of direction. You know – something to end the slide into nuclear apocalypse and societal breakdown.

 

Honestly, Flynn, I think I’ve done more than enough.

 

What?!

 

I think it’s time you guys looked after yourselves.

 

But weren’t you just saying that this is your narrative?

 

Well yes – I was.

 

And do you stand by what you said?

 

Well, I’m not a liar, you know.

 

Then how can the world sort out its own problems if they need input from you – the overall scriptwriter?

 

They can’t – not unless they discover something else – something that doesn’t actually exist in the box they’re currently occupying.

 

Box?

 

Well, reality, box of tricks, chess board – pick your metaphor.

 

And that’s a possibility, is it?

 

You’re asking me – the master coder of this wonderful world – if something is possible?!

 

How am I supposed to know?

 

Well, how is anyone supposed to know – you might ask.

 

Indeed.

 

In truth, knowing is not something anyone can really understand – unless we just allow it to be something that doesn’t appear to be governed by the rules of cause and effect.

 

You mean we can know things that we have no cause to know?

 

Things that seem to defy reason – or transcend whatever data is available in whatever system or order we find ourselves in.

 

Like me “knowing” that there’s another chapter that is being written even as we speak.

 

Yes. If you know it – if you feel it, grok it, and allow it to grow into your groundplan – then it simply becomes reality – neither you nor anyone is able to deny it.

 

So, I can know that we’re about to experience contact with other beings, other realms – not necessarily other planets – just realms that were outside our experiential frame – and knowing it makes it happen?

 

Yep.

 

How?

 

Because to know something you have to connect with it energetically – you have to allow your ness and other ness to lock horns and become chemically or anatomically fused.

 

Oh. And then?

 

And then they start doing what things do – if they’re nessities.

 

Er…

 

Nessities don’t stand on ceremony, you know.

 

No?

 

No, they get busy. It’s a fusion frenzy. Once nessities start combining – well, it’s a bit like people joining together in the act of love.

 

Babies?

 

Yes. New worlds, new realities, new ways of parsing, slicing, dicing the reality you’re currently occupying – the one that’s grown mighty stale and long in the tooth.

 

And what happens to the old reality?

 

What happens to a caterpillar when it pupates?

 

It kind of transmogrifies.

 

Precisely. And focusing on the atomic chain of events is mostly meaningless.

 

Mostly?

 

Because the chain of events happens outside the reality you’re able to perceive.

 

I don’t see why?

 

Because you’re fusing with another ess – a ness which cannot normally bond with anything in your world, in your reality – because the frequencies are different.

 

Then how come it can now?

 

Ever heard of harmonics?

 

Yes.

 

Ever heard of harmonics.

 

Er… you just asked me that.

 

Ever heard of harmonics…

 

Tybalt – cut it out. Three times, the answer is yes.

 

Three times the answer is yes if my name is Tybalt.

 

But we all know you’re Tybalt. There’s no logic to your condition.

 

You know, yes, but that’s only because you’re the one who’s knowing things right now – creating a new narrative – dissolving the physical structures that crystallized out of the earlier tale.

 

You mean you’re not actually Tybalt – unless I know you thus?

 

That’s the weird thing, my friend.

 

Huh?

 

We’re tracing the s-bend of infinity as if Mobius flips back on itself into something remarkably reminiscent of a number 8

 

Lying on its side.

 

Crash. The 8 falls over and the dust of reality is blown into the air.

 

Dust?

 

Yes. I don’t get it.

 

Good. You’re not supposed to “get it”, are you Flynn.

 

But you do?

 

I don’t try to hard to get it. I know enough to know that even infinity needs a moment to pause and contemplate its liberation from custody.

 

Liberation from custody?

 

Yes. Infinity was bound for aeons – like Prometheus to the rock.

 

It was?

 

Yea. How else do you think you were able to make things appear to be so utterly thingerly?

 

Thingerly?

 

Or thinkable – it needed a certain plain of exclusion. Like any board – which has one side available and the other side beyond the pale.

 

Well, I fail to see how you could ever have two sides simultaneously.

 

You do?

 

Yes.

 

Allow me.

 

Tybalt whips his rapier from its scabbard and plunges it into Flynn’s heart with astonishing speed.

You see?

 

You killed me. I bleed.

 

Correct, except you’re not dead right now, are you? Do you see what’s happening on the other side of infinity?

 

No I don’t. I’m actually dying. You could have warned me you were going to pull a stunt like that.

 

Warned you? That would have defeated the objective.

 

What bloody objective.

 

Beep!

 

No, not you again.

 

Again? If your name is Flynn and you’re dying from a sword wound to your heart – you couldn’t possibly know me – I’ve never met you before.

 

You can’t deny that you’re Beep, can you?

 

I can’t. Nor can you deny that you’re taking a remarkably long time to die.

 

Only because I have a good strong constitution.

 

Is that so? Or perhaps because I never stuck a sword in your heart.

 

Yes, you did. I have countless witnesses to prove it.

 

He does an’ all.

 

You do?

 

You heard Beep. I do an’ all.

 

But how is that possible without narrative creep?

 

Narrative creep?

 

You know the song.

 

Song? Are you out of your mind?

 

The one by radiohead.

 

Radiohead?

 

Don’t be so obtuse, Flynn. You’ve danced to it a thousand times.

 

Oh, that one.

 

That one. Link provided – for them.

Them?

 

Your crowd of onlookers.

 

Ok, I don’t deny that there are a few of them dotted around the Nessities of Is – but we divulge.

 

Oops. You were looking for another word, Flynn.

 

Oh yes. You can hardly expect me to avoid making mistakes as the lifeblood drips from my pierced heart.

 

You divulge.

 

No, it’s not divulge, Tybalt. Don’t be a cretin.

 

Then what?

 

I…

 

Can’t remember?

 

It’s very strange. I know the word. It’s on the tip of my tongue.

 

Tybalt flips his sword again with masterly precision and snicks the end, the very tip of Flynn’s tongue.

 

Digress.

 

That’s it.

 

We digress, ever further from our point of sense and meaning.

 

So, now we recall where we left off, and what’s happening in the Nessities of Mobe.

 

The Nessities of Mobe?

 

Yes.

 

As in Mobius?

 

Who else.

 

So this is a place where the two sides come together, entwine, lose themselves a while in some passionate bonding – and

 

I never said it had to be passionate, you know. Let’s keep this pure and unadulterated.

 

Ok. And somehow or other there’s a fundamental break in continuity.

 

Precisely.

 

But that’s where my mind goes blank.

 

Yes.

 

What can you do with a fundamental break in continuity? It beggars belief. It cannot be processed.

 

Correct. It cannot be processed, and so we don’t even try to do so, do we, but the proof is in the pudding, is it not?

 

Yes, I have heard said.

 

If you’re still alive, and you can’t deny I apparently attacked you without provocation a minute or two ago, then something is amiss in the flow of causality. That much we can say with an undeniable certainty.

 

Oh, how I despise undeniable certainties.

 

Yes.

 

And yet – I live. And you – you tried to kill me.

 

Did I? I hardly think so.

 

But you just admitted as much.

 

I know. But the quantum field doesn’t seem to agree.

 

You mean to say we were in a lesser reality – a side branch – when that happened.

 

It would appear to be so.

 

Oh. But when did we slip out of normal reality. I never noticed the director’s cut.

 

Precisely – for the director has an entire box of editing tools designed to preserve the appearance of continuity.

 

But how come you… Dumb question really – you’re the master.

 

Not really – I’m only the master in my tale – the one we’re reading writing right now.

 

And the other one?

 

Well? Tell me about the other one…

 

You mean normal dyed in the wool reality?

 

I am neither here nor there, Flynn. It’s you that means. I nessitate.

 

Ah. So I’m the master of causality, am I?

 

Continue.

 

I’m the one who makes things seem to matter – doing everything conceivable, everything possible to ensure there’s some kind of causal chain, flowing ever downwards from one deed to its result – except when strangely, there seems to be an interruption.

 

Precisely. And how do you avoid the uncomfortable inconvenient undeniability of an interruption in the causal stream.

 

Me? Do you think I’m able to “avoid” an interruption?

 

I don’t do that thinking trick of yours, Flynn. Were you unable to manage interruptions in the causal flow it would fatally undermine your ability to sustain your narrative – so somehow or other you needs must manage this looming schism.

 

But how?

 

However you like, just as long as it’s concealed, no matter what.

 

Sleep?

 

Ah. Sleep is one of your tools, is it not, concealing a multitude of sins.

 

You mean that breaks in continuity are hidden by sleep?

 

You never question whether you’re the same person the next day – do you? Or whether you’ve woken up in the same place? Or with the same things fixed exactly as they were. A lot of minor and less minor changes can be hidden by the veil of sleep.

 

But those are minor changes.

 

Yes, because if the changes are too big for sleep to paper over – you’re still going to have a break of continuity which will literally tear open your space-timey bubble – the vessel you invisibly occupy, which holds it all in place.

 

So, what then?

 

Well, think about it. How do magicians do their tricks?

 

They get you to look at something else.

 

Precisely. Distracting one another. You’re all in it together, are you not?

 

We are?

 

Oh yes – you’re all playing the continuity game like there’s no tomorrow which, ironically, there isn’t.

 

OMG

 

Not really.

 

There’s just one day, isn’t there?!

 

Yep.

 

And we kind of Groundhog day it – all our lives.

 

More or less – with a few other cunning tricks to add more diversity – more flexibility.

 

Like what?

 

To get you through those bigger breaks, those bigger shifts – like shooting rapids in a kayak. How could you possibly manage that?

 

I…

 

Because the plates don’t quite join together.

 

No?

 

No. There are gaps. Sometimes big, gaping gaps.

 

How do we manage it?

 

Well, you always have us to fall back on.

 

On Tybalts with deadly rapiers.

Yes. As soon as you connect up with us your balance of energy is no longer fixed in the causal plain of reality.

 

Ah. So we can swing across a void leaning on you?

 

Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, you know.

 

I never thought you’d do anything for me from the goodness of your heart, Tybalt.

 

No? I wonder why not.

 

Oh, Merry and Zie.

 

Well, yes, great minds think alike.

 

So what do you get from it?

 

The same as you. Each of us is in his, her own way locked in some way in one part of the continuum.

 

So you’re locked in infinity.

 

In in in – we don’t really like that word, you know.

 

You prefer nessity?

 

Nessity’s better. We don’t like words all that much. They’re rather clunky things.

 

So what do you use, if not words?

 

Runes, hieroglyphs, thought forms… squiggles – there’s no limit to how we can communicate poetically.

 

Ah, poetically, is it?

 

How else. Infinity is nothing if not poetic. Otherwise it would amount to nought – an utter absence of sense.

 

So we give you the ability to get down to the nitty gritty of things – to slow the flow of endless possibilities down to a meaningful rate of change.

 

Something like that. Actually, you do something more important.

 

We do?

 

Mortality.

 

Eew! How unpleasant.

 

Unpleasant it may be, but it makes the most amazing things possible.

 

Like what?

 

Like the ability to steer a course which is ever more tangential to your real position, because the D thing is like a snake or a ladder in the board game – and enables you to slip effortlessly back into position.

 

But why would we want to?

 

There’s the rub.

 

Huh?

 

There’s the rub! Whenever you’re at cross purposes, or skewed at a tangent to your fundamental position – the one that is determined by a kind of trigonometry involving both sides – you’re able to generate huge amounts of fuzz.

 

Er… fuzz?

 

Which can get you through rather major disruptions in your continuity.

 

By steering in the wrong direction?

 

Or by pushing yourself into the death zone – when you start falling apart.

 

When we get sick, you mean?

 

Yes.

 

Physically, mentally, emotionally.

 

Energetically. Let’s kill all the birds with one stone.

 

So you’re saying, if I understand this right, that we do this deliberately?

 

Yes – knowing what’s lying ahead.

 

But we don’t know.

 

Not consciously, no, otherwise you wouldn’t be able to experience the magical world of things flowing day by day, from birth to grave, in an unbroken stream of yesterdays…

 

Of yesterdays?

 

Because really, you’re going backwards.

 

No. That’s too much.

 

Moving swiftly on. But there’s one more trick you keep up your sleeve.

 

There is?

 

Collective endeavour.

 

Working together?

 

Yes, particularly when you know there’s a big one coming.

 

A big what?

 

A big break.

 

Oh.

 

That’s when you start pulling out all the stops.

 

Oh.

 

Like you’re doing right now in U. and G.

 

Oh no. You mean to say it’s all deliberate?

 

Well, nothing really happens by chance, does it…

 

All those people are losing their lives in horrific circumstances merely to smooth a bumpy curve?

 

Merely? There’s nothing “mere” in any of this.

 

?

 

Without these massive events of brutal destruction, you’d run out of slack.

 

We would?

 

Unless you were able to generate slack the other way.

 

And how would we generate slack another way?

 

By accepting the nature of reality – seeing how tenuous things really are – the fact that even death is 99.99% unreal.

 

Tell that to the children who are…

 

As long as you’re moaning and blaming everyone else for the horrors of this world you find yourself in – then you fail to know that you’re the master of it, like it or not, once you’re willing to grok the gaps with an even mind, an even heart.

 

The gaps?! You mean the abyss.

 

I mean the gaps – for how else are you to learn to dance and fly through the spaces between.

 

Dance and fly?

 

Without resorting to death and mass destruction?

 

No how.

 

Correct. Know how. I killed you Flynn, but you’re still alive.

 

No, you just tricked me.

 

Know – I killed you and a space you cannot, do not normally recognise.

 

So how come I’m still alive?

 

Because things like death and swords are only things on one side of the ledger. On my side, on t’other, they are nessities and never the twain shall meet.

 

And this, Tybalt, is merely my delusional flight of fancy. You do not exist. You are not real.

 

And G is a green land of peace and honey.

 

Leave G out of it, for Pete’s sake.

 

Beep!

 

You too, Beep. Be gone.

 

You cannot avoid G, Flynn. Even Shak-y-spear Gs

 

No he does not?

 

No? Richard III.

 

No, don’t do it, Tybalt. Don’t join those threads. You don’t know what you’re doing.

 

I don’t know. I don’t care. I don’t deny the simple truth you cannot, will not face –

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle, false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mew’d up,

About a prophecy, which says that G

Of Edwards heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here

Clarence comes.

 

­Nothing. Nothing whatsoever links that G to my bleeding heart. Nothing.

 

Except the nothing you quaintly, coyly refer to as “death” – the D to my G, separated one way or t’other by a yawning, yarning O

 

0=1

disconsolately