(ICTP2) Incident At The Centre Of The Universe - Part 4

In the egg-box grey regolith of a miniature Sea of Tranquility, a lilliputian Buzz Aldrin rolled his camera excitedly as Neil Armstrong planted an unwavering Stars and Stripes firmly in the lunar surface. Pristine sniffed at it with chimp-like curiosity as she held the lump of souvenir moon rock in her lazer manicured right hand. “Doesn’t smell much like cheese”,she said, “Smells more like,um, wet ash”.

“Put it down. Don’t play with it.”, snarled Matrick.

“Why? Is it worth something?”, said Pristine disdainfully, “Just looks like a grey lump of crud to me”.

“It was a gift from my parents. The only one they ever gave me”,replied Matrick.

Pristine giggled one of her helium filled little childish giggles, “They gave you this. Gee-whizz! I got a car and a luxury penthouse apartment from my mom and dad.
May they rest in peace”.

“Yes. Well.”, said Matrick, sombrely,
snatching the souvenir out of Pristines hands, “My parents weren’t keen on personal posessions. They gave away all they had to a
so-called Guru before stepping into a faulty teleporter and scattering their atoms to oblivion”.

“Really? God. What an awful way to die”, said Pristine

“He’d told them that it was the gate-way to heaven”, said Matrick, “And fools get what they deserve”.

“I guess so”,said Pristine, “Which reminds me. How about the 6 Zill you promised me for giving you access to the temple?”.

“Oh,you’ll get whats coming to you”, said Matrick.

“I better. Or else you know I’m going to squeal on you and your whole kooky cult”,said Pristine,totally unaware that behind her Matrick was slipping on a pair of “Feather-lite © invisible-touch gloves” –“made with a special fabric that renders your touch virtually invisible”. It felt,for a minute,as if the air was strangling her and then she was dead.
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Fassion is floating upon a cloud. It doesn’t occur to her for one minute that she may be dreaming or that clouds shouldn’t be shocking pink or feel like angorra. She pulls the cloud more tightly around her and,looking down at her breasts,worries about why she is naked.

Suddenly she feels the sun lay soft fingers upon her shoulder and,turning her head,she sees - everything.

“I am the universe”,she feels, “cool!”.

But now her revelation is interrupted by the usual,dreary dreamercials. Shes sitting at someones kitchen table, drinking Halo Cola © , “the only cola made with 100% holy water for a divine taste” while beside her an ecstatic clone of Doris Day is sniffing underwear and enthusing about the amazing cleaning power and spring fragrance of New Aryan™ washing powder.

“This is all meaningless!”,she screams, “meaningless!”.