The Ticket Inspector…

*

I am late.

I am expected in Leicester and now my only option is to catch the last train.

The last train to Leicester is a slow train and also appears to be experiencing difficulties.

Stopping where there are no stations.

That sort of thing.

It becomes clear that many of my fellow passengers are not going to get to their destinations and as the ticket inspector makes his round they discuss alternatives together.

As this is an unfamiliar route I assume that Leicester too is now out of the question.

A strange thing about the ticket inspector, although this is a new route and I have never met him before, he knows my name…

“Yes, Stu…”

…and uses its familiar form.

“You’ll be in Leicester in twenty minutes time.”

Not only does the ticket inspector know my name and use its familiar form, he is also incredibly accurate.

My alarm clock is due to go off in precisely twenty minutes time.

*

*

“Asmodeus…

*

…Bearer of Time

Gnomon of Eternity

You must have seen a thing or two

During your torturous sojourn…

How best can we understand our predicament?”

*

“As Death is the Lord of life…

Life must be the Lord of death.”

*

Maxims…

*

Fight fire with fire

And the world is burning.

*

Fight fire with water

And the world keeps turning…

*

Free Day II…

*

…Left alone in my room for long enough I thought I might discover how they did it, how they worked it.

I thought I was being clever.

Initially, I had suspected the lights, either the lights or the heating, or perhaps both or maybe they sprayed something on the tiles?
But my room was just a room, cold and empty, ordinary, harmless.

The only thing that felt even remotely uncomfortable about it were my memories; the only ghosts in there were created by myself yet those feelings were real enough, too real…

They were more convincing than the six, blue, square edged pillars which ran down either side of the centre of my room, they were more convincing, than the old, piped central heating, and they were more convincing too than the fluorescent light fittings which droned overhead for that was how they worked it… they worked from inside your mind.

They turned the screws and tightened the bolts in there, and everything they did or said, or did not say, and did not do was designed to get in there and there was no way to prove it which suited them because they always needed proof, facts, solid objects, evidence…

And in that room, at that moment then, totally empty and bare and ordinary, there were only ghosts, phantoms which could be driven away, dispersed simply by looking at them and saying their name.

“Samuel!”

“SSS-AAA-M-UUE-EL”

*

Infinite Regress…

*

THE INFINITE HIGHWAY

If one always returns to where one came from,

then one’s destination is halfway between where

one came from and where one is going to.

*

HALFWAY TO INFINITY

Every step along the infinite highway is simultaneously

an equal distance between an infinite future

and an infinite past, that is, it is halfway to and from infinity.

*

EQUAL PARTS OF INFINITY

To find the halfway point of any distance,

one first splits the distance into equal parts then,

when the number of equal parts remaining is equal

to those that have passed one has one’s halfway point.

The equal parts of infinity, however, are all infinite.

Infinity is the only thing that can be split into… infinities.

This is known as counting the for evers of forever.

*

FOREVER YOURS

Reflecting upon all this it appears…

‘The Ancient of Days’

Is a good poetic name for infinity.

*

THE INFINITE HOTEL

A Traveller approaches the Infinite Hotel and asks The Ancient of Days for a room.

Now, there are an infinite number of rooms in the Infinite Hotel, however, the Traveller is informed by the Ancient of Days that all the rooms in the Infinite Hotel are taken.

Q: How does the Traveller get a room in the Infinite Hotel ?

A: The Ancient of Days asks the occupants of Room 1 to move into Room 2 and the occupants of Room 2 to move into Room 3…and so on… and on… Infinitely, thus making room for the Traveller.

*

INFINITE EXPANSE

At any one time in the Infinite Hotel then, there will be any number of people on the corridors moving from one room to the next, and this number will be dependent on how many Travellers are seeking a room in the Infinite Hotel…

Consider this…

All the rooms in the Infinite Hotel have a name…

All the rooms in the Infinite Hotel have the same name…

The name of all the rooms in the Infinite Hotel is ‘After-Life’.

Consider this…

All the corridors in the Infinite Hotel have a name…

All the corridors in the Infinite Hotel have the same name…

The name of all the corridors in the Infinite Hotel is ‘Life’.

By extension…

The occupants of each room in the Infinite Hotel have names…

The occupants in the room before yours are called ‘Parents’

The occupants in the room after yours are called ‘Children.’

The act of moving from room to corridor is called ‘Birth’.

The act of moving from corridor to room is called ‘Death’.

‘Life Duration’ in the Infinite Hotel can be defined as,

the amount of time spent in the corridor

 before moving into the next room…

*

IN FIN…

Once one

Never none

Forever one.

*

 

 

 

 

 

Amnesiac…

*

Spontaneous Internal Combustion.

You may have heard of the phenomenon?

It can now be regarded as the final death-knell for the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection.

It is hardly likely that any ‘new species’ would simultaneously errupt on the face of the planet like so many hot flushes.

Yet, once a memory is framed, and accepted, it can be true at all times and all places without ‘compunction’.

It also means, that we are born into a past that never happened,

and pass-on into a future that is real.

 

Bestings…

*

There is no better than…

Just be the best you can.

…Jack…

A Vice Called Cant…

*

‘Use every man after his desert and who shall ‘scape whipping…’

Hamlet, Act2 Scene 2

*

Hail, eternal plodders, hail!

Stretch-out, stretch-out the tedious tale…

Ignored, that wayward Talking Cricket,

Dull, of humour not a trace…

Pedestrian, turgid, commonplace,

Without genius and without spirit.

 

A Pound of Flesh…

*

For what doth it profit a nation,

To gain the world,

But lose its land?

 

Cycles of Life…

*

Does the religious life require leisure,

or the idleness of the leisured class?

Certainly, those classes have always held work to be degrading.

*

It is easy to see why.

Modern labour, predominantly indoors and sedentary can educate one into disbelief.

The past two-hundred years have shown us how work in heavy industry

is wont to render refinements of the soul redundant.

*

A generation or two after any revolution of this sort

and the very term ‘religion’ elicits only a dull, uncomprehending stare.

*

But could there be a correlation between religious sentiment and the natural life?

Most traditional deities slot seamlessly into the seasonal round.

And work in this realm serves to remind one of the greater cycles that govern existence.

One of which, it may be argued, is… religion.