He stopped talking and smiled. The smile lit up the vast emptiness with a pure and radiant light.

          ““Right then, I must be off. I’ve got lots more worlds to visit, some of which are actually on speaking terms with me. I just drop in and say hello from time to time. There’s enlightenment for you. Not all of them of course – just one or two of the more advanced ones which are happily tucked away in their own universes, quietly minding their own business. There are others, of course, not quite that advanced yet, but still streets ahead of you lot. One race is doing all it can to prove that I do exist – now there’s a nice little concept for you to grapple with whilst you’re in limbo.”

          He turned and climbed back into the space ship and closed the door behind him. He wound down the window, emptied the contents of the ashtray into the void, and then stuck his head out of the window.

          “One more thing before I go,” he said, as he lit a very fat hand-rolled cigarette. “I’m sorry to keep going on at you, but I feel obliged to keep on until you start listening. If I were you – and I suppose I am in a way – I’d slow down and start enjoying life a bit more. I mean, you only live once, don’t you?”

          He then started the engine of the space ship and flew away. The lights of the space ship grew smaller and smaller as it travelled through the emptiness. Soon the space ship had reached pin-head proportions.

          Then, just as the space ship had almost disappeared, a strange sound filled the void that had once been the universe. It sounded like music from a car stereo system. The music – if that’s what it was – was high-pitched and rhythmically melodious. It sounded like the song ‘My Sweet Lord’ by George Harrison, who had once been the lead guitarist with The Beatles.

          It was a particular favourite of the bearded man in the space ship.

The Quantum Physicist’s Revenge

© R J Dent (2009)

www.rjdent.com