In the invisible future-world of our fathers there is this thing called ‘virtual nonsense’. It’s not really ‘nonsense’ because it doesn’t exist. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about. It’s not what I wanted to talk about at all although I’m sure I’ll come back to it. I often ask people whether they happen to be familiar with that very particular feeling, that very particular feeling that comes when one realises that one is just a sad, futile and utterly redundant mechanism, a sad and futile ‘mechanism-for-the-maintaining-of-the-mechanism’, and where we also realise that the whole world is made up of nothing but freedom and yet we ourselves are not free. That’s the rub of course. That’s the big rub and no rub was ever bigger. I often ask people this – in more or less these words – and then I wait for the answer. As a rule people deny having this knowledge and so then I get to call them liars. “Is that so, sunshine?” I ask them then. “Is that right now, Sonny Jim?” And then I say “Pull the other one, it’s got fucking bells on it!” In this invisible future-world of our sacred forefathers time itself stands on its head. Time itself pranks us and then it comes back again and pranks us again! That’s the inspiration behind my famous book ‘Pranked By Time’, my famous book that no one has ever heard of. In this invisible future-world of our venerable ancient forefathers time itself doesn’t exist: events occur, as usual, in serial space-time, and then the next thing is that we don’t know if they happened in the distant past or if they will come to pass in the very far future, and we don’t know if the said events will ever occur either. And then the next thing is that we also know, with equal clarity, that the event isn’t an event at all and never could be, and this is why I said that ‘time itself pranks us’. This is why I wrote my famous book of the same title – that famous book of mine which no one has ever heard of! The invisible future, the invisible future. Hiding behind every turn in the road! Lurking in the shadows wherever you go! Lurking in the fluff in your living room carpet. Disguised as the spoon of sugar you’re stirring into your cup of tea. Disguised as the cream doughnut you scoff greedily when no one is looking. Future time is waiting. Waiting to prank you! The invisible future – the invisible future-world of our grandfathers never actually comes to pass though does it? It never quite happens, even though it’s there all the time, like a lizard on the wall. What would it tell you, that lizard on the wall, if it could but speak? What stories could it relate, what tales could it spin? What possibilities might it know about? More than you do anyway. More than you or I do and that’s the sad truth. Does the sad truth make you sad, I wonder? It makes me sad. The sad truth always makes me sad. There is a secret sorrow in everything isn’t there? Secret sorrow, secret sorrow, secret sorrow. There is a secret sorrow in everything and yet we contrive to look so blandly upbeat all the time. “Do you know that thing, do you know that thing, do you know that thing do you…” the wind whispers in your ear as it passes by. “Do you know that thing, do you know that thing, do you know that thing….”
