We queued obediently for hours, waiting to be turned into egos. A minor god, a minor deity presided over the sacred but somewhat monotonous process. ‘You be ego, you be ego, you be ego…’ the deity in question (we’re not allowed to know his name) intoned continuously. It was an assembly-line business and it generally worked like clockwork – every now and again an ego would form incorrectly and would then be duly rejected by the system. No one wants a defective ego, after all. The muffled refrain, ‘You be ego, you be ego, you be ego,’ echoed its way to the back of the Great Hall, where crowds of new, hitherto unseen people were gathering all the time. A minor ego was presiding over the ceremony. Evil was being placated.
We queued obediently for years, waiting for the allocated event. The allocated event was officially declared to be a good and proper thing and we all rejoiced accordingly. We all rejoiced obediently. Folk don’t remember those early days, but I do. I remember them all – although I wish I didn’t. It is forbidden knowledge, you see – none are permitted to lift that veil. Fear rears its ugly face again, as it always does. But I speak here of prototime, the time which comes before time, so to speak. There really is a time that comes before time you know, only it’s not time as you or I know it. Some things we would be better off not knowing about and – as our wise men have repeatedly said over the ages – what you don’t know can’t hurt you!
Once the time stream has been started then there’s no stopping it. It should never have happened but there’s little enough point in us regretting it now. Can there be anything more futile than those regrets that come thick and fast once the event has already happened and the torrent has been unleashed? We’re caught in that torment, you and I, and wishful thinking isn’t going to help us any. Wishful thinking isn’t going to help us in this situation. It should never have happened, we say, and yet it is only because it has happened that we are in a position to make that comment. The time torrent sweeps us on and on and yet it’s not taking it anywhere. The time torrent never existed in the first place and yet there’s absolutely no escaping it, not ever. We’re trapped like wasps in amber.
The sacred machinery is always at work, it never stops turning. The cycle can never be broken. Its function is to convert – it is a converter, an automated conversion system. It converts the pig into sausages, the lamb into donna kebabs. It converts chickens into chicken nuggets. Conversion is the law that none may disobey, conversion is what the whole damn show is all about. You don’t believe me? Just look around you, for God’s sake! What do you think this charade is all about? It’s about all sorts of excellent stuff, you answer, it’s about giant whoopee cushions, it’s about Zoom Meetings, it’s about fried chicken and Diet Coke, it’s about the glorious progress of the human race. It’s about our wonderful time-saving inventions. But no – don’t fall for that formulaic bullshit, I beg of you. It’s all about converting us into egos. It’s all about the downwards conversion of consciousness into the unspeakable appalling dross of everyday life.
