I was proclaiming the Great Narrative, and not just that, I was joyously proclaiming it. I was proclaiming it with joy in my heart. I was an appointed officer, a senior appointed officer moreover, trusted with the task, trusted with the wonderful, wonderful task. ‘You can trust me’, I spoke proudly from the depths of my heart, ‘you can trust me to proclaim the Great and Sacred Narrative, you really can’. I was flushed with pride, knowing that – although the job at hand was far from being easy – I would not drop the ball. ‘No’, I promised under my breath, ‘I shall not drop the ball…’ I was singing the Pooper Scooper Blues you see. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was. ‘Proclaiming the Great and Sacred Narrative’, I repeated to myself, overcome with the intense solemnity of the moment. I am always being overcome with the solemnity of the moment. I was proclaiming the Sacred Narrative loud and clear, loud and clear for all to hear. I am an officially appointed officer you see, authorised in the very depths of my being. ‘Thank you for authorising me’, I said, ‘thank you for authorising me in the way that you did’. There is you see a wild poetry that exists in the hidden spaces of the world, a wild poetry that will burst forth when the time is right. Not that I know anything about that of course, not that I know anything about that. Not that I know anything about anything of course. Joyously proclaiming the Great Narrative with pride in my heart. ‘I shan’t let you down’, I told them fervently, ‘you’ll see that I won’t…’ It was a twilight age, an age of many contrasts and many contradictions. The old ways had disappeared from the face of the earth, never to return, and the new ways were total crap. The new ways were not worth a fart. The new ways were total bullshit, in fact. Folk weren’t totally human anymore – sacrifices had been made, sacrifices the full consequences and ramifications of which we have yet to comprehend. Perhaps we never will. Disgruntled and disillusioned, we formed a new religion but it didn’t do us any good in the end. We worshipped Muktar, the Robot Lord of Control and Restraint Systems but Muktar forsake us. He hung us out to dry. He did a number on us. He left us to fend for ourselves in a universe didn’t care. ‘But what about our bullshit?’ we asked, ‘what about all the bullshit that we have been so busy making up?’ Natural forces came into play then and made short work of our precious but nevertheless pestilential bullshit – ‘The universe doesn’t care’, we cried out in our agony and despair, ‘the universe doesn’t care about our pestilential bullshit!’ We were singing the Pooper Scooper Blues you see. We were feeling sorry for ourselves. We were getting sentimental about the good old days when our bullshit still seemed to count for something. We lament for what has been lost – if we didn’t then no one else would, after all. There’s a wild poetry that lurks unsuspected under the damp and discoloured floorboards of your kitchen you see, a wild poetry that is just waiting for its chance to emerge.