‘I am the Autodidact,’ I crow triumphantly, ‘I taught myself everything I know!’ I chortle magnanimously, amused by the wickedness of my own scintillating irony. ‘I taught myself everything I know and I know nothing, nothing at all!’ The joke was ripe and rich but already I was tiring of it. I was tiring of it all the same. ‘Time to move on’, I told myself, ‘time to move on’. It was always time to move on…

‘Enlightenment is mine’, I cry out victoriously, ‘at long last I have achieved the supreme illumination, despite what everyone has said.’ Enlightenment was mine and no one can ever take that away from me. The dogs of dissent may yap as much as they please as far as I am concerned. The Mockers may mock and the Scoffers may scoff but I proved them all wrong in the end! I had created the Giant Cosmic Emulator and so now there was no turning back. In one glorious flash of Genius, I had brought into existence the ultimate machine and now the whole universe will be subservient to it. I had inadvertently invented Disneyland and I couldn’t un-invent it. The GCE emulated everything there was, and a good few things that weren’t as well. If you wanted to know what doom looks like well now you know – this is exactly what it looks like!

The Great Emulator emulates the birds and it emulates the bees, it emulates both the wicked and the wise, the pleasant-natured and the cranky. It emulates grains of dust and it emulates mountains. It emulates both your uncle and his famous purple pantaloons. It emulates your dog and the fleas on it. I think you get the idea of what I’m trying to say here so I won’t continue. I won’t labour the point…

‘How wrong is it to be wrong?’ I find myself wondering, ‘is it very very wrong or is it perhaps not so bad?’ My mind was trying frantically to obtain purchase on the matter – the wheels were spinning madly but to absolutely no avail. ‘How do I get myself out of this mess?’ I ask myself, ‘or am I doomed beyond any hope?’ Why I choose to ask myself this question I don’t know – I’d be the last person to know. I wouldn’t know the answer to a question like that. I was all at sea but didn’t like to admit it to myself – that way lies fear you see. That way lies fear and lots of it….

‘Emulator, Emulator, on the wall, who’s the greatest Phoney of them all?’ I sing out, in frighteningly good spirits, and the Emulator replies, as it always does reply – ‘You are, you dirty great Gobshyte!’ That was all a long time ago now though – it happened in a distant place in a distant time and sometimes I wonder if it even happened at all. The world has changed an awful lot since then you see, everything is changed beyond recognition. The old ways are gone for good and so now we have to adjust to the Unforeseen. The Crystal Sphere of our dreams has been shattered into ten trillion shards, Humpty-Dumpty style, and there’s there’s no going back, not ever ever ever…

The days are flying past by now and so it can’t be much longer till the end. Did you ever see the days fly by so fast? Did you ever, did you ever. Time no longer means anything anymore – ‘time ain’t what it used to be’, as they say. It surely isn’t. The streets are swimming with police – the whole police force is out there looking for me. The police reserves, too. They’re all out there trying their best to find me and I know it’s only a matter of time till they do. The net is closing in and – darting madly here and darting madly there as I might – I can’t jump out of it. I wish desperately (but to no avail) that I didn’t have to be the most wanted Super-Criminal in the world.

Image – wallpaperdog.com