Robert Rankin - The Brightonomicon

'A pint of Esso it is, then. And one for Mister Rune? I see his big baldy head looming through the crowd.' 'Make his a half,' I said. 'Appalling pub,' said Mr Rune, joining me at the bar. 'Have you ordered?' 'I have.'

Fangio served up the drinks and Mr Rune availed himself of my pint.

'Only a half for you?' he said. 'Wise move – you'll need a clear head for what lies ahead of us this night.' 'The lecture?' I said, ruefully sipping my half.

'The lecture is merely the tip of the iceberg. Before this night is through, you will have stared death in the face, and spat into its cavernous eyeholes as well.' 'I do not like the sound of that.'

'It's much of a muchness,' Mr Rune said. 'I've done it on many occasions. I remember once in the nineteen thirties when I went down to the crossroads at midnight with the blues musician Robert Johnson-'

'Ladies and gentlemen, will you please take your seats upstairs for the lecture. It begins in five minutes,' called a personable young woman with a nimbus of orange hair and a dress that barely covered her costs.

'Best get a couple more beers in, then,' said Mr Rune. 'And trust not the ways of women, "For they are like unto a fire that quencheth not even though constantly watered." The Gospel of Rune 3: 16.' 'Two pints of Esso then, please, Fange.' And Fangio once more did the business. And 'Oh,' said Mr Rune, 'you'll want to wear this.' 'What is it?' I asked as I took the item from him. 'A badge,' said he. And it was – a badge with a centaur upon it. 'Pin it next to that spaniel one,' he said. And I did. The upstairs room of The Rampant Squire was furnished with rows of folding chairs. A makeshift stage had been constructed from beer crates and upon this stood a blackboard resting on a precarious stand and a three-legged table called Peter. Upon this table there lay something that looked very much to be Aladdin's lamp.

We had gained our entrance to this dismal room with little difficulty, Mr Rune flashing his library ticket and announcing us to be 'senior members of the Society of Psychical Research, here to observe the proceedings in the interests of health and safety'.

Mr Rune then cleared three seats for us in the front row through the employment of his stout stick – one for me and two for himself.

When all that were coming in were in and the door was closed upon the lot of us, Danbury Collins took to the makeshift stage, introduced himself and launched uncertainly into his talk.

Now, I did not take much to Danbury Collins. He was a callow youth with sunken eyes, an acned complexion and hairs upon the palm of the hand that was not in his Grouser pocket. 'Do wotcha like is the whole of the law,' quoth Danbury. 'Good grief,' muttered Mr Rune.

'I'm glad to see such a big turnout tonight,' continued the psychic youth.

I glanced about: there were twelve of us, all told, in the audience. Which, with Danbury on the makeshift stage, at least made up the requisite number to get a Last Supper started.

'So,' said Danbury Collins, 'my topic tonight is the Centaur of the Universe – how everything began, how it works, what it means and what our part in it is.' 'This should be enlightening.' Mr Rune yawned loudly. 'Give him a chance,' I whispered.

'I am,' the Hokus Bloke replied. 'You will note that I haven't as yet struck him.'

'The universe,' said Danbury, and he gestured towards his blackboard, 'endless, black, and going on for ever and ever and ever-' Rune opened his mouth, then closed it again.

'Endless,' said Danbury. 'Endless space and endless time. But not – and I must emphasise this – not endlessly filled with matter. We are lately informed that the universe began with a Big Bang, that before this momentous moment there was no time and then suddenly the universe exploded into being. There are, I understand, equations that prove the proposition that everything began with a Big Bang. But I say rubbish to this, I say stuff and nonsense.' 'Well done, you,' said Mr Rune, applauding.

'Thank you,' said Danbury. 'And good evening to you, Mister Rune.'

Mr Rune gave Danbury a knowing wink. 'Pray continue,' said he, 'with your most fascinating monologue.'

'Well, firstly,' continued Danbury, 'as I've said, the universe is endless space, it goes on for ever and ever, so no matter how big this Big Bang might appear to us to be, it is damn all in an endless universe. It is in fact a very small bang, infinitesimally small. Virtually no bang at all. And, as we all learned in science at school, sound doesn't travel through a vacuum. So in the vacuum of infinite space, it wasn't even a bang. It was more of a puff, a small puff.'

'Excuse me,' said Mr Rune, 'but are you suggesting that a small puff began the universe?' 'I am,' said Danbury. 'Oscar Wilde?' asked Mr Rune, which resulted in some merriment from the audience. 'Exactly,' said Danbury Collins. 'Bravo,' said Mr Rune. 'Naturally, I have toyed with this concept myself.' 'Eh?' said I.

And Danbury continued, 'Space is infinite, but matter is finite – there is only a limited amount of it. It's a fair old amount, I grant you, but if you lumped it all together it would have a finite weight, and no matter how far you spread it all about, it's the same amount. And we – you, me, Oscar Wilde, all of us – are composed of the matter of the universe. We are Stardust*. We are composed of universal stuff. Every cell of our bodies has been here, part of the finite amount of matter, for ever. You can't create more matter – that would be creating something out of nothing. You can convert matter, burn it, change it into gas, whatever, but the weight of it all remains the same. We – everyone in this room – is composed of cells that are composed from the original matter of the universe.'

I had a bit of a think about this. I was only a teenager and had never, as far as I could recall, ever given much thought to esoteric matters of this ilk, but I had to say that this was, well, profound. That is what it was: profound.

'So,' continued Danbury, 'if we are all composed of the original and finite material of the universe, we are all a part of its beginning; we all contain the stuff of its beginning -whatever that beginning might have been. And so we should be able to access universal knowledge, knowledge of the past and the future, for it is all one in universal terms. And it's all there in the cells of our being.'

A student type a few seats along from me raised his grubby hand. 'Are you saying,' he asked, 'that we are inherently capable of accessing the past – of travelling in time, as it were?'

'Certainly,' said Danbury. 'It is all in our cellular memory. You don't just inherit your father's physical features, but also his cellular memory of his father and his father before him. I've heard that a scientist named Doveston has * We are golden, etc. invented a drug called Retro that allows you to access these memories.'

'I read that somewhere,' said the student type. 'And also about this Benedictine monk who invented a television set that could play back past events.'

'Eh?' said I and I turned to the student type. 'Where did you read about that?' I asked.

'In the Weekly World News,' the youth replied. ' "MAD MONK INVENTS TIME TV: Watches Christ's Crucifixion", that was the headline.'

I looked at Mr Rune. The Perfect Master appeared to be sleeping.

'The Weekly World News' I said. 'I have seen that in the newsagent's. It is nothing but made-up nonsense. Only last week the headline was "ELVIS PRESLEY CONFESSES: I Travelled Through Time With the Aid of Barry the Time Sprout". The Weekly World News is always on about time travel and it is all rubbish.'

'The CIA owns the Weekly World News,' said another student type. 'They publish real information but in such a way that no "right-thinking" person would believe it. It's all a big conspiracy. The CIA had Kennedy shot because he was going to blow the whistle on the alien bodies in Area Fifty-One. Everybody knows that.' 'Not me,' I said.