[For J.N.]

The greatest novel ever to exist rolled out a string of words five hundred pages long explaining the reasons, examining the history, exploring the physical aspects and ruminating on the thoughts why the protagonist lifted a finger five centimetres.

Not pointing.

Not moving.

Lifting.

The rise and fall of civilisations.

Romances lost.

Skyscrapers erected.

Hypotheses proposed, proved and disproved.

Approved and disposed.

Deposed and posed.

Approached and discarded.

Carded and boozed.

Booed and cheered.

One finger.

Skin, hair, muscles, bone.

Wrinkles.

Scars.

Sweat.

Symbiotic relationships hiding in cells.

 

Read by no one.

Burnt after written.

Fading from memory.

Nearly…

soon…

forgotten.

 

Greatness is a comparison.

 

We’ll never know the gap between the greater and the greatest.

 

We surmise by what is missing from the zeitgeist.

A smell on the air of personal achievement.

Someone else will approximate –

dividing, slicing, calculating derivations –

“close only counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, atomic bombs and drive-in movies.”

 

One ten-thousandth of a microgram away from perfection.

 

Five or six sigma, if necessary.

 

What is a boson compared to a universe?

What is a universe compared to a multiverse?

What is a single verse compared to a poem, sonnet, ballad or book?

 

Dimming, darkening, slowing down.

The pace of a snail, the speed of a bullet train, the gap between heartbeats.

The life of a star system.

Importance is relative.

Relatives are important.

 

In the second book, the finger sat back down.

The last volume in the trilogy hinted about the frequency at which the finger tapped.

 

The rhythm was the unsolved mystery.

 

The mystery of life’s rhythm, of course.

 

The next generation solved another clue: the change in frequency.

 

Generations would pass before the volume of tapping was distinguished from general, noisy background sounds.

 

Let a drop of oil fall into a cup of water and film the event at high speed, trillions of frames per second.

Then play it back at a speed of 10 frames per second.

While watching, imagine you’re seeing a thought pass through a synaptic gap, or the universe expanding and contracting like a soap bubble next to millions of other soap bubbles in the bathtub.

Or a baby’s cry hitting a mother’s eardrum.

A tear falling from a dying man.

The first raindrop ending a thousand-year old drought.

 

The greatest novel never read is lived every day.