Somewhere in a parallel universe there is…

A huge keyboard stretching into the distance in front of a screen that fills the entire horizon. 

The keyboard is laid out with pathways and a worried looking gerbil runs down the paths to send instructions to the screen. 

The gerbil has a notepad full of gerbil scratchings that it wrote down yesterday and a process document to show it how to lay the paths and where to run. 

The gerbil runs.. 

I know this is true, because I brought this universe into being on Tuesday morning. 

The fabric of reality is thinner here than at home and my avatar has assumed the status of a minor god. 

Small Thundergod in fact. 

We walked along the beach together on Tuesday and were joined by Shiva, the Hindu god of death and creation. 

He’s a lot of fun and we’re going out for drinks and as he put it; to ‘fuck shit up’ on Friday. 

Shiva wasn’t too convinced at first, parallel universes need a bit of effort to create and he’s not that into rodents really. 

The dog is loving his new god-hood status, and tiring of the discussion decided to create some water spouts along the waterfront so that he could dance on his hind legs and snap and bark at the water; running around like a maniac and giving us both a huge doggie grin as we sat in the surf and watched him. 

The beach has changed a lot since I was here in January, back then it was an endless gentle slope that looked the same from almost any spot, only the features behind gave a clue as to where you were. 

  

The sea has been having fun with the sand since then and sand cliffs have appeared almost overnight – the rock below was buried under five feet of sand in January. 

 

I pointed this out to Shiva as the dog continued to chase the waterspouts, his new glowing eyes gleaming through the spray and we watched razor clams adjust themselves to the new landscape, burying themselves within seconds of being exposed by the waves. 

Finally; Shiva let out a sigh (and a small grin) and we made a small adjustment to the standing waveform that is our current reality (look it up). 

And my new universe was whole, Shiva gave me the address of a good bar in Temple Bay and said that I have to pay all night on Friday  – and both he and the dog were gone. 

The gerbil is still running along the keyboard and every twenty minutes or so, a huge ERROR sign appears and he has to start running again. 

This isn’t some mad torture for the gerbil, if he can get this task right, it will open the door to food and drink, a living for his little gerbil family and a roof over his head for the rest of his life. 

Everybody wants him to succeed, if the gerbil can do this simple task, we can all get on with other things and leave him to it. He can then train other gerbils and we will all reap the rewards of his hard work. 

If only he could learn and adapt. 

Watch.. 

A light appears above the keyboard and maps out the true path for a few minutes. The gerbil makes more scratches in his notebook. 

And runs. 

He runs for twenty minutes and makes a different wrong turn and the ERROR flashes again. 

And we reset. 

Again

And again. 

The gerbil lets out a huge gerbil sigh and sets off again as we all watch and wait, hoping against hope that THIS time it will be correct; that the door will open and that the light from the universe outside will flood in and dazzle us all. 

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

ERROR

The gerbil runs

  

Finally, pity sets in, a light appears above the keyboard and the path lights up, the gerbil takes cautious steps along the new route and the door opens, but only for the sleeping hours, tomorrow the gerbil will have to try to make this work again. 

We all want him to succeed, he’s a sweet little chap and he seems sad, but both Shiva and the newly minted Small Thundergod had advised against it and I’m now reluctantly in agreement with them. 

He’s a gerbil, unlike the sand, sea and the razor clams, he can’t adapt to his world and learn new things quickly enough to survive. 

It’s too late to replace him now, the universe has been created and the die is cast. 

There’s only one thing left to do; I’m drafting in a spider monkey to smack him around the head every time he starts to fuck up. 

It won’t be pleasant, but the work will get done. 

  

*Have a safe journey back Thorben and Ludovic  –  we’re going to miss you here*