“I don’t,” said Jim. “But I do see a flaw in the calculations.”
“Then well spotted, Jim. The scientists didn’t spot it, however. But whether that has any bearing on how things worked out I’m not sure. Now, I’m going to tell you what happened in the form of a story. I’ll do all the voices and when I describe each character I’ll do it in verse.”
“Why?” Jim asked.
“Because I’m a bit of a poet.”
Jim sighed outwardly this time.
“And I wasn’t actually there when it all happened. But I watched and heard it all, because I’d hacked into the closed-circuit surveillance video at Institute Tower. I was hooked into Porkie, you see.”
“The Single World Interfaced Network Engine?”
“The very same. So just sit back and drink your beer and I will tell the tale.”
And so saying, Geraldo told Jim the tale. Doing all the voices and describing the characters in verse.
The tale had chapters and titles and everything.
And this is how it went.
It was a conclave and a cabal. A council and a conference.
They were a synod of scientists. A bothering of boffins.
Top of the tree, these fellows were, in the fields of their endeavour. The back-room boys with the front-room minds and the lofty aspirations.
The year was 4321. It was early on a Sunday morning. It was rather later than it should have been in May.
The conclave and the cabal was held in the big posh high-domed solar lounge at the top of Institute Tower.
The tower itself was a monumental cylinder of pale pink plasti-glass, which thrust from the Earth like a raging stonker and buried its big knob end in the clouds. It was a testament to technology, a standing stone to science.
It was an architect’s vision.
The architect was a man.
The scientists were all men, of course. There had never been a lot of room for girlies in science. And so, on this very special day, there were four of them present and these were the last men who worked in the tower. These were the final four.
A thousand years before, when it was first constructed, the tower had housed hundreds of the buggers. Buzzing around like albino bees, with their white coats and their clipboards in their hands. They scratched at their unkempt barnets with the butt-ends of Biros. Chalked calculations on bloody big blackboards. Drank lots of coffee from styrofoam cups and wore those atrocious ties with little cartoons of Einstein, which folk always give to scientists for Christmas and scientists always wear to show what jolly chaps they are.
Those had been the days, my friends.
But those days were all gone.
Now there were only four of them left and soon these four would be gone, like the days had been gone. So to speak.
It was all down to knowledge, you see. For it was knowledge that had brought about THE END.
The director of the Institute was Dr Vincent Trillby. He was a man of considerable knowledge and, as it was he who had called the conclave into being, he was the first man to speak.
Though not as tall as bigger men
He didn’t lack for height.
His chest was trim
And his hips were slim
And there wasn’t a pimple in sight.
His eyes were grey
As a cloudy day,
And he carried himself in a confident way.
He was dapper and sleek
And when he rose to speak
He was rarely obscure. He was never oblique.
“Gentlemen,” said Dr Vincent Trillby, rising from his antique chromium chair and casting a grey’n over his three colleagues, who sat about the black obsidian-topped table. “Gentlemen, we all know why we’re here. It’s a regrettable business, but we all knew it had to happen eventually. The final papers are in. The calculations cross-check. The big clock on the wall is counting down and when the long hand reaches the tenth second past the ninth minute that will be it. THE END.
“And that’s OFFICIAL.”
The three men mumbled and grumbled and shifted in their chairs and drummed their fingers on the tabletop. They didn’t like this at all. But they all knew that it had to happen one of these days and they all knew that the calculations had to be correct.
After all, the calculations were Porkie’s and Porkie’s calculations were always correct.
“Gentlemen, the clock.”
The three men turned their eyes towards the clock and watched the final seconds tick away, tick tick tick, the way those seconds do. The long hand crept around the face, reached the tenth second past the ninth minute.
And then stopped.
“So that’s it,” said Dr Vincent Trillby. “THE END. Not with a bang, nor even a whimper, just with a big full stop. And not even a big one. But that’s it, gentlemen, our job here is done and I’m away to the golf course. Don’t forget to clear your desks before you go and the last man out please switch off the lights.”
Following a moment of rather bewildered silence, a plump hand rose shakily into the air-conditioned air.
“Blashford,” said Dr Vincent Trillby. “You have some apposite remark you wish to favour us with?”
“Something like that, sir, yes.”
“Onto your fat little feet then, lad, spit the fellow out.”
Blashford rose, a podgy youth.
A lover of women, a lover of truth.
The top of his class in advanced trigonometry.
Branches of physics and snappy geometry.
Though rather sweaty down under the arms
He was popular due to his eloquent charms.
And his optimism.
“Dr Trillby,” he said, in a polite and measured tone. “Dr Trillby, I am aware, as we all are, that this is THE END. There is no room left for doubt. If I might, perhaps, liken science to a lady’s silken undergarment. I, for one, would not expect to find the skidmark of error soiling its gusset. We, as the last men of science, know that everything that could possibly be achieved has now been achieved. That science has finally advanced to a point beyond which it cannot go. That all that can be done has been done. That—”
“Is there some point to this, Blashford?” Dr Trillby mimed golf swings. “Because I can hear the fairway calling.”
“Dr Trillby.” Blashford toyed with his tie. It had little cartoons of Einstein all over it. “Dr Trillby, sir. I do have to ask you this.”
“Well go ahead, lad, do.”
“Dr Trillby, what does it mean?”
“Mean, lad? Mean? It means that it’s THE END. That’s what it means. Mankind has come to a full stop. There can be no further progress. You said it yourself. All that can be done has been done. Everything.”
“If I might just slip a word in here.”
Clovis Garnett rose to speak.
Clovis with his fiery mane.
Clovis with his ruddy cheek.
Clovis with his ankle chain.
Clovis with his bright red blazer.
Clovis with his bright red tie[7].
Clovis sharp as any laser.
Fixed them with his cherry eye.
“I think, sir, what Fatty Blashford is trying to ask—”
“Oi!” cried Blashford. “Enough of that fatty talk.”
“What our esteemed and magnificently proportioned colleague is trying to ask—”
“That’s more like it,” said Blashford. “Nice tie, by the way.”
“What he is trying to ask,” said Clovis, “is: what happens next?”
“Nothing,” said Dr Trillby. “Nothing happens next. That’s the whole point of THE END. Nothing happens after it. Nothing can happen after it.”
“You’ll be playing golf,” said Blashford. “That will be happening.”