THE HISTORY OF EVERYTHING IN 100 BLOGS (1)

The cover proof taken from an
extraordinarily rare preview copy
(Private collection)

These extracts are taken from the notebooks of Dr. Chantilly Lace, Professor of Ubiquitous Studies at the Free University of Hullbridgeford-tech, which were written as preparation for her unpublished much greater (ie longer) work “The History of Everything, Ever”. It remained unpublished for some very good reasons, not least of which, as you’ll discover if you read any of it, is that it makes precious little sense and expands upon a number of theories refuted by just about every other scientist that ever lived. Her publishers, BB BookCorp, realised at pretty much the very last moment that, despite having a pretty face, Dr. Lace was utterly bonkers and quietly had the whole print-run pulped. The giggle in her talk should obviously have been something of a clue, but the wiggle in her walk and the fact that BB was a sucker for a ponytail had distracted him a tad. BB BookCorp never really recovered from this, and went into liquidation shortly afterwards and Dr. Lace's notebooks, in their pre-edited form, were flogged off to help claw back some of the losses for their creditors.

1. THE BIG SNEEZE

For a long time there was endless blackness. Endless empty blackness, rather like that feeling at the pit of your stomach when someone tells you that girl you’ve been making a fool of yourself over for the last six months has found a new girlfriend (you know who you are), only there’s a lot more of it (even if it doesn’t feel like it at the time, bitch!).

There was also silence. Lots of silence. The kind of silence you hear after leaving your fifteenth answerphone message of the evening, but the person you’re calling has either gone out or is refusing to answer your calls (bitch!).

Well, there was silence apart from the constant buzzing, but then that’s just what blackness actually sounds like to the trained ear: a kind of eternal, empty, buzzing blackness.

Of course for a long, long time there weren’t any trained ears to hear it, but seeing as the buzzing is still buzzing and has been doing for as long as anyone can remember, it’s pretty safe to assume that that constant buzzing we can all hear (what do you mean, you can’t hear it? Are you deaf or something?) has always been there.

Buzzing away.

Eternally.

Realistically, by the same token, the endless blackness would only be blackness if there was an eye there to see it, which, because there wasn’t, means that there was nothing there at all. (It was as empty as my soul was after you ripped out my heart and stomped on it, bitch!)

There was absolutely nothing. Nothing to see, nothing to do, nothing to buy. It was even more empty than an evening alone in a small flat with nothing to do but wait for the phone to ring.  Nothing could be had. Nada. Not even a tissue if you needed one. Just an endless, empty blackness. Like crying alone in the darkness, only without the crying.

Actually, more recent research has found that the endless blackness was more of a kind of mauvey-green, a bit like my eyes, which you never even noticed (bitch!). Well, they’re more a kind of red now, but that’s what interminable crying will do to you.

Therefore, before there was perception, to all intents and purposes, the universe simply didn’t exist. Not, at least, until it gained a consciousness and woke up. Until then, the universe simply rested and slept an untroubled sleep (like I used to be able to, bitch!).

As it awakened, something got up the universe’s nose, because shortly after it woke up, the waking universe sneezed, an event we now refer to as “The Big Sneeze”. This is generally accepted as being the beginning of everything, ever, as a sudden outpouring of matter erupted into the previously empty mauvey-green space which eventually coalesced into the galaxies, stars and planets that we now recognise today.

This eruption was unavoidable due to the fact that, as has been explained, there really wasn’t a tissue to be had anywhere, and the random nature of the positioning of all these heavenly bodies (not that you’ll now ever get a chance to get near MY heavenly body, bitch!) is because the resultant residue went everywhere, as things will in a confined space for much the same reasons as anyone who has ever tried to eat an airline meal in economy class will know.

There is much speculation that if we can discover the nature of the particle that got up the universe’s nose  - the so-called Biggs-Nosen particle - and how it came to spontaneously appear, we will be a little closer to figuring out a lot more of the mysteries of the universe.

Current theories suggest that the particle didn’t just appear from nowhere, but it was just an annoying bit of fluff, which, because time hadn’t been invented yet (see Chapter Two), took a wrong turning and didn’t know that it wasn’t supposed to be there. Seeking an escape route, it entered a black hole that just happened to be one of the nostrils of the universe and so the Big Sneeze itself was caused by an anomaly which might also explain the general air of bewilderment that there has been ever since (not least as to how you could possibly prefer her over me, you bitch!).

Speculation (and a certain amount of dogmatic disagreement) persists over whether it entered the right or left nostril, although concepts of “left” and “right” don’t really apply on a universal scale (except in politics) because it does tend to depend on where you’re viewing it from (just like in politics). This variable is known as “The Theory of Relativity” and will be covered in more detail in a later chapter.

In was another 84 billion years before there was even the remotest chance of there being a handkerchief available, and there is still a huge conceptual question mark hanging over whether the universe has hands at the ends of its arms that were capable of manipulating one in any case. All of these problems, not least the social discomfort in the aftermath of a very public uncontrolled sneeze, have gone on to make the universe a rather unhappy place.

Which it certainly will be for you if I ever see you out with her, you bitch!