A Brief History Of Nothing

A Brief Discussion About "A Brief History Of Nothing"

"What is it?" she said, as he handed it to her.
"It's my new book," he said. "It's called 'A Brief History of Nothing'"
She opened the book and began flicking through it.
"The pages are all blank?" she said in puzzlement.
"Yes! brilliant isn't it?," he replied triumphantly.
She sighed.

Piece

For too long - he said
Artists have been naval gazing, they have been frightened to engage with the world - he said
Or if they have it has been on too small a scale, too simplistic, no where near grand enough - he said.
But, ladies and gentleman - he said
I plan too change all of that. I plan a work of art on a scale never before conceived - he said.
They waited.
To save you an effort I will let you know that I have been standing on the shoulder of giants but I am the colossus who will overshadow them all. I have taken the ready-mades of Duchamp, the style of Dali, the audacity of Hirst and the vision of Borges. But I have out done the Argentinian! Whilst he merely wrote I have enacted - he said.
They waited.
My subject is everything happening right now; there is nothing in this world I do not consider, no position that cannot be inferred. My scope is infinite, ladies and gentlemen, as my canvas is the whole universe.
They waited.
He unveiled his piece.
It is, as you see, a telescope - he said.
If you care to look you will see I've scratched my name on the lens - he said.
Now where shall we start the bidding? - he said.
You've ruined a perfectly good telescope - They said.

A Response To Philip K Dick's "The Pre Persons"

For some time sexually active women had been made to mourn during their periods. For did not one quarter of pregnancies end in an early loss? And wasn't it true that no contraceptive was hundred percent reliable? These women were to wear black and attend mass funerals during the duration of their time.

These were not barbaric times in which they were living .

There was still much discussion going on, however.

Life doesn't begin at birth, here they all agreed. Life begins at conception and all abortion is murder.

"Conception?" they said. "Isn't that but an arbitrary decision?"

When does that take place? When the cells split? When one cell becomes two cells again? When the sperm enters the egg?

These questions were indeed rhetorical; Life had begun when the sperm entered the egg of course but what do about it?

They hmmmed and hahhhheddd and hahhhhheddd and hmmmed.

Eventually, after much discussion, it was agreed that a sperm and an ovum were indeed pre-people; for if conception had happened when the sperm had entered the egg, what about the split second before the sperm entered the egg? Was conception not guaranteed then? And also the split second before that? and the split second before that and so on? So, therefore, were the sperm and the egg not equally valid as life, as people?

Yea, it was agreed! Masturbation for males was decreed to be murder and all were to stop.

But, they argued, it was not enough, did not men urinate out sperm that had not fertilised a woman? What of all the life lost?

So it was agreed; all young men would be castrated at birth and all young women's ovaries were to be removed.

Of course, there were some nay sayers, but when considered against the monumental loss of life that had occurred before it was a small price to pay.

The adult men all gave sperm samples before they were castrated and the women gave up their eggs too.

From then on birth was a joyous thing, with the filling out of forms to collect spermatozoa and ovum from the vat, to have them surgically placed in the womb, for the sacred hormones to be administered, a beautiful thing indeed.



aufors note:

This is a response to a story that made me very queasy when I read it. The premise, - a great one - is that there is a truck that takes away (or "aborts") children when their parents are fed up with them. The subtext - that any abortion is the same as killing a child - is not so great. I felt so troubled by this that I felt a need to make a riposte and take things to the logical conclusion on the other side. Just to let people know that I think that abortion is a very grey area, but that, just as I believe it is wrong to say that a a tiny clump of cells is a person, I also believe it is wrong to say that a 7 month old foetus (about the time an early birth can survive) is not. There's a line in between these two that I think our law has done a good job of finding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pre-persons

The men

The men stand on the roof.

They have been there for a long time.

Time and the weather has warped them.

Their noses have become long and wide.

I can barely see their mouths anymore.

I wonder what they think of me down here.

Valentine's Day

How bizarre sex must seem to the asexual
How bizarre asexuality must seem to the rest

So you want in?

So you want in? - he asked.
Stylish, but not overdressed; plain but not unnoticeable, he smiled at me.
He did not, however, wait for my assent.
You need to read this, he said.
It's a test, he said.
We give it to everyone, he said.
The books deliberately boring, he said.
He laughed and looked at me.
It's 500 pages long, he said.
I looked at him blankly.
It's like Jazz, he said, you either get it or you don't.
He handed me the book.
I took it and walked out, placing the book in the nearest available bin.
I had no idea whether I passed the test or not and, frankly, I'm not sure I cared.