Space Salmon

Now, if they looked as convincing as this, I could understand how the ancients managed to agree on the names of those various random alignments of stars we call "constellations". As it is, this fat salmon surging through space is nothing more than an equally random grouping of cracks and tiny bubbles embedded in the ice of the Staff Club pool.

I'm very attracted to those moments when the universe appears to speak -- or at least to clear its throat -- but then falls back into its protracted silent sulk again. It's a species of what theologians call the numinous (go on, look it up for yourself, I'm in bed with a cold, watching the snow fly past my window). In the end, the inescapable mystery is that there is a pulse, a systole and diastole, of meaning and meaninglessness that has led us, as a species, to propose various spiritual and philosophical palliative syntheses to that headache-inducing dialectic. But our true genius as a species, however, has been to invent Paracetamol to make such headaches go away. I think I'm due for my next dose in about 20 minutes.