When the pocket was first invented it was completely empty and listless, like an empty wineskin or purse. Merely an aperture in your clothing for access more than. It was only after someone dropped their car keys into it by mistake that the whole thing got going. After that there was no stopping the spread of pockets of all kinds. Except that there was always the end of a thread left loose beside the seam.
When I was out and about, I came across the thread which I might pull. The loose end lay all innocent upon the soft furnishings, seeming so innocent.
Having become acquainted with the nature of thread pulling in recent, I was reluctant and/or apprehensive about the course and structure that might reveal, were I to pick it, but, being an inveterate risk taker, I bent to take it up and prepared to pull.
The thread itself, laying across my palm, was so robust with coloured and metallic filaments entwined. There was a sparkled reflection to it which spoke of complexity and innate qualities of materials.
I didn’t want to do it. It felt flat like a filament, all rounded with dormant sub strata. It wasn’t electric and it wasn’t woolly or undefined.
Don’t do it, she said, The illusion is essential, once pulled, it may not re-weave, she said,
That’s not a word, I said, If you re-weave something then it is a new thing, not the old thing re-woven.
Don’t split threads, she said.
She said that she knew, she said that she would tell me, she said that I would break it, she said that I was a fool.
I said, Oh.
She told me I didn’t value her judgement and would probably go ahead and pull it anyway, she told me I was wrong.
I said, Oh.
I looked at the thread resting in my palm and the urge was immense.
When should I pull it? I asked
Never, she said, Let it go and exercise some restraint.
Ok, I said. She left. I pulled the thread and reality fell apart.
She came back. I knew it, she said, Now see what you have done. I’m going to have to redecorate the entire universe.
I can help, I said.
You’re damn right you will, she said, this is all a mess of your own destruction.
First, we must cover the soft furnishings and put cosmic dust sheets upon the gravitational grid. I will put the curtains of northern lights in the washer.
What colour will you use for the background? I asked.
Deep Space Black, she said, I love its depth, it is endless.
And the galaxies and nebulae?
I’m thinking an off white for the galaxies, but we can go ape with the colours for the nebulae. I’ll leave those to you, you’re rubbish at interior design, but you do have a flare for the unexpected.
I got to work sanding down the planets so that they would take a nice finish and collected a suitable array of paint brushes, rollers and roller trays from the workshop.
Don’t stint on the black holes and quasars, she called, and leave the dark matter to me, I’m still trying to work out where it should be found. And from what exotic filler particles it is best fashioned.
OK, I said, from high on the scaffold where I was cutting in the depths of space around a super nova. I suppose we can add in the asteroid belt later.
Let me worry about that, she said, you just get it done, I want this universe up and running before anyone notices.
As I covered the spaces betwixt and between the great structures with a satisfying swathe of Deep Space Black, I noticed that some areas were more bumpy than others and I became afraid that the surface might wrinkle. Then I saw that there were, in effect, bright moments that refused to cover and I realised, in a light bulb above my head, that the lost matter was not dark, but light, and that I had found it.
Dark matter is not dark at all, I told her, don’t be anxious, here comes some now.
A flurry of exotic lightness moved past in a hurry to be somewhere, its ears and whiskers laid back.
I’m late, I’m late, I heard it whisper.
The Guardians of the Cave 