Sentence The Fivehundredandfortyfourth 

Little Levy Balquhidder remembered with a crystal clarity that night(or it might have been midday) when he was Laszlo Licinic, sitting with that motley crew in one of the dingy bedrooms in a strange apartment house corridor, a food desert in between deliveries of the most mundane and bland foodstuffs they could imagine, explaining the principles of Quantum Mechanics, String Theory and the 13 Dimensions using the kind of lexicon which might be available in Multiple Universes for Dummies; he knew they were finding it increasingly difficult to follow, but when he got on to Wormholes in the fabric of the Universe and the Space-Time Continuum he had their full attention: "so that is how we have all been able to come here from different times and places?" asked Roxy Davidova, the brightest of the bunch, "because all times and places are actually one and the same?" asked Geli Raubal; "well not so much the places, though they are all linked, but the times are all

happening concurrently as well as consecutively, and that is why you sometimes feel as if you have been somewhere before, because you have, and think you are seeing a ghost, when what you are actually glimpsing is a different time in the same place; you have to remember that we are all, literally everything in the entire Universe, the Universe itself, contained within the Creator's mind; "we are just his imagination?" asked Peter Boo, rather a pedestrian solicitor: "nothing is just anything     

or even imaginary," said Laszlo, "all is real, but located within the Creator's mind which is quite unlike our own minds," and Martin Elginbrod snorted, ever the objurgate: "what a load of crap! are we really going to listen to this drivel? it's time we forced a door and escaped into the Real World beyond, and get as far as we can from this shite!" which was when his eyes began to bulge, his eardrums popped, his heartbeat slowed to an intermittent rate and he gasped for air! "oh dear," said Laszlo, "I rather think the Creator is displeased with him; there are a strain of spirits which would test the patience of Job by their unacceptable attitudes and behaviours; no matter how many chances they are given, with opportunities for ritual lavation, it can take a millennium before they see the error of their ways, see the light, repent and receive his blessing; most of us swing about in the spectrum and after a life of wickedness, can devote several to altruistic and selfless ways of aiding our fellows, but I think the Elginbrods have become so entrenched that there is little more we can expect of them, when I say we, I do, of course mean He; I wouldn't be surprised if this is the end of the road for this particular spirit," and as they watched Elginbrod wriggle and writhe and shudder and shake, he began to diminish before them, so rapidly that it was like watching a balloon being burst in slow motion rather than just hearing the POP! and then it was gone; he was gone, leaving only a slightly sulphuric

hint in the atmosphere; and a shadow seemed to hang briefly in the air and then it too was gone: "that was his Spirit, going back to The Creator, and I don't think it will be here again for a long, long time!"