The world is flat

Now she said, 'It's not really your car is it?'

I turned my head and saw Hell on her side, looking up at me, smiling. Tactically, I felt that now would be a good time to tell it like it was. Girls respect that. I'd be honest. Well, more honest.

'It's a mate's.' I paused. 'I wanted to impress you.'

'You didn't have to.' She rolled around, raised herself up on one arm and looked me in the eye. 'I wouldn't care what car you drove, Lee.'

'No?'

'No. Or what job you did or how much money you earned or how many gadgets you had.'

'No?'

'No. You care too much about that stuff. That's sort of why I brought you here. I wanted you to realize something.'

'Oh yeah?'

'I see you now and you're this big-shot dealer strutting around, and you're all pally with Danny, and it's funny.'

'What?'

'You're caught up with the little things, Lee. And people get so caught up in the little things - money and all that - they forget what's really important.'

'What?'

'You come somewhere like this, somewhere sacred, and you realize that, well, all that's just... details. It's other stuff that's important'

'What other stuff?'

'You know... Just being. Look at the birds, Lee, and the flowers, and the stones. They don't care about being big shots.'

I had a limit, even with her.

'Hell, what are you talking about? You tell me to look at the birds? Well I am. I'm looking at that one.' I pointed up a big, nasty-looking bird with blunt wings, a bomber of a bird, circling in the air above us. 'That bird got to be a big bird 'cause it eats little birds. All that other stuff, that comes after. When you're a big bird.'

'But Lee, Lee, it's not being a big bird that matters. Little birds are just as good. They're just as happy. What it's about, Lee, what I'm trying to explain, is that we're all one, we're all part of the, the-'

'The cosmic energy flow?' I said. It was a phrase she'd used earlier. I knew that, to stand any chance at all, I was just going to have to agree. If she said the world was flat, then it was flat, and would remain so till I was lighting a post-shag fag.


LEWIS, Simon. go. Berkshire: Corgi, 1999. p.35-36.

BCID: 211-7791958