RELIGIOUS DESK

HOLD ON to your hats, because humans have already gone extinct, says a leading eco-scientist.

“Yes, we went extinct at 3.35 pm Greenwich Meantime last Wednesday,” says Professor Peter Cook of the We’re All Going To Die Institute in Southern California. “Our habitat was completely destroyed and we were not far behind. So I suppose it’s the end of the world. Well, for us, anyway, it seems.

“Many people may not have noticed, but that is because of a strange coincidence. Just at the moment we went extinct, the Large Hadron Collider in Europe, we believe under the guidance of the CIA and an alien culture which has been visiting our planet for centuries, created a black hole. This black hole, as well as swallowing us, has slowed time and so the experience of extinction and death is delayed for quite a long time. Quite a very long time, actually. Presently, if that’s the right word, it might feel like a small itch at the back of the ear. That’s because the black hole is swallowing so much of our reality that what arrives at our senses is not only travelling very slowly but is hardly discernible to those senses.

“So as we are being swallowed by the black hole, we continue on living as normal, except for the continual slowing of everything. It doesn’t take away from the fact that for us existence has ended. It gives us more time to think about what fools we have been, whether we had enough fun, that kind of thing. Some people will be looking at computer screens and asking themselves whether there was a more productive way they could have spent their lives. Others will be at the sea shore, just staring. Listening too to the last birdsong and the last “fuck off you smelly cunt!” and the small prayers people who never gave God a second thought are trying to remember. Scratching for hope.

“And hey, if the earth pops out on the other side of the black hole then who knows what might happen. Indeed.”