Stretch

I was born at a very young age, and have ever since been building upon that achievement.

At first, I was a pitiable creature. Unable to stand or make even the most rudimentary omelette. But as I grew, I grew hair, I grew teeth, I grew strong, I grew weary, I grew up.

Soon I was able to control my bladder. I was able to wear proper clothes. I grappled with a spoken tongue. And before long, I was at university, putting all of those skills into practice.

Some years after completing my education, I found myself writing a blog post very much this one.

Still more time passed, and I grew my hair to an obscene degree. My hair care routine used so much water that people in the third, fourth and sixth worlds suffered terribly from drought (both water and shampoo).

Later still, I developed my own religion. I called it Listianity, and it was based on the compiling of spurious lists. There were ten main principles behind it:

That's right. Ten.

Eventually I passed away peacefully in someone else's sleep (test-driving my new Inter-Dream Submarine), eventually winning a posthumous Nobel Prize for Dysentery.

At the point of death, I found myself able to float through time. No longer linear, time became one big picnic blanket, and I was free to investigate its many corners as I so pleased.

From the mini Scotch eggs (Napoleonic Wars) to the cheese and onion quiche (birth of Socrates); from the jug of Pimm's (1988 European Championships) to the Maltesers (the Malteser War of 5200AD).

I found this freedom exhilarating. I took some time to travel back to 2011 to complete this blog post, filling myself (and my many readers) in on all that had/has/will transpire(d) over the next several Centurenia.

Eventually, I arrived at the Big Bang just in time to watch the fireworks.

Then I travelled back to 2011 again to write these last two lines.

***

Some of the above is untrue. But humans have a unique ability to enjoy fiction. Animals can't do it. If you show a horse a Brian De Palma film, the horse will display almost no interest.

Animals do lie, of course. A hoverfly will pretend to be a wasp, to fool predators into leaving it alone. An earthworm will claim to be pregnant to ensnare her Catholic lover into continuing the relationship. A Myna bird will present a fake ID to get served in Morrisons.

But deception is not fiction. The animal can lie, but cannot create; can hide the truth, but cannot build new beautiful, plausible, truths of its own.

Except for the AmDram Ram. But his performances are so unpolished, you might as well be watching a jumper smoking a pipe.

Humans alone can harness the power of fiction. We can explore the deepest recesses and furthest reaches of our brain spectrum. Our tentative fingers of creativity stretch out into the dark. There's nothing there, so we postulate a world in our fingerprints.

And imagination has a real bearing on the real world too. If it wasn't for the imagination, we wouldn't have had such breakthroughs in science. If Benjamin Franklin hadn't imagined a world without keys, we wouldn't have the washer/dryer.

If Newton hadn't been daydreaming Babylon 5 fan fiction, we wouldn't have Strongbow.

So when I tell half-truths about my origin and destination, don't think that I'm wasting your time.

Because I'm changing the world.