Opposites

It's as if the world were my nightmare, W. says. As if the whole world was nothing but a fever-dream of mine in which he, W., had no real existence. But then, too, sometimes W. imagines it as a kind of gnosticism: I'm the bad demi-urge, the destroyer of things, and he's the divine principle that cannot be destroyed. We're opposites, trapped in an eternal tussle like the wrestlers in that old episode of Star Trek.

But in the end, W. knows he's no match for me. The world's coming to meet me, W. says. Everything's heading in my direction, and there I am laughing in the midst of the apocalypse. In truth, I'm like a little piece of the apocalypse. A sample, like those tiny pots of paint you can buy in B & Q to try out a colour on your wall. This is what it's going to be like, that's what W. discovers in my company. The apocalypse is going to be exactly like this.