Nothing happened in the Artinskian Age

Nothing happened in the Artinskian Age.

I’ve read about them finding rock fragments from the Artinskian Age, cleaning off the younger clay and the glacial scree and breaking them open and standing back and clasping their mouths whilst plumes of nothing escaped in billows like butterflies and fire embers and dandelion seeds from the rock.

Nobody was sorry in the Artinskian Age.

There are these former soviet steel factories running on crude oil from the Artinskian Age, and inside, black screeching axles turn like spinning film reels and scavenging two stroke engines burst out with grand clouds of grey exhaust and make a cinema and orchestra of nothing in the smoke.

No credit cards were cancelled during the Artinskian Age.

Last night I saw the Northern Lights inside a kebab and steak restaurant on Camberwell New Road and I was overtaken with a sort of madness of meaninglessness and evacuation and searching for some composure or consolation I turned towards you and you leant there looking at the lights and you seemed bored and tired and calm.

No baths were run in the Artinskian Age.

I’ve heard stories from the Artinskian Age, two hundred and eighty million years old, passed on through droning poems that sound like the breathing and trembling of small animals gathering together for warmth.

No trains were late during the Artinskian Age.

There are bunkers under the Ural Mountains, where national champions of palaeontology and interdisciplinary mathematics gather to hold hands and discuss the Artinskian Age and everybody stands so close together it looks as if they’re kissing.

Nobody drank bottled water in the Artinskian Age.

When I’m derelict and lonely I like to think about your dream. I like to think about the part where you are lost and trudging through acres of mud and horsehoof bamboo and the sun is shrivelled and rust coloured and roaring like a low airplane and moving like a low airplane across the sky.

Nobody got divorced during the Artinskian Age.

I’ve been thrown out of every pub in Camberwell for the same reason. For no reason. For nothing. If I had the qualifications and the capital I’d open a pub opposite the Green and I’d call it the Patron Saint of Nothing and I’d name the pub that after your dream.

No one laughed during the Artinskian Age.

And in your dream, the Patron Saint of Nothing is there amongst the mud and bamboo, and she is walking alongside you in her bikini and her sandals and she reaches over and squeezes your fingers and your wrist and your nose and you know you never need to be worried ever again.