The Answer to Life, the Universe and Everything

Imagine a room,
a sudden glow. Here is my hand, my heart,
my throat, my wrist. Here are the illuminated
cities at the center of me, and here is the center
of me, which is a lake, which is a well that we
can drink from, but I can’t go through with it.
I just don’t want to die anymore.

Here at the Light Emporium we sell light.

Bottles of light.
Fluorescent lights and
streetlights and the light that falls
across the faces of your neighborhood buildings
at seven a.m. on a large march early spring
morning.

Purple and Green. Red and Black.
White lights — the ones you get when a car
is catapulting towards you at forty five miles
an hour. The near-death light. The DMT light.
All the ones that you can imagine — here: in little
glass vessels. Organized with the Dewey
Decimal System. 423 if you want to learn the language of
light. 700s to master the art of it. And 900: the history
of light, from the moment it was separated from
the darkness.

Buy them. Eat them. Stir them into your
morning coffee. Inject them straight into your
veins. Do you want to become the light? Here,
come to the Light Emporium. Where our sole

purpose is to give you everything
that takes away the dark corners that
keep you awake at night.

A man sets himself the task of making a plan of the universe. After many years, he fills a whole space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fish, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and people. On the threshold of death, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines has traced the likeness of his own face.