The War of Immensities by Barry Klemm

state-of-the-art instruments. The answer was
simple—nothing could. Or perhaps, nothing known could.
    Hearsay
evidence, the board would declare. No possible connection between
the two matters, they would be sure. He would look stupid, trying
to present something like that.
    Not that he
couldn’t bullshit them—in fact he often did.
    But you could
only bullshit effectively when you had some idea of what the truth
was. And he had no idea.
    On and on into
the night he wrote, searching his mind for a concept, an idea,
anything at all, in which to sow the germ of his research. He
wrote—
    The imaginable
universe is mysterious enough, but although we lack many answers,
there has never been a mystery for which our minds have been unable
to account, however inadequately. Moreover, all scientific
mysteries possess calculable answers, even though some may be
wrong. But what of the unimaginable—even a divine entity and his
works can be fantasised. But are there forces that lie truly beyond
our imagination, perhaps which touch us all the time, but which our
senses ignore because they are completely incomprehensible to us?
Or if the senses are engaged, the brain ignores because it can make
no sense of the data—nor even conjure a foolish fantasy on the
subject.
    Such fantasies
are the basis of all religions—answers provided by our minds at a
stage in our development when we lacked the data and wit to even
approach the truth. Our scope to imagine impossible answers has
always seemed infinitely broad, but from our lowly remote position
on Earth we cannot possibly perceive it all. There must indeed be
other, greater forces out there, that lie beyond that scope.
    And perhaps
such forces within ourselves as well…
    In the dark
lonely house, Thyssen leaned back and lit a cigarette. Yes, that
was what he was looking for. Something truly supernatural—not the
foolish stuff of ghosts or demons or aliens in flying saucers, but
something that could be proven to exist with all scientific rigour
and yet defy all possibility of an answer. And was this the Shastri
Effect? Had that cheeky Indian girl accidentally stumbled upon the
gateway to the new universe? Thyssen was unsure, but what he did
know was that his former life was ended, that phase passed through,
and his new existence was underway. The ghosts of Karla and the
children had vanished from the house—finally he was able to come
home.

*

    She awoke being
lightly shaken and joggled and gazing at the grey sky through the
window. She was upside down and her neck was hurting—it was that
pain that dragged her back to consciousness. In a car, the sky
rushing overhead, she assessed. Dull day. It was Lorna’s car, she
realised and she was lying in the back seat. In her pyjamas and
dressing gown with a travel-rug thrown over her. She groaned.
    “Ho, back in
the land of the living, are we?” came a cheery voice from the front
seat.
    They hit a bump
and Chrissie’s neck almost snapped. Moving her head to a more
comfortable position was seemingly dangerous. It felt as if the
skull bone was paper thin and would crack like an egg shell.
    “Lorna, what’s
going on?” she attempted to say—her thick tongue would not form the
words properly.
    “We’re nearly
there,” Lorna replied.
    Nearly where?
It was plain that she would not get any sense out of Lorna and was
going to have to look for herself. She gripped the seatback and
hauled and her arms found enough strength to drag her body into a
sitting position. She was so bloody stiff. Had they had an
accident? Had she fallen? Her eyes slowly focused and she looked
all around. They were out in the country, for God’s sake, and she
was still dressed for bed.
    “Lorna? Where
are we?”
    “The coast is
just ahead. When we get there, we’ll have coffee. I did a thermos.
Then you’ll be fine.”
    She would never
be fine.
    “I’m sick,
Lorna. What have you done to me?”
    “It’s just the
sleeping pills wearing off, Chrissie. Coffee, a