Justice moved my lofty maker: the divine Power, the supreme Wisdom and the primal Love made me. Before me were no things created, unless eternal, and I eternal last. Leave every hope, ye who enter!
Vangelis album title
If Greece had taught Coakes anything, it was that he could revolutionise a domain of human knowledge with little effort or prior experience. With this in mind, he sought and quickly obtained a research position at one of Europe’s leading universities. As he crossed the Atlantic on O’Reilly’s gulf stream jet, Coakes worked furiously on his plans for the language. English, he had always thought, would be far more successful as a natural science. Enough of this rusty liberal twaddle of meaning, scansion and post colonialism; the time was ripe to apply rigorous methodology, Poperian falsification and hypothesis testing. English was ready for a Kuhnian paradigm shift of Ozimandian proportions. Fuck the panting soliloquy’s of Hamlet, the drawing room melodrama of the Bronte’s, the bleak neurotic cynicism of Kafka. Literature was dead, and in it’s place Coakes would build his Litrology.
Settled into rooms in Trinity’s historic Rubrics, Coakes began work on his device. Without a unit of measurement, how could you have a science? Yet, without a measuring instrument, how could such a unit be recorded? Hidden in the unclean trove of English prose there lurked the hard accountable elements of meaning, the dark materials of truth, and Coakes must be the first to find them. Huddled over his work bench, demonically intense and heroically inspired, Coakes busied himself with solder and clever bits of metal. He built a box and into it placed the ashes of a first edition king James bible, fragments of Chaucer’s favourite pipe, and Cecilia Ahern. Cementing this electromagic tabernacle with the grease of Marlow’s masonic wig, Coakes carved a powerful sigil on it’s lid, activating his creation in the manner of the great magician Richard James. Half alchemy, one quarter science, three sevenths lunacy and a pinch of divelment, the device was finished. Lean in its carved oak case the ironotrom sat, ready to detect the basic unit of satire, the eyre-on.
The Graduate Memorial Building stank of unwashed student and hippy fumes. Coakes lay backstage, furiously hyperventilating into an emptied packet of Werther’s Originals. It was unlike the new Iago to panic. Unlike his rippling chest to cramp with fear. Unlike that heavy set mouth to chafe and flex with acid mothballs. Coakes was certain his invention was a masterpiece, but what if.. What if he was cast from the academy amidst scornful laughter? What if some toad, some lesser mind claimed precedence and shared his Nobel prize? What if the unending stream of thin stinging diarrhoea from the Werther’s continued, and Coakes was forced to mount the stage like a stinking jilted astronaut; worry hard cramping his walk, dry tongue tearing at his crusting lips.
Blaring in the background, a Funk Polk soundtrack rose to untold heights, pounding and swooshing, odd off kilter grunts catching in his chest, making him heave. Outside the gathered academics, students and dignitaries began to raise a chant; gentle at first then louder. ‘Iago, Iago, Iago..’, it’s backing vocals the whiny of damp panties flappering through the air. The whiff of excited beef was overpowering even here, backstage. Coakes stood and roared. Ripping open his Cassette Playa disco baby tee, he stared at his body in the full length theatrical mirror. There was nothing to fear, he was magnificent. As ‘The final countdown’ blasted over the tannoy, Coakes mounted the stage. Naked from the waist up, his Fabio jaw framed in drifts of ice blond hair, leather pants oiled and squeekless, he pounded to the lectern.
‘People of Europe, are you ready!’
The crowd hooted furiously. A man fainted in the back and there was a brief flurry as medics failed to revive him. Coakes pulled a velvet chord and the audience gasped. Before him six oval trap doors opened, and three identical cages, each veiled behind a thick cashmere curtain, rose from beneath the stage. As the crowd quieted, Coakes spoke softly into his headset mic. ‘Would Richard Dawkins please approach the stage?’
The lights dimmed and a prearranged drum roll picked up. Coakes began a clap that quickly spread throughout the room. With a judder, the ceiling above the audience spit open, and the floors above it folded neatly away, revealing the star pierced dark of evening, Dawkins great dirigible gradually descending, Dawkins alone at the helm, his great black cloak obscuring the night, the lip of the dread balloon above it, growing ever larger. Vangelis, seated in the rigging, surrounded by a wealth of nobs and keyboards, arms torn from Jean Michel Jarre, pulsing with talent, rising from his chest and legs - everywhere there was a space - numerous fingers pecking a synthetic symphony, feet naked, toes articulate as fingers directing multicoloured lasers that picked out Dawkins in the drawing dark, his dash of white hair tussled and splendid, grabbing a firm rope and tossing anchor, fixing the great Zeppelin, descending with ape like agility, Occam’s Razor between his teeth.
Dawkins strode purposefully toward the stage, briefly embraced Coakes, and turned to the audience, his blade brandished. Coakes spoke up, raising their twinned fists above his head. ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, I present the foremost scientist of the human race, one of Time magazines one hundred most influential people, 2007, the chair of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, and my favourite atheist, Clinton Richard Dawkins’.
The crowd surged forward, an octopus of fingers tingling toward Dawkins, tongues and eyes twitching with respect. Coakes signalled for his roadies to drive them back, and the pit ignited with the sparkle of a hundred taser bolts. Dawkins mounted the lectern, owlish countenance peering into the dark, paper thin lips tight stretched back in a magnificent smug. As he spoke, he swooshed his razor in dramatic flourishes, literally tearing through delusion and falsehood, a tatter of lies and weak arguments falling about him, snowing the stage with the soft lambswool of ignorance.
‘Several weeks ago my esteemed friend, my fellow jihadist in the battle against the seething tides of ignorance, Iago Coakes, contacted my henchfolk at the Dawkins Institute for the Advancement of Proper Wisdom. Dr Coakes had a proposal, not merely for a radical new paradigm of linguistic research, but an empirically verifiable methodology for entrenching English where it belongs, as the purview of science. Today, Dr Coakes proposes a great step toward a reasoned firmament of meaning, a death to the vague dalliances of hermeneutics. My associate Vangelis..’ at the mention of his name the maestro volleyed forth a melodic wave of resonance, blinding an ancient etymology fellow, and fusing twin foetuses hanging in the belly of a student, to a single, faceless, double arsed frightbaby, who would later survive heroic attempts at abortion. ‘..and I, shall act as objective measuring devices. It is our post-sacred duty to insure that Dr Coakes theory meets with the rigorous standards of modern empiricism.’
At this, Dawkins leapt from his podium, speaking unamplified to the audience, now quieted by Coakes brutes to a respectful silence. ‘Behold the test!’ He pointed toward the curtained cages, each motionless, yet poised with demonic energy. ‘In these boxes has been placed,’ Dawkins continued, tugging at each curtain in turn, ‘a beast, an element, or creation of man. Each subject being possessed of tremendous irony, or none.’ Dawkins smiled his famously condescending smile. ‘Professor Coakes has at no time had access to the mystery these cages contain.’ Coakes nodded warily, and set to tending his machine. With a deep intake of breath he approached the first cage - the ironotrom alive in his hands, nobs twirling, ornate dials dancing. The crowd grew deathly silent, save for the sussurous of the assembled legion, junior members of the philosophical and historical societies, suckling greedily at the arses of their seniors. Coakes glanced at the readout - met Dawkins gaze, two steel trap minds conjoined in mutual admiration.
‘It is ironic,’ he whispered.
With a flourish Dawkins pulled a fine, pink-hearted Conch from his cloak and issued a bellow from its depths. Vangelis’s lasers focused all their might on a single rope which burst into a fine blue flame, withering visibly as began his acclaimed Chariots of Fire theme. The rope burnt through, and the curtain fell in dreamy slowness, as though through a pail of American cheese, revealing at last the cages contents.
‘Behold,’ said Dawkins, the subtle shrill of his received pronunciation igniting unspeakable vibrations inside the female members of the audience. At the cages centre was a tiny old man, sprouted with tufts of rough white hair, hogtied, naked and utterly humble under the harsh video lights.
‘It is Iago’s 2nd grade English teacher, whose constant derision and mockery set Dr Coakes upon the path to todays invention - observe how his very humiliation serves as the first evidence of Coakes genius. How tremendously ironic!’
The crowd roared and Coakes fisted the air a single time, modestly. He moved to the next cage, his machine belching sulphurous puffs of fume, his eyes twin specks of star stuff, caught in a head that seemed hewn from marble. Once more the crowd grew quiet.
‘It is..’ he paused dramatically, ‘not ironic.’
Once more sky-fire spewed forth from Vangelis’s light cannons, once more a curtain fell.
‘It appears,’ said Dawkins vaulting to the top of the cage, hanging his head through it’s bars to address the audience upside down. ‘to be empty.’
He gazed about the cage, great beak sniffing enigmatically. ‘And yet somehow, full.’
Dawkins rose again, straddling the cage like some groteque Victorian stripper, his jodhpurs bulging, the great blade held out in one hand.
‘For this cage holds a reification so magnificent as to be invisible. Something utterly without irony. Look closely, I present, taken live from the nineteen seventy four ‘Lamb Lies Down On Broadway’ world tour, Phil Colins’ musical talent.’
Drawing the nothing up on a tiny pail, Dawkins sniffed the strange object and, lifting it from the bucket, held it out before him. ‘Ladies and gentleman, allow me to present our very special guest. Taking a break from the filming of his eighth annual season of ‘Futile Celebrity Jape’ in the bleak dark of the arctic tundra, Philip David Charles Collins!’ As he spoke, and Vangelis stroked the opening bars from In the Air Tonight, Colins emerged from the wings astride an orange space hopper, bounding with surprising vigour to meet Coakes. Old friends, they exchanged a lengthy and intricate handshake, before air kissing one another’s cheeks.
Dawkins tossed Colins the filthy gloam of ability, and he caught it just as dexterously between clenched teeth.
Slipping it on over his pantaloons like a treasured friend, Colins whispered a few quiet words of support to Iago, and mounting his air filled steed, bounded off into the wings. ‘And now,’ said Dawkins’ climbing a series of steps which flared into neon life as he approached the final cage, ‘Dr Coakes must face his final challenge. Inside this cage is either one of the most, or least, ironic specimens available in all the natural world.’ Dawkins hung his head and bellowed into his emerald microphone. ‘Iago Coakes will now attempt the final challenge.’
The crowd screamed as one, outside vast stadium monitors relaying the action to the assembled thousands and via satellite to every television amd radio station throughout the world. Through it’s open roof the building shook to the moshing feet of the audience hard pressed against faux ancient walls.
Coakes, a slight shake in his device the only betrayal of his complete external calm, approached the final curtain, his back to the audience, making small adjustments to his machine, his golden locks bound back in a splendid three foot ponytail. He span to face the crowd, eyes triumphant. ‘It is ironic!’
Dawkins too addressed the mob, his voice somber, his face saddened.
‘My friends gathered here tonight, and you the audience at home. Sometimes we must make grave sacrifices in the name of science, few as tremendous I’ll warrant, as that I make today. Vangelis shall not cut this chord,’ (at this, the subtlest toot of protest from the maestro) ‘no my friends, it is I who must birth this monstrous truth. Behold!’
Solemnly, Dawkins strode to the cage and placed a great ladder upon it’s curtained flank. Climbing slowly he reached the peak of the great dome in scarcely a minute, and under the breath of stars and silence, took his great razor from its exotic matter sheath, and with a single thrust, severed the rope with it’s plank length edge. The curtain fell a final time, as every television in the world glared Coakes face, picture in picture, top right corner on the falling curtain. Exposed, the hunk of meat guffed forth a stank of fester and corruption. Those present in the great hall vomited as one, Coakes, Dawkins and Vangelis included, and for a moment the sky was whited out with a mist of fume. Gradually the night air drained the rotting meat of it’s venom, and Dawkins spoke, wiping a slick of yellow vomit from his chin with a small confederate kerchief. He voice was low and ponderous, as in a creationist educational film.
‘Searching for decades in the frozen tundra, my college Van Dankin, in hopes of discovering an alien host that birthed the human race, found not that secret but another, something so wonderous and terrible as to shame the world for having lost it. Ice cold, she lay preserved for twenty decades, hidden by Templars, sought by kings. Here she rests, or part of her, the proof of my folly at the very moment of its culmination! Professor Coakes has been asked thrice and thrice he has been right, alas! What could be more ironic than I, Clinton Richard Dawkins, emertus professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford university, presenting you with this, the rotting but unbroken’, at this his voice quivvered, ‘hymen of the holy mother, the Blessed Virgin’s untouched sweet meat, alas still whole after the birth of Jesus and his twelve holy siblings!’ Dawkins, shaking his great wise head, drew out his blade and fell upon it in silence. As he expired, his clothes, hair and face burst into flames, then he was gone, leaving nothing, not even ash.
Coakes victory party was the stuff of legend, carried from the GMB on the shoulders of thousands, a sea of hands and faces, incomprehensibly wide and generous; later he would watch helicopter footage of the event, awed, hear the announcer note in his placid unperturbable Irish way, that it had been the largest assembly in the nations history, dwarfing the pope’s visit, five and a half million thronging the streets of Dublin, Trinity’s security shuffled aide, their tiny futile vans and mock police uniforms useless against the encroaching mob. They’d carried him to Lillies Bordello, somehow it had seemed appropriate. Bono, Friday and the regulars had been watching on the big screen, had greeted him lined up, and one by one, as though he were a head of state. Coakes floated through the evening, the coke and cocktails, fending advances from dwarvish pop producers and trying, somehow, to catch his bearings. He’d ended at a house party in Killiney, the Irish Hamptons; reading a Corr his poetry from a tattered Moleskine notebook, crying as he pressed his head against her titless chest and she tugged desperately at his unresponsive prick. Finally, Coakes was happy.
Powered by FireStats