THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE

The universe lasts for 4000 billion years and then ends. Of course, the planet Earth disappears quite a bit before that, but I'm not that concerned about Earth. You people seem to think that life begins and ends with your planet, but I can tell you that's not the case.

The universe repeats itself exactly 6 times before it totally ceases to exist. These repetitions are exact; there is not a molecule or quark of variation. I have watched the universe over the course of its 4000 billion years and its 6 repeats and I can guarantee you that it is the same each time. It's a bit like watching Sky Movies when they show the same film over and over for two weeks. You come home one night and watch the last fifteen minutes of it; then the next day you watch the middle section. And the following week you're flicking through the channels when you see the beginning, before getting bored when you reach familiar territory. That is my experience of the universe.

The universe would make much more sense to me if I had experienced it all in chronological order, but sadly my time has not been well managed. My narrative has been jumbled and mangled since day one. It's true that I have lived through every second of the universe, but unfortunately I haven't done so in the correct order. That's not the way things have panned out for me. No, I have been tossed through time and space like a leaf in a tempest. My days are not evenly split.

Each day (25 hours) I awaken in a new body; any body from any place, in any era of the universe. I have walked the scorched earth as a dinosaur. I have sailed across sterile galaxies as a mote of dust. I have lurked in invisible corners of moribund oceans, dressed in the colours of plankton. On Earth alone I have eaten the flesh of lion as an African tribesman before white men had evolved. I have stabbed a peasant in the eye with a quill in France before the revolution. I have screamed in childbirth as something not quite human emerged from my womb. I have done many, many things; the majority of which I forget a second later. I have no desire to recall events. They will happen again soon enough.

Today I find myself as Brenda Hopkins, a 42-year-old single mother in Watford. I have just dropped Christopher off at school, with a packed lunch consisting of tuna fish sandwiches and Monster Munch. I am writing this as I smoke a Benson and Hedges cigarette in front of the laptop. There is a smell of ammonia that lingers in the kitchen. Jeremy Kyle is battling with MTV in the background and I am trying to ignore him and remember what I did yesterday. On the mantelpiece is a photograph of my mother and father in matching woolen sweaters. I toy briefly with the thought of leaping from the window and smashing my body into pieces on the tarmac three stories below, but the weather is unpleasant and I'm feeling lazy. There is a glass of vodka in my hand, which I intend to finish well before Christopher is dropped back home by the neighbours at 4pm. I have time to kill, as ever.

Humans seem to spend an awful lot of time worrying whether they are good or bad people. I long ago gave up on morality. When you know how everything ends, you tend to let philosophy slide. In my time I have been both good and bad. I have done wonderful things and terrible things. Often I was a terrible person when I did a wonderful thing, and a wonderful person when I did terrible things. It can't be helped. I have torn the arms off a newborn child and thrown them at its mother. I have died in flames so that others might be spared. I have clubbed friends to death to eat a morsel of diseased meat. I have attempted to be both pure and corrupt and have failed. When you have seen as much as I have, you don't try too hard to impress.

I am smiling now, remembering something that happened two days ago, a billion years into the future. I have told too many jokes to remember. I have given some notable poets a proper kicking.

I enjoy television and long walks on the beach. Sex with dogs is underrated. Snails don't talk much. Nanotechnology is a dead end. Don't bet on Crystal Palace.

In a moment I will leave the flat, with the door on the latch and wander across the road. I know you aren't in, because I saw you leave for work earlier. I will calmly walk up the path leading to your front door, and will post this story through your door in a plain white envelope. You may read it or you may thrown it away unopened. I have no idea or interest either way. By the time you read this I will be somewhere in the past or future, in a body you will not recognise. Who knows? I may even be you. And Brenda Hopkins will go on being Brenda Hopkins, unaware of her 24 hours with me inside her head.

I come to everyone eventually. See you later.