Chapter 65

The item below is a letter received recently at our office.

A COSMOLOGICAL COUP

To the editor of Madazine

Dear Sir,

I write in the hope that you will publish my letter, as I am sure your readers will be interested in what I have to say. This concerns my observation of a remarkable event which will shake the world in general and the cosmological field in particular. In addition to contacting you, I have sent a note to the Royal Society, where what I have imparted will surely cause quite a stir.

For some time I have been immersed in astrology and a while ago I added astronomy to my interests, the idea being to fuse the two fields, in order to get a clearer view of matters in the Universe. I bought a ten-inch telescope and have been using it every night for several months at my home in Cornwall.

It may well be beginner’s luck, but I ask you to imagine my astonishment when I started by focusing my attention on the spiral galaxy Europia, where within half an hour I made a momentous discovery. Moving rapidly outward from near the end of one of the galactic arms was the star Brexit. When I first saw the body, it was of moderate brightness. However, the astonishing thing was that after a very short period of watching, I saw Brexit speed completely out of its galaxy and head towards the nearby and much bigger one, Globus. As it did so, it increased markedly in luminosity, almost as though it was uncomfortable in Europia and had been straining to find a home in a larger area.

I have long been aware that celestial bodies influence one another, even at great distances. Armed with this knowledge, I have been trying to think of an earthbound analogy to what I have observed, but have so far been unsuccessful. My wife Cassiopeia also applied herself to this but has fared no better than myself. It occurs to me that you have occasionally published articles about the Universe, so perhaps some of your readers will find my comments interesting. In that hope, I will close.

Yours sincerely,
Leo Cepheus

Editor’s note. We passed this letter to our science correspondent Axel Griess, recently released after detox and as near compos mentis as we ever expect him to be. He says: “Oh, come on. Look at how this fellow identifies himself and his wife. All three names he uses for the two of them are also those of constellations. I have some knowledge of the heavens but have never heard of galaxies named Europia or Globus, or a star called Brexit. As for a terrestrial correlation, Mr Cepheus and his spouse must be about the only two people in the UK who cannot think of one. All one has to do is consider current social-economic developments and put together the words Brexit (self-explanatory), Europia (Europe) and Globus (Global). If this man is not trying to fool us, he will do until a real hoaxer comes along.”