“Uh—you’re talking about spacetime branes, Your Emptiness?” I essayed, fastening on the final word of his farrago. “Remember, I’m no scientist.”
“It’s grade-school cosmology, you ignoramus! Our visible universe is a single brane leaf in a meta-cosmic puff pastry. Picture a toffee-filled croissant with a sugar crystal upon the outermost layer of glazed dough. That crystal is our galaxy, and the toffee is the divine no-mind of the None.”
I knew of the Bonze’s childlike fondness for sweets, so his laboured analogy came as no surprise. “Uh-huh,” I said, inwardly treating myself to another opioid vacuole.
“Multiple branes exist,” ranted the Bonze. “There are an infinity of infinite universes, stacked not in space, but in time. And the sheets move in meta-time! Think of huge, supple chocolate
