‘Well,’ I laughed, ‘I certainly don’t know God, and frankly I’m inclined to think that God is impossible to believe in, at least most of the notions of God that I’ve come across.’ ‘Oh, of course, naturally, God is impossible. That is the first proof that He exists.’ He was staring at me intently, his hand still resting warm on my arm. Be careful, I thought. You’re getting into a philosophical discussion with a man who’s famous for them. He’s testingyou. It’s a test, and the water’s deep. ‘Let me get this straight—you’re saying that because something is impossible, it exists?’ I asked, pushing a canoe of thought out into the uncharted water of his ideas. ‘That is correct.’ ‘Well, wouldn’t that mean that all the possible things don’t exist?’ ‘Precisely!’ he said, smiling more widely. ‘I am delighted that you understand.’ ‘I can say those words,’ I answered, laughing to match his smile, ‘but that doesn’t mean I understand them.’ ‘I will explain. Nothing exists as we see it. Nothing we see is really there, as we think we are seeing it. Our eyes are liars. Everything that seems real, is merely part of the illusion. Nothing exists, as we think it does. Not you. Not me. Not this room. Nothing.’ ‘I still don’t get it. I don’t see how possible things don’t exist.’ ‘Let me put it another way. The agents of creation, the energy that actually animates the matter and the life that we think we see around us, cannot be measured or weighed or even put into time, as we know it. In one form, that energy is photons of light. The smallest object is a universe of open space to them, and the entire universe is but a speck of dust. What we call the world is just an idea—and not a very good one, yet. From the point of view of the light, the photon of light that animates it, the universe that we know is not real. Nothing is. Do you understand now?’ ‘Not really. It seems to me that if everything we think we know is wrong, or is an illusion, then none of us can know what to do, or how to live, or how to stay sane.’ ‘We lie,’ he said with a flash of real humour in the gold-flecked amber of his eyes. ‘The sane man is simply a better liar than the insane man. You and Abdullah are brothers. I know this. Your eyes lie, and tell you that this is not so. And you believe the lie, because it is easier.’ ‘And that’s how we stay sane?’ ‘Yes.