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one – ‘… when your … work … is done … if it’s done, that is … which it won’t be … but if it was done … where do you plan to go?’
    ‘That is numbers one, two and three, to be exact,’ said Nobodaddy, as, to the watching Luka’s horrified astonishment, a strolling cow walked
right through him
and went on about its business, ‘but let’s not quibble.’ Then he thought deeply for a long, silent moment. ‘Are you familiar,’ he said finally, ‘with the Bang?’
    ‘The
Big
Bang?’ Luka asked. ‘Or some other Bang I don’t know about?’
    ‘There was only one Bang,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘so the adjective
Big
is redundant and meaningless. The Bang would only be Big if there was at least one other Little or Medium-Sized or even Bigger Bang to compare it with, and to differentiate it from.’
    Luka didn’t want to waste time arguing. ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ he said.
    ‘Then tell me,’ said Nobodaddy, ‘what was there before the Bang?’
    Now this was one of those Enormous Questions that Lukahad often tried to answer, without having any real success. ‘What was it that had gone Bang anyway?’ he asked himself. ‘And how could everything go off with a Bang if there was nothing there to begin with?’ It made his head hurt to think about the Bang and so, of course, he didn’t think about it very much.
    ‘I know what the answer is supposed to be,’ he said. ‘It’s supposed to be “Nothing”, but I don’t really get that, to be honest with you. And anyway,’ he added as sternly as he could manage, ‘that has nothing to do with the subject under discussion.’
    Nobodaddy wagged a finger under his nose. ‘On the contrary, young would-be assassin,’ he said, ‘it has everything to do with it. Because if the whole universe could just explode out of Nothing and then just Be, don’t you see that the opposite could also be true? That it’s possible to
im
plode and
Un
-Be as well as to
ex
plode and
Be?
That all human beings, Napoleon Bonaparte, for example, or the Emperor Akbar, or Angelina Jolie, or your father, could simply return to Nothing once they’re … done? In a sort of Little, by which I mean personal, Un-Bang?’
    ‘Un-Bang?’ Luka repeated, in some confusion.
    ‘Exactly,’ said Nobodaddy. ‘Not a spreading out but a closing in.’
    ‘Are you telling me,’ Luka said, feeling an anger rise in him, ‘that my father is about to implode into Nothing? Is that what you’re trying to say?’
    Nobodaddy did not answer.
    ‘Then what about life after dea—’ Luka began, then stopped himself, slapped himself on the head and rephrased the question. ‘What about Paradise?’
    Nobodaddy said nothing.
    ‘Are you trying to say that it doesn’t exist?’ Luka demanded. ‘Because if that’s what you are trying to say, I know a lot of people in this town who will give you a pretty heated argument.’
    Not a word from Nobodaddy.
    ‘You’re suddenly very silent,’ Luka said crossly. ‘Maybe you don’t know as many answers as you pretend you do either. Maybe you’re not as big a deal as you think.’
    ‘Ignore him,’ said Dog the bear in an oddly big-brotherly way. ‘You really should go home now.’
    ‘Your mother will be worrying,’ said Bear the dog.
    Luka was still not used to the animals’ new powers of speech. ‘I want an answer before I go,’ he said stubbornly.
    Nobodaddy nodded, slowly, as if a conversation he had been having with someone invisible had just come to an end. ‘I can tell you this,’ he said. ‘That when my work is done, when I have absorbed your father’s … well, never mind what I will have absorbed,’ he added hastily, seeing the look on Luka’s face, ‘then I – yes, I, myself! – will implode. I will collapse into myself, and simply cease to Be.’
    Luka was astounded. ‘You? You’re the one who’s going to die?’
    ‘Un-Be,’ Nobodaddy corrected him. ‘That’s the technical term. And as I have answered your third