The Certainty Pavilion

Welcome, seekers, sceptics,
and people who took a wrong turn
looking for the toilets.

You are all welcome here.
That is the first thing we sell.

To your left, a man in linen
will explain why your unhappiness
is an admin error.
He has a chart.
It has arrows.
The arrows are ascending,
which is how he says
the evidence has spoken.

To your right, a woman with a microphone
has found the one correct morning.
It begins before dawn,
contains lemon,
and ends with you becoming
the sort of person who says,
I do not need coffee anymore,
while holding coffee.

Further in, past the hand-painted sign
that says EVERYTHING HAPPENS FOR A REASON,
someone is selling reasons in jars.
Small. Medium. Family size.

They are very popular.

People have arrived with whole weather systems
behind their eyes.
Of course they want a lid.

If you only simplify.
If you only manifest.
If you only stop manifesting.
If you only listen to your body.
If you only teach your body
who is in charge.

If you only buy the workbook,
which is no longer a workbook,
but a journey,
which is no longer a journey,
but a limited offer ending at midnight
in every time zone.

We have a plan for your grief.
It comes in fourteen short videos
and a private community
where strangers type, Sending light,
as if light were a courier
with a tracking number.

Please do not laugh.

Or do.
The laugh is part of the package.
It is where the ribcage objects
to being turned into a funnel.

At kiosk seven, a cheerful young man
has pinned the whole century
to one villain in a red circle.
At kiosk eight, another has given
the same century a cape.

Between them, a small table sells noise-cancelling headphones
for people exhausted by certainty.

If you only choose.

That is the sentence.
It is printed on the floor in gold,
so you can walk over it
on your way to the next answer.

Choose the diet, the discipline, the tribe,
the blue sachet, the app, the clean-faced prophet
whose terrible childhood was apparently
a masterclass in leadership.

Choose quickly.
The world is ending,
or healing,
or both,
depending on which newsletter
has found you first.

And here I am,
at the central desk,
with my bright little bell,
selling the map of the pavilion.

It folds out forever.

Every stall has a promise.
Every promise has an arrow.
Every arrow points to a door
with somebody standing behind it,
trying not to look tired.

[He lowers the bell.]

One of them comes to me.
They do not ask which stall is right.
They ask whether there is anywhere
they can sit down
without being improved.

For once,
I do not have a brochure.

I show them the exit.

Not because it leads outside.
Because it is the only sign in the room
that does not promise
to make them whole.