An important Great Convergence conduit, Geoffrey was a fairly stereotypical failed artist determined to realise his life-long ambition of achieving artistic immortality, even though he wasn’t sure what that even meant. Like any failed artist, Geoffrey cultivated an inordinately indefatigable sense of purpose, which was inversely correlated to his professional success. At all times, Geoffrey would insist that his personal goals were meaningful, even though they really weren’t. Geoffrey’s blind insistence that his meaningless personal goals were of great significance, turned out to be immensely consequential in the grand scheme of things. As irony would have it, he wouldn’t live to witness this, being torn to pieces by the blast ensuing from the most powerful interdimensional portal ever, that he himself built. 
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Geoffrey’s path to attaining artistic immortality — and his sudden demise — was not only a long and winding one, it was also unexpected. You see, Geoffrey wasn’t very good at making art. Matter of fact, he wasn’t good at anything, including tying up his shoelaces which tediously snaked behind him everywhere he went, but with one exception. For whatever reason, Geoffrey was remarkably skilled at creating interdimensional portals. 
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Geoffrey’s voyage in life, earmarked to bring all the W-class universes together, commenced at the St. Laurence University of Arts and Sciences — the crown jewel of Britain’s educational system located in Edinburgh’s old town. Up until 2022, Scotland's second and the UK's fifth oldest academic establishment had produced twenty-three MPs, two Scotland’s first ministers, twelve bishops, many prosperous entrepreneurs, one internationally renowned horror fiction writer and one convicted paedophile. 
The St. Laurence fine art department was housed in the northern wing of a large, dark complex built in the English Gothic style with beautiful, vaulted ceilings and pointed arches, overshadowed by a stunning bell tower — the tallest one in Edinburgh. The tower was adorned with a lizard-shaped gargoyle sculpture — the so-called Glorious Lizard, hewn in black onyx. According to the local folk tale, the Glorious Lizard housed the heart of Albertus Ambrosianus, a thirteenth-century alchemist who attained the secret of everlasting life through the mastery of dark arts. 
Young Geoffrey believed he deserved his own shot at artistic immortality, despite being unversed in the dark arts like Albertus Ambrosianus. He believed he had things to say, even though he could hardly express himself, often intoxicated by cider and television respectively. Geoffrey believed he was to find his place among the stars, even though he came from Annbaireford, West Rannochleven, which was exactly what it sounded like. 
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For some time now, universities like the St. Laurence Art School have been frowned upon for perpetuating elitist practices, such as keeping the tuition fees at levels prohibitive to the hoi polloi, as well as instituting entry exams passable only by the graduates of the very best and most expensive private schools. 

To stave off such disagreeable assertions, St. Laurence introduced a stipend initiative, apportioned to a limited number of sufficiently penurious youths from the singularly underprivileged areas. In the words of St. Laurence’s head of the Arts during his conversation with the head of PR, the main criteria for the stipend recipient is to be stony broke and not the full shilling. And if those anarchist hacks keep pestering us, just treat them to our domesticated village idiots — now that we have some. 
06/07/2020 17:30
Geoffrey’s petition for the scholarship is accepted with lighting speed. A soon-to-be domesticated village idiot turns the golden ticket in his hands, sitting in the small room of a crowded rental he shares with his parents and eight siblings. 
‘I deserved this.’ Geoffrey peers through the rain pouring down from the grey skies through the besmudged widow. ‘I’ve been made for this. For greater things. Bigger things …’
Geoffrey’s parents argue behind the closed door decorated with gaudy stickers and sci-fi film posters featuring a race of humanoid reptilians. His little brother, until now playing quietly on the floor, tears away the head of a plastic toy superhero belonging to Geoffrey’s carefully curated action-figure collection, and starts welting its metallic face with a slipper. 
‘Bigger things! Bigger, bigger!’ he yells. 
15/10/2020 08:52
Geoffrey enrols at the St. Laurence University to study sculpture. He hires a student-affordable flat in a student-infested neighbourhood and invests the remainder of his savings in a bike and an easel. 
There he is, strutting on the litter-free side of the street, on his way to the academic year opening, slightly annoyed by a pair of flies seemingly following him everywhere he goes. Geoffrey sports a freshly grown braided goatee protruding stiffly from his chin. He wears black slim-fit trousers and a green army cap slanted to the left. There are big, gaudy badges with inspiring quotations pinned to his biker’s leather jacket with metal spikes, making him appear more robust than in reality. 
‘Glory to the lizard.’ Geoffrey salutes the lizard-gargoyle looming ominously above the slated roofs at the top of the St. Laurence tower. 
‘I’m the ruler of the cosmos.’ He proudly raises his chin as he crosses the broad street on the red light, oblivious of the honk and screeching of tyres. 
29/10/2020 11:52
For his first artistic assignment Geoffrey produces a tiny gecko figurine made of grey clay with accentuated genitals painted in pink. He presents it to his sculpting professor in the St. Laurence atelier. A kind of a portal, the little sculpture fails to generate the sufficient amount of Schöstenbürg-Tischdecke pepta-hyperons required to pry open the Schwarzburg‎-Ingelfingen confines dividing the W-class universes. 
‘Should have made it bigger,’ Geoffrey says later on in his flat, contemplating the rather severe assessment of his work. 
05/11/2020 11:52
Another failed assignment — a slightly larger Heloderma lizard figurine with long and winding penises instead of arms, leaves the professor fuming and the students laughing. On the bright side, Geoffrey’s lizard manages to create a skimpy wormhole, just enough to bring over a fine specimen of the purple rainworm from the neighbouring universe. He discovers it in his bag and discards it immediately without giving much thought to the unusual finding. 
‘Should have made it bigger.’ In his flat, Geoffrey picks his nose, exploring alternative creative routes. 
12/11/2020 11:52
Geoffrey produces an even larger sculpture of a green chameleon with disproportionally swollen genitals painted in gold, bashfully presenting it to his sculpture professor in the St. Laurence atelier. 
The professor paces back and forth along Geoffrey’s creation set on a floor heavily mottled with dapples of paint. 
‘Bigger.’ The professor squints, slowly caressing the corner of his mouth with a small finger.
‘Bigger …?’ Geoffrey hypnotically follows the professor’s pinky circling ever faster. 
‘Bigger. Bigger, bigger,’ the professor yells and walks away, leaving Geoffrey scratching his glowing-red earlobe. 
12/11/2020 23:52
The green chameleon imports several rainworms, each from a different universe. All end up withering away in
Geoffrey’s bag. Other than that, not much impact on the multiverse.
‘How much bigger …?’ In his flat, Geoffrey bashes the chameleon with a hammer.
13/11/2020 07:52
After a long night spent on turning things over in his mind, Geoffrey marches towards St. Laurence. He keeps his head low, both hands stuffed into his jacket pockets. 
‘Gonna make it. Make it big,’ he whispers in a coarse voice. ‘You’ll see. I’m the lizard. You’ll fucking see …’ 
The rays of the rising sun make the buildings glow. The light spills down from the edifices onto the pavement, making it gleam with golden radiance. A yellow mutt urinates over an equestrian statue of a fearsome Scottish lord, fixed in between two geometric blocks of brick and stone. The dog budges suddenly, running from an obese man in a dirty sweatshirt brandishing an empty beer bottle over his head. The dog and the man run past a bearded street musician torturing a bass saxophone in front of the Big Bank. The Big Bank owns the musician’s saxophone. And both his kidneys, as things stand for now. The musician has three daughters with three different women and a son he’s going to find out about soon. The musician's son will own the Big Bank one day. 
Opposite the bank, Geoffrey passes the Auerbach & Koestler Art Gallery, where he will present one of his best-ever inter-dimensional portals. The flop of an opening — courtesy of Larry — will leave Geoffrey stuck at the bottom of the proverbial gutter for quite some time. 
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