CASSIUS CROON pushed his way the small crowd of Romanian and Thai GUESTDANCERS as if they were a plague, a filthy menace. They were pounding to the cheap concrete beats of Eastern European techno, the crackling 「thud thud thud」 mercilessly distorted by low wattage speakers, martini and the GENERAL OPPRESSIVE ATMOSPHERE of the place. Cassius Croon had sat at the plastic table for two hours awaiting his contact, ANYBODY IN A CAUCAUSUS SOCCER TEAM SCARF, enduring the stale smell of beer and stiff, stale music. Cassius Croon pushed aside the Romanian/Thai/Turkish crowd as if they were scum, of NO PARTICULAR CONCERN. As unpolitically correct as it sounds, this is how it happened.

When Croon became ENLIGHTENED he thought he would instantly attain a range of powers such as ESP, telekinesis and a direct uplink to the MIND OF GOD... in short, he thought his life would miraculously and irreversibly change. He was honestly the last geezer in Britain who expected to achieve Zero Consciousness, what with the way he lived his life, but when the initiation came he expected it to be massive. He was soon to realise the great paradox of initiation: nothing changes. Or rather, nothing CAN change.

According to Generation 00 thought, one became an initiate when one realised the paradox of polarity. But realisation was only understanding, a liberation of cognition... it was only the beginning of the path. The real challenge was to apply that awareness to life. That said, it was an ominous fact was that once you embarked on the "road to oblivion", it was almost impossible to turn back.

So, nothing can exist without its opposite. But what did that mean to Croon, in practical terms? One possibility: the only way out of the "endless cycle" of life, death and rebirth was to embrace nothing, to extinquish oneself... but the Buddhists had been saying that for years (not to mention KURT COBAIN). Besides, Croon didn't believe in Nirvana. Another possibility: the only freedom from the cycle of happiness and sadness, the volubility of emotion, was to embrace no-feeling. But did he really want to feel nothing? Wasn't there more to life than that.

What was the good thing about nothing anyway?

There's more to this, he thought. Lying in bed the night of the DIANA ANNIVERSARY, a million thoughts rushing through his head, Croon pondered the concept of the Zero. And, predictably, he came up with fuck-all.

And that was when he got it!