The Many Lectures of Ludovicus Nihili

 

Ludovicus Nihili sat encamped most nights at the corner of the bar in the tavern in the village where I grew up. Patrons of La Port d’Enfer were subjected on most evenings to his extemporaneous lectures. He could, and would, speak at length on various topics including (but not limited to) Recent Historical Indeterminacy, Lunar Agriculture, Pre-Columbian Idolatry, Pan-Germanic Warfare, Hypothetical Talmudic Exaggerations, Cro-Magnon Architectural Novelties, Antediluvian Carrying Capacities, Fungal Infestations and a Smellfungus Response, Psychic Archaeology, Classical Angelic Poetry, Incarnational Medicine, the History of Future Conflagrations, and the Right Use of Fireworks and other Incendiaries.

“Did you know,” he said to me as I approached the bar for another tankard of ale, “that the three wise me of Luke’s natal account were in fact Persian Gymnosophists, and that they travelled entirely in the nude?”

“Matthew,” I said blowing the foam from my beer.

“Hmmm?”

“The magi, or gymnosophists if you insist, are found in the gospel of Matthew,” I told him as I made my way back to my seat at a booth in the corner. Ludo followed me.

“And did you know that the ancient Romans used electromagnetic cloaking devices built around the plinths of their monuments and the foundations of important buildings to protect them from earthquakes which functioned by diverting seismic waves from those constructions?

“No. No I did not…” I said.

“But sir! It’s an inconfondible truth,” he said energetically. “Roman engineers would…”

“Ludovicus, for the love of the ursiform goddess, leave that man alone,” the proprietor shouted across the room. “Either drink your beer in silence or deliver your lectures elsewhere.”