Most near-future fictions are boring. It's always dark and always raining, and people are so unhappy.

It depends on which reality you take and which reality I take.” (p. 318).

Problem is, once I sit at my desk and put all these down on paper. I realize something vital is missing. It doesn't crystallize - no crystals, just pebbles. And I'm not transported anywhere.

Lots of different ways to live and lots of different ways to die. But in the end that doesn't make a bit of difference. All that remains is a desert.

And as the years have passed, the time has grown longer. The sad truth is that what I could recall in five seconds all too needed ten, then thirty, then a full minute - like shadows lengthening at dusk. Someday, I suppose, the shadows will be swallowed up in darkness.

The unwaking world was as hushed as a deep forest.

Who can really distinguish between the sea and what's reflected in it? Or tell the difference between the falling rain and loneliness?