It will be a Religious War, a sort of Christian Jihad, fueled by religious hatred and led by merciless fanatics on both sides. It will be guerilla warfare on a global scale, with no front lines and no identifiable enemy.

The world is still a weird place, despite my efforts to make clear and perfect sense of it.

Too weird to live, and too rare to die.

One thing I have learned in my painful career as a gambler is that bragging when you get lucky and win a few games will plunge you into gloom and unacceptable beatings very soon. It happens every time.

These things happen. One day you run everything, and the next day you run like a dog.

The room was very quiet. I walked over to the TV set and turned it on to a dead channel-white noise at maximum decibels, a fine sound for sleeping, a powerful continuous hiss to drown out everything strange.

All energy flows according to the whims of the great Magnet. What a fool I was to defy him.