What if you had faith and performed good works, what if you died and went to heaven, and what if all the people you met there were people you didn't like?

Now all the mute objects of my life seem to tell my story, to stretch back in time, if I look closely enough.

Lux spent the ride dialing the radio for her favorite song. "It makes me crazy," she said. "You know they're playing it somewhere, but you have to find it.

But maybe the Charm Bracelets understood more about life than I did. From an early age they knew what little value the world placed in books, and so didn't waste their time with them. Whereas I, even now, persist in believing that these black marks on white paper bear the greatest significance, that if I keep writing, I might be able to catch the rainbow of consciousness in a jar.

People don't save other people. People save themselves.

But I care about the reader, and I'm trying to keep the reader's attention for as long as I can.

We realized that the version of the world they rendered for us was not the version of the world they really believed in.