One of the biggest problems for beginning writers is this need to over-explain.

In real life nothing means anything. Stuff happens and there just is no structure.

You can't do science in a novel, but you can do philosophy. Or, if you're really lucky, you can manage to pose a question in such a way that other people will take it on.

So if we're all quarks and electrons ..." he begins. What?" We could make love and it would be nothing more than quarks and electrons rubbing together." Better than that," I say. "Nothing really 'rubs together' in the microscopic world. Matter never really touches other matter, so we could make love without any of our atoms touching at all. Remember that electrons sit on the outside of atoms, repelling other electrons. So we could make love and actually repel each other at the same time.

I wonder at what point my life swerved to avoid that, and if that life would have been nicer than the one I've got.

Living for ever would be like marrying yourself, with no possibility of a divorce.

I pray for meaning. I pray for the limits of reality to become clear. For a world – and a type of being – that makes sense. I pray for a life after death that is not like this life. I pray for the end of mystery. What would a life be like with all the mysteries solved? If there were no questions, there’d be no stories. If there were no stories, there’d be no language. If there was no language there’d be no . . . What?