So we face our final hours...and all that was once certain has become uncertain. Except for defeat. That, as always, is the end of all our stories.

Confident. Cocky. Lazy. Dead.

Ah? A small aversion to menial labor?" The doctor cocked an eyebrow. "Understandable, but misplaced. One should treasure those hum-drum tasks that keep the body occupied but leave the mind and heart unfettered.

Our lives aren't even about doing real things most of the time. We think and talk about people we've never met, pretend to visit places we've never actually been to, discuss things that are just names as though they were as real as rocks or animals or something. Information Age - Hell it's the Imagination Age. We're living in our own minds. No, she decided as the plane began its steep descent, really we're living in other people's minds.

She had to find her own story, and she could make it whatever shape she thought best.

Dying men think of funny things-and that's what we all are here, aren't we? Dying men.

As for monkeys, I would have five, and they would be named: See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil, Do Pretty Much Whatever The Hell You Want, and Expensive Attorney.