“According to Chekhov,” Tamaru said, rising from his chair, “once a gun appears in a story, it has to be fired.”

He felt as though his body had become lighter, that he had emerged from a cramped space and could now stretch his arms and legs freely. Air Chrysalis had probably stimulated something that had been deep inside him all along.

“When I’m writing a story, I use words to transform the surrounding scene into something more natural for me. In other words, I reconstruct it. That way, I can confirm without a doubt that this person known as ‘me’ exists in the world. This is a totally different process from steeping myself in the world of math.”

caustic

Wouldn’t our genetic purpose – to transmit DNA – be served just as well if we lived simple lives, not bothering our heads with a lot of extraneous thoughts, devoted entirely to preserving life and procreating? Did it benefit the genes in any way for us to lead such intricately warped, even bizarre, lives?

When he tried to think, reality hovered nearby, then retreated into the distance.

Ptolemaic

They were linked by a hypothetical umbilical cord. His mind floated in the amniotic fluid of memory, listening for echoes of the past.

Sinfonietta