Cloud Atlas: A Novel

“An abyss cannot be crossed in two steps.”

I wondered where’d my tribesmen’s souls be reborned now Valleyswomen’d not be bearin’ babbits here. I wished Abbess was there to teach me, ’cos I cudn’t say an’ nor could Meronym. We Prescients, she answered, after a beat, b’lief when you die you die an’ there ain’t no comin’ back. But what ’bout your soul? I asked. Prescients don’t b’lief souls ex

People are obscenities. Would rather be music than be a mass of tubes squeezing semisolids around itself for a few decades before becoming so dribblesome it’ll no longer function.

How did they impose hierarchy?

If we obeyed, our Papa would love us forever. If we failed to obey, Papa would zerostar us year after year and we would never get to Xultation.

I und’standed why Meronym’d not said the hole true ’bout Prescience Isle an’ her tribe too. People b’lief the world is built so an’ tellin ’em it ain’t so caves the roofs on their heads’n’maybe yours.

Folks asked her where she’d got that learnin’ an’ her answer was always It ain’t learnin’, bro, jus’ practice is all.

Elliot pointed out that my performance-linked credit stream still had a twelve-month flow horizon before resizing could be feasibly optioned. Oh, I miss the days when they’d laugh like a hyena, tell you to go to hell, and hang up.

The more I ranted and raged, the more I proved that I was exactly where I should be.