Axiomatic

by Greg Egan

If my clothes don’t look out of place before too long, I’ll know I’m headed in the wrong direction.

‘Fuck off. I’m not interested.’ ‘In what?’ ‘In anything.’

Dutifully? Or simply because the cycle was closed, because I had no choice but to write what I’d already read? Or … both? Ascribing motives is a strange business, but I’m sure it always has been.

Unfortunately, there are no simple rules to determine which assertions are most likely to be true.

The Caress had been painted in 1896 by the Belgian Symbolist artist Fernand Khnopff, the painting could not possibly have been based on the living chimera. So, it had to be the other way around.

It was more a matter of nostalgia than miserliness; this minuscule bit of hacking was a token gesture, proof that in spite of impending middle age, I wasn’t yet terminally law-abiding, conservative and dull.

I dream a simple dream. I dream that I have a name.

the unnatural rhythm of the speech, the crisp enunciation of each word, made the whole thing sound like a terminally hip performance artist reading bad poetry.

‘So after earbashing me for ten minutes, you’re just going to forget about it? I don’t believe that. Where’s your scientific curiosity?’

Why should I have to pay for the cocaine habits of a bunch of Californian speculators who had a lucky hunch ten years ago about a certain biotechnology corporation? Better that my money goes to some fifteen-year-old trade hacker in Taiwan or Hong Kong or Manila, who’s doing it all so that his brothers and sisters won’t have to screw rich tourists to stay alive. See what fine motives I had?

Of course it was revolting, I knew it was obscene, I cringed and squirmed inside at the utter sickness of what I was doing. But it was possible, and I find the possible so hard to resist.

History can’t harm you; the ‘chance’ of having survived the last x minutes is one hundred per cent, once you’ve done it.

His faith held out through it all, of course, invulnerably axiomatic,

True solipsism, though, was never my problem. From the very first time I considered the question, I accepted that there could be no way of proving the reality of an external world, let alone the existence of other minds – but I also accepted that taking both on faith was the only practical way of dealing with everyday life.

It took me twenty-four hours to realise (or decide) that I’d fallen in love.

Her life had been as unremarkable as mine:

‘If we really are going to live forever,’ she said, ‘we’d better stay curious if we want to stay sane.’

When even the law can keep up with you, you know you can’t be doing anything very radical or profound.

In the sway of some half-forgotten dream, all manner of confusion is possible.