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In much the same way that the occasional scars – reminders of youthful missteps – were now lost beneath disfigured flesh, it seemed that one large mistake could bury all the minor ones.
Somewhere between pointless dreams and hopeless dread was a desire to know the world. And, if possible, make it better.
‘It doesn’t bother me that I won’t be around one day,’ Lukas said after a while. ‘I don’t stress about the fact that I wasn’t here a hundred years ago. I think death will be a lot like that. A hundred years from now my life will be just like it was a hundred years ago.’
Our actions, you know? They last for ever. Whatever we do, it’ll always be what we did. There’s no taking them back.’
‘And every mistake. But every good thing we do as well. They are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on for ever. There’s no changing it.’
Apologies weren’t welds; they were just an admission that something had been broken. Often between two people.
What life you lived was divined by some calculus of your people, your leaders, like computers tallying your fate.
Heroes didn’t win. The heroes were whoever happened to win. History told their story – the dead didn’t say a word. All of it was bullshit.
The primal urge to look after her brood when far more than that was in peril.
No life had ever been truly saved, not in the history of mankind. They were merely prolonged. Everything comes to an end.
Sleep was a vehicle for passing the time, for avoiding the present. It was a trolley for the depressed, the impatient and the dying.
‘Maybe the kinds of people who try to shape the world feel like they’re smarter than chaos itself.’
