Cloud Cuckoo Land

by Anthony Doerr

Each sign signifies a sound, and to link sounds is to form words, and to link words is to construct worlds.

“That’s what the gods do,” he says, “they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come.”

That’s what the gods do, they spin threads of ruin through the fabric of our lives, all to make a song for generations to come. Not now, gods. Not tonight. Let these children stay children for another night.

Sometimes the things we think are lost are only hidden, waiting to be rediscovered.

Why is it so hard to transcend the identities assigned to us when we were young?

In a child’s cursive, beneath the crossed-out lines, Aethon’s new line is handwritten in the margin, “The world as it is is enough.”