For each one, he imagines a universe populated with an almost countless congregation of souls. He thinks of their lives and their deaths, their hopes and dreams, their crushing losses and disappointments. Some will die without ever having made a mark upon their world. Others will conjure breathtaking works of art—plays, songs, paintings, poems, symphonies—from nothing. Like Jonas, a select few will give birth to insights that will challenge their very perception of reality. All will experience the exquisite torture, the brutal blessing, of what it means to be human. Each of these lives is its
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