Permutation City

by Greg Egan

Paul Durham opened his eyes, blinking at the room’s unexpected brightness, then lazily reached out to place one hand in a patch of sunlight at the edge of the bed. Dust motes drifted across the shaft of light which slanted down from a gap between the curtains, each speck appearing for all the world to be conjured into, and out of, existence – evoking a childhood memory of the last time he’d found this illusion so compelling, so hypnotic: He stood in the kitchen doorway, afternoon light slicing the room; dust, flour and steam swirling in the plane of bright air. For one sleep-addled moment, still trying to wake, to collect himself, to order his life, it seemed to make as much sense to place these two fragments side by side – watching sunlit dust motes, forty years apart – as it did to follow the ordinary flow of time from one instant to the next.

Had he never, in a dream, feared the extinction of waking? Maybe he had – but a dream was not a life. If the only way he could ‘reclaim’ his body, ‘reclaim’ his world, was to wake and forget—

At the same time, Maria couldn’t help feeling cheated. She didn’t mind having been taken in, briefly; what she resented was not being able to be fooled again. She could stand there admiring the artistry of the illusion for as long as she liked, but nothing could bring back the surge of elation she’d felt when she’d been deceived. She turned away.

I love hos prose.