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.