The Thing Itself

by Adam Roberts

I was, I told myself, happy. I insisted upon it. If I insisted strongly enough, the feeling of chewing apprehension in my stomach would surely recede.

‘It was a good while ago when I knew him,’ I admitted. ‘Maybe the Roy I used to know has changed a little. But he’s hardly Hannibal Lecter.’ ‘No, you’re right,’ she said, starting off down a polished-floor corridor. ‘He’s much more dangerous than that.’

Broadly speaking, evolution has created a planet dominated by single-celled creatures, with a few outliers like you and your fellow humans. But if you like you can see evolution as a process of gradual expansion into the fullest sense of the framing categories of consciousness.

Time cuts you off from what happened, and seals you away from the to-come. Robinson Crusoe, on his island, is a victim of space. And anybody who has been bereaved is a victim of time.