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Still, as time went on and the coastal aquifers turned salty and the northern permafrost melted and the vast tundra bubbled with methane, and the drought in the midcontinental plains regions went on and on, and the Asian steppes turned to sand dunes, and meat became harder to come by, some people had their doubts.
They spent the first three years of school getting you to pretend stuff and then the rest of it marking you down if you did the same thing.
His time, what a bankrupt idea, as if he’s been given a box of time belonging to him alone, stuffed to the brim with hours and minutes that he can spend like money. Trouble is, the box has holes in it and the time is running out, no matter what he does with it.
But the body had its own cultural forms. It had its own art. Executions were its tragedies, pornography was its romance.
Rose-Petal Pink, Crimson Lake, Sheer Mist, Burnt Umber, Ripe Plum, Indigo, Ultramarine – they’re fantasies in themselves, such words and phrases.
And he couldn’t stand to be nothing, to know himself to be nothing. He needs to be listened to, he needs to be heard. He needs at least the illusion of being understood.
“I don’t do them against your will,” said Jimmy. “Anyway you’re grown up now.” Oryx laughed. “What is my will?”
“All it takes,” said Crake, “is the elimination of one generation. One generation of anything. Beetles, trees, microbes, scientists, speakers of French, whatever. Break the link in time between one generation and the next, and it’s game over forever.”
The present’s bad enough without the past getting mixed into it.
