He saw his reflection, and beyond that, through his reflection, he saw the lit-up windows of the next building, a see-through version of himself filled with the lights of the city, the windows, the people inside the windows. In those windows was everything—hope, sadness, loss, triumph, sex, betrayal. Everywhere was hurt and everywhere was sex. Everywhere was love and everywhere was death. You could die of the loneliness, but you could die of the optimism, too; the optimism was just as crushing in the end. Time would move forward, but he had logged some optimism into his block universe. It
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