The Ferryman

by Justin Cronin

The mind works wondrously; it is capable of astonishing feats. It is the only machine in nature capable of thinking one thing while knowing its opposite.

That is the design of the world, to trick us into believing it is one thing, when it’s entirely another.

There are seconds that aren’t seconds, not at all. They open around us like the bellows of a great cosmic accordion; within lies an infinite expanse, or so it feels. It is within this space that revelations come,

There was a theory, commonly held, that we were drawn to the people who had been important to us in previous iterations. “Convergence,”

this was called. It was said to create a sensation rather like déjà vu—a

consciousness integration is like an entire library. Once you finish one book, you simply go to the shelves and get another, reentering the dreamspace to live a whole new life.”

the whole point of consciousness integration is to keep the environment as realistic, as un-dreamlike, as possible.

the thought came to me that maybe Thea had been right after all, that it was and always would be impossible to know what was dream and what was not; that all creation was boxes within boxes within boxes, each the dream of a different god.