Set This House in Order: A Romance of Souls

by Matt Ruff

There are facts that everyone knows, but memories, and the feelings they evoke, are unique to individual souls. Memories can be described, but can never truly be shared;

You can smash a vase, bury it in the ground for twenty years, dig it up again, and piece it back together just fine. You can do that because a vase is dead to begin with, and its pieces are inert. But human souls aren’t made of porcelain. They’re alive, and, in the nature of living things, they change; and they keep on changing even after they get smashed to bits.