Even then he was not sure that he comprehended it. It was a sensation of lightness, a strange lightness that caused little smiles to stretch his mouth repeatedly for no obvious reason. He had not been consciously aware, before, of any sense of oppression or fear—but it seemed it had been there—since 2061, perhaps, or the years right before it. Sixty-six years of fear, ignored and forgotten but always there—a kind of tension in the musculature, a small hidden dread at the core of things.
