number9dream

by David Mitchell

“Any demon is just a human who possesses a sufficiently demonic imagination.”

“You know, we are all of us writers, busy writing our own fictions about how the world is, and how it came to be this way. We concoct plots and ascribe motives that may, or may not, coincide with the truth.”

I think the most powerful poison is the malicious word. Its effects may last a lifetime and there is no serum. Forgiveness may soothe the inflammation later, sure, but there is no actual serum.

These tidal mud flats belong to the Hyuga Nada Sea, south of the Bungo Strait, where my great-uncle sailed on his first and last mission aboard I-333. If binoculars were powerful enough to bring the last year of the war into focus, we could see each other across these waters. I wonder if I will meet him in a dream one of these nights. Time may be what stops everything happening at once, but rules are different asleep.