But with this February sun, see, the light’s absolutely pure and makes the colors of the sky and the tree limbs and the bricks on these suburban houses so clean that just looking at them is like inhaling purified air. The colors flow into your lungs, into your bloodstream. You are the colors.

Besides, it doesn’t matter if it’s real. It never does with dreams. They aren’t anything anyway but lifesavers to cling to so you don’t drown.

Books seem a little old-fashioned, but hey, I can do old-fashioned if it’s good.

This idea comes to me that we’re all grass blades on the same lawn. We’ve grown up together, shoulder to shoulder, under the same sun, drinking the same rain. But you know what happens to grass blades – somebody cuts them down just when they reach their prime.

Our whole society’s a training ground for addicts.

See, I do have a future to give her after all, just not one that includes me.

My job is okay. You know what an okay job is, don’t you? It’s a job you only hate some of the time instead of all of the time.

You get to be about eleven or twelve and everything’s old hat. They’ve drummed the miraculous out of you, but you don’t want it to be like that. You want the miraculous. You want everything to still be new.

That’s how our system works. It’s a giant con game. One thing gets old, then you have to buy the next thing that gets old, then the next thing. Our whole society’s a training ground for addicts.

I want to swear to the king of the king of the kings it’s enough. But this afternoon the magic has all run out.