“Echoes can’t read minds. But when you get to know someone very well, you can read their expressions. Pay attention. It will happen to you too.”

“What you look like and how great you are rarely go hand in hand. Otherwise, we’d have no trouble judging good men from bad, now would we?”

“Christmas ribbons decked every crystal ball knocker on every sparkling door as far as the eye could see. Through the snowy streets of the Veiled Village, Echoes and Sounds rushed to and fro, their shimmering clothes looking like pouring rain or ice or waves. Before them multi-colored parcels fluttered like strange birds carried on small see-through wings, and every once in a while two parcels would collide and rain down gifts.”

“It was a cold, bleak December morning in Alaska, a place so far north on planet Earth that if there were such things as popsicle people, they could live there quite comfortably.”

“It was an amazing garden like nothing Will had ever seen. Everything was covered in snow and glittering ice, the winding paths, the clusters of trees and what looked like mazes. And here and there blue fountains splashed and a river meandered between them, though the water didn’t look like water at all but like a stream of sapphires. And strangest of all was how see-through everything looked, trees showing through trees, the river showing through heaps of snow. It was all like a daydream, half imagination, half reality. But Will knew that it was real.”

“I don’t mean to insinuate that you are unfeeling or stifled of life…excuse me onthat one. I just meant to ask you how you breathe when you are down here reading orwriting.”He smiled. “I have five years more experience in breathing on this earth than you. Iknow when it is I can breathe and when it is I can’t and I know just what to do whensuch a thing as suffocation occurs.”I can’t believe it, there is actually a qualitative property to every breathtaken…That must be wonderful. You must also know your cells are degenerating fiveyears faster than mine.”He smiled again, the same relaxed annoying way. “I get that you find it amusing toliken me to my cadavers. It’s not the first time you’ve done it, but truly we are not inlieu to play smart.”I was wondering if you could call the cadaver of a smart man, a smart cadaver. I’vealways wondered.”

“He felt a psychosomatic rush of emptiness before he spoke. “Since we are getting to the real point, I am not stupid John. And it would be foolish to think me ignorant. Isn’t this about the Science Nation interview? Isn’t this because I mistakenly used the word “soul?” Isn’t this about you and the others thinking somewhere along the lines, I had gained an imaginary soul? We all know when you gain a soul, you lose a mind. Don’t we john?” John hesitated briefly staring at Roma. “I believe so yes. Souls are luxuries for speculative minds. Real scientists can’t afford such luxuries. They have the world to save.”Roma narrowed his eyes. “Or destroy.”