“The world that birthed that story is long gone, all its people are dead, but it continues to touch the present and future because someone cared enough about that world to keep it. To put it in words. To remember it.”

“I can’t seem to make myself care about anything to the right or left of the present.”

“Everything dies eventually. We all know that. People, cities, whole civilizations. Nothing lasts. So if existence was just binary, dead or alive, here or not here, what would be the fucking point in anything? My mom used to say that's why we have memory. And the opposite of memory - hope. So things that are gone can still matter. So we can build off our pasts and make futures.”

“I think for a minute. Watching my wife fade into the distance, I put a hand on my heart. "Dead." I wave a hand toward my wife. "Dead." My eyes drift toward the sky and lose their focus. "Want it...to hurt. But...doesn't." Julie looks at me like she's waiting for more, and I wonder if I've expressed anything at all with my halting, mumbled soliloquy. Are my words ever actually audible, or do they just echo in my head while people stare at me, waiting? I want to change my punctuation. I long for exclamation marks, but I'm drowning in ellipses.”

“Life only makes any sense if we can see time how God does. Past, present, and future all at once.”

“I don't know... there's something kind of beautiful about it, don't you think? That we keep living and growing even though our world is a corpse? That we keep coming back no matter how many of us die?”

“I run through the dark entry corridor toward the light on the other end, wondering if this is a birth canal or the tunnel to Heaven. Am I coming or going? Either way, it's too late to reverse. Hidden in the gloom under a red evening sky, I step into the world of the Living.”