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92 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
“Maybe I seem just like one of these yellow arrows falling on the tablecloth to someone and life is nothing but the dirty window that I’m flying through: and here I am falling, falling for God knows how many years already onto the table, right there in front of the plate, while someone looks at the menu and waits for breakfast…”
When Andrei finally made up his mind to open the letter, it was already dark, and the wall of trees was still drifting by outside. He turned away from the window, took the envelope out of his pocket, and tore off the edge. Inside was a carefully torn piece of graph paper, with several lines neatly written in ink:
“Is the past history of locomotion pulled on into the future? The past always used to be someone else’s or your own. Looking backwards, things seem to have disappeared from sight. Where is the key held, and who can you show it to? The pounding wheels write our journey’s story. The postscript is the squeaking of the door.”
khan laughed. "if we don't deceive ourselves," he repeated slowly. "if we don't, we'll only be deceived by others. and anyway, the ability to deceive what you call 'myself' is a great achievement, because usually that 'self' is what is doing the deceiving. it doesn't matter in the least whether anything else exists apart from our train. what matters is that we can live as though there is something else. as though it really is possible to get off. that's the only difference. but if you try to explain that difference to any of the passengers, they won't understand."