West pulled the pack of Marlboros from Paul’s chest pocket, withdrew one. Lit.

“They were right.” Exhale. “Every possible world that ever could have existed will someday exist in perfect emulation in machines. Every possible you that ever could have existed will.”

“Will you—”

“You’re carrying a virus. A contagion. You can feel it. You know it’s there. That’s why you write. You have the silver. You write about things from pasts and presents and futures that you shouldn’t be able to see.”

Paul was silent.

Benton squeezed his hand. “There are holes all over this When. You’re making it all fall apart. You’re ending so many worlds with each breath, and you have no idea. We’re here to take you out of this. We need you.”

“You aren’t real.”

“We are now.”

He took out a cigarette. West smiled.

“Let’s go out to the pier.”

I’d gone to the edge of the world and thrown myself against all that I knew: safety and solidity and the past. Life became a fluid somewhere out there in the thousands of miles between the stagnation of home and the brilliant, beautiful uncertainty of the edge. Life became metaphor: I walked wearily to the ocean after the long and dangerous station wagon journey across the country, just standing there in the sunshine and the gulf breeze, feeling the cleansing grit of sand beneath me, working its way into every pocket of my clothing, every hair-covered limb, underneath contacts and between toes and fingers and scouring the gold sheen from my Zippo. The sand worked its way into me, making me feel at once totally alien to that place and an integral part of the landscape. The sand would eventually blister my feet, itch my scalp, grit every last exposed bit of flesh with its silicon scour, but not before I’d simply stood there for a while to appreciate its exotic warmth.

Many tens of thousands of my generation had gone to that city of sand and sunrise.