Lightpaths [antikvár]

ONELONELINESS LIKE EMPTY WIND MOANING THROUGH A UNI-versal blizzard of ashes and snow. Then, beneath the bla-tant, eternal white nőise, another sound, a latent voice: "No, never put it all together, I'm afraid. Never completed the circle Roger Cortland woke with a start, static in his ears and monitor snow in his eyes. He often feli asleep on shuttle flightsnothing new in thatbut something, somé sort of ac-cidental access wave, had apparently knocked his personal data display off-channel. Now his wearable cyberspace was refus-ing to return to proper functioning. Grumpily he shut the sys-tem down, then turnéd it back on again for reboot.As his monitors began to cycle up on his glasses, he thought about the strange half-dream he'd just come out of. Amazing what the mind in twilight sleep could come up with, the hyp-nagogic imagination imposing meaning where surely there was none, turning the mere nothing of white nőise into loneliness and winds and cosmic anguish.The voice, though, the wordsRoger recognized those. His uncle Ed, his father's brother, had spoken those words. Ed had been deep in his cups at the wake for Roger's father. Otherwise he would not have said such a thing. Why had Roger thought of thatthat suggestion of failurenow? True, things had not