Our town was christened Buyan, after the legend of a Slavic island that appeared, and disappeared, at will. That would later seem an eerie, and disconcerting, premonition.

I want those thousand years with you, Evie, you have no idea how much I want them. I want a thousand years, and then I want a hundred thousand more.

I wiggled and squirmed in my seat as if I had ants in my pants, but in reality it was merely impatience.

Sitting outside on a dark night, under the stars, invites confidences amongst people of all ages, and all walks of life. It invokes an intimacy you don’t find under most other circumstances.

A happy ending. Huh. I thought that was why we were here. Now. Five hundred years into Earth’s future. So we could start over, and live happily-ever-after. It wasn’t turning out that way, was it?

With their ship, the Horse, They ply the sea of grass, They stalk the walking mountains, With stones they make their beds.