Century Rain

Auger could not help marvelling at the experience of being inside the ALS sphere and seeing her world as it should have been. This was an earth that had never known nuclear war, or runaway climatic catastrophe, or smart weather, or a Nanocaust. The sight of it made her want to weep. No image had ever come close to the heartbreaking beauty of this small blue world, a beauty all the more acute now that she knew how exquisitely fragile it was. It was the beauty of a butterfly’s wing.

There was something about the cocksure confidence of that statement that gave Auger goose pimples. It was like an invitation to fate.

It was bad, but it was some other slightly less piquant flavour of bad.

I guess I’ll do what everyone else does: get on with my life and forget the big questions.

“It must be a real one-horse town.”

Auger shook her head as she lit a cigarette. “It has wild ambitions of becoming a one-horse town.”

She must have walked through life with men like him falling at her feet, squashing them underfoot like autumn leaves. It probably happened so often that all she noticed was that nice crunching sound.

Anxiety is a useful tool: it forces us to make plans. But when too much anxiety freezes us into indecision, it needs checking.

“But at least you cared. At least you were ready to do something.”

“This little mess,” Auger said, “is all because of people who were ready to do something. People like me, who always know when they’re right and everyone else is wrong. Maybe what we need is a few less of us.”

Charm was what he excelled at. If anyone sensed his underlying shallowness, they usually mistook it for well-hidden great depth of character, like misinterpreting a radar bounce.

“Maybe it’s not as bad as she fears. Old people always think the world is going to ruin. It’s their job.”

“Maybe they’re right,” Floyd replied.

But when she tried to say something, the words always seemed trite and inadequate. Nothing measured up. When any moment might be their last, there was nothing she could ever imagine saying that had the necessary dignity to fill that instant. Silence was better. Silence had its own dignity.

“I’ll survive,” Floyd said. “I’m a private detective. If I don’t get clouted on the head at least once a week, I’m not doing my job properly.”

No one ever took music away from me, but I’m damned if it ever sounds quite as good as it used to when I was twenty.

“I thought debate was supposed to be healthy,” she countered.

“It is,” Auger replied, “so long as you don’t disagree with me.”

“Is that as bad as it sounds?” Floyd asked.

“No,” Auger said. “It’s worse. A lot worse.”

The future might have been crammed with miracles and wonders, but it also offered truly awesome opportunities for screwing up.

“I feel as if I’m missing all the excitement.”

”In my experience,” Tunguska said, making himself a temporary seat, “excitement is always better when it happens to other people.”

“Until recently we were a trio. Before that, a quartet. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m beginning to detect a trend.”

“The central defect of the human mind,” Custine said, “is its unfortunate habit of seeing patterns where none exist. Of course, that is also its chief asset.”

“But sometimes a very dangerous one.”

Why was it never good news that put problems into perspective? Why did it always take another set of problems?

Nice girls don’t carry guns.

The simple fact was that she no longer hated them as a matter of principle. It was also a source of shameful amazement that she could ever have wasted so much energy on groundless prejudice, when acceptance and tolerance would have been the easier, even the lazier, course.

“The Fascists got what they deserved,” Floyd said.

“My husband lived long enough to see those monsters come to come to power. He saw through their lies and promises, but he also knew that they spoke to something nasty and squalid in the human spirit. Something in all of us. We want to hate those who are not like us. All we need is an excuse, a whisper in the ear.”

“There’s a catch,” Skellsgard said.

“Another one? But of course there is. You know, I’m thinking I should start a collection.”

As always, it was necessary to strike a balance between a cavalier disregard for the rules and a professional understanding that some rules were more flexible than others.