“Idiot, he tells himself. How long will you keep yourself on this intravenous drip? Just enough illusion to keep you alive. Pull the plug, why don’t you? Give up your tinsel stickers, your paper cutouts, your colored crayons. Face the plain, unvarnished grime of real life. But real life is brilliantly colored, says another part of his brain. It’s made up of every possible hue, including those we can’t see. All nature is a fire: everything forms, everything blossoms, everything fades. We are slow clouds…”

—Margaret Atwood