On show

Looking back on this dream later, Adam couldn't quite understand how he'd had such a broad, high view of the houses below - while also seeing the events inside them with complete clarity.

The closest he could get was to think of it as a double exposure, like images in a film laid one over another.

Later, while he wouldn't be able to recollect the elusive details, he knew he was seeing birth and death, excitement and boredom, joy and pain. It was as if he could see every aspect of life, all happening at once. Life, dizzying in its variety and colour, struck him as being completely absorbing.

How could it be that all these lives were going on at the same time? It seemed entirely, improbably, wonderful.

At some point in the dream, he saw a child's hand, apparently closed in a fist around something, reaching out to him.



Part Three begins here.