The travel agency couldn't guarantee where I would emerge, they couldn't guarantee my safety, and they couldn't guarantee I'd be able to return. I didn't care.
Most people who traveled via InterPlane Agency were thrill seekers. Adventurers. Wealthy beyond imagining and bored with living their pampered lives. I was none of these. I sought comfort. I was a chicken. I had to sell everything I had to afford the trip, and I even had to lie on a loan application. Banks don't like it when their loans are used to send the person owing money to a world from which they can't send payments. I had never had a pampered life, and I was too scared and stressed and depressed to be bored.
The last book I read was Changing Planes by Ursula K. Le Guin, an excellent book of short stories all revolving around the ability to take vacations into alternative dimensions. As she does in much of her writing, Le Guin explores alien ways of thinking and, in doing so, highlights humankind's faults and difficulty with empathy.
No comments:
Post a Comment