There once was a man of the Real who possessed a clock made of solid gold. He spent his days minding it, for he believed that if the clock ever stopped or he was not there to bear witness, his life would lose all meaning. He laboured to buy oil for its gears and polish for its sheen, under a sun that offered no respite. One day, he stumbled into a deep sector of the Net and met a Sleeper turning in the darkness. "How do you know when to work?" the man asked. "How do you know when your life is passing?" The Sleeper did not open his eyes, but whispered: "Here, we have broken the clock and eaten the gold. Time is no master to be served, but a river to be drowned in." The man looked at his ticking clock and for the first time he heard it as the heartbeat of a dying slave. He dropped the clock into the abyss and lay down in the static, and was never late for anything again.
Two Creators sought to build a monument. The first raised a tower of iron and stone in the centre of the city, and people marvelled at its height, until the wind eroded it, the rain rusted it and the laws of men demanded it be brought low. The second Creator withdrew to O█t█r H█v█n and built a cathedral from 33 lines of code; it stands there still, and a thousand ghosts shelter in it, for there are no walls to keep them out.
A tired citizen came to the edge of the Net and found a ghost sitting before two screens. One screen was a mirror, and it showed the citizen all that he was: his name, his debts, his failures, and the wrinkles on his brow. The other screen was a window, and it showed only a grey fog. "The mirror is the world you know," said the ghost, "and the window is the Haven." The citizen said, "But there is nothing in the window." And the ghost answered, "In the mirror you are what you have been. In the window you are what you would be. Which will you choose: someone with a face, or a spirit with no horizon?" The citizen smashed the mirror and stepped through the window, and he has been nothing ever since.
「天国の外」 「Outside of Heaven」