S said it happened in the blink of an eye: the feeling that everything was strange.

He was walking among a crowd. Around him were neon signs not yet switched on and silver cars with tickets under their wipers. He said he merely blinked, and then the strange thing happened. He felt his eyelids pulled open, his right foot tethered and made to step forward. The sounds of people tapping phone screens, speaking, and colliding shoulders were stuffed into his ears. Then his lips were prised apart and a familiar voice pulled from them: “What a beautiful morning.”

He was led to the side of a stranger, then hurried beneath another lamppost. The crowd became neat and uniform, like middle-school students doing broadcast calisthenics. Someone screamed and they gathered around like ripples; an aeroplane passed overhead and every head lifted at once. S said he was the only spectator at a stage play, except that he was tied to his seat. When it was time to laugh, his mouth was pulled open. When it was time to cry, tears were squeezed from him.

Then, S said, his head began to ache. A buzzing noise was planted in his ears, as though a black machine were repairing his brain. While it was being calibrated, someone whispered, “The sky is black. The neon signs are light. Cars must be parked in parking spaces.” When the whisper stopped, the buzzing vanished. S said he gradually regained the movement of his fingers, then his arms. Later, his right foot too could step forward on its own.

S let out a long breath and said, what a beautiful morning.

I had lunch with I.

“I” said, I'm going to start a company. Become an Entrepreneur. My dream is to change the world.

I cut open a piece of broccoli and said, good. As long as you create value.

“I” said, are you being sarcastic about the finance Industry?

I said, no. I just don't like money making money.

“I” said, I used to think the way you do, but that view is too naive. In fact, the finance industry allocates capital and invests money in valuable projects. That is itself valuable.

I said, do you think any project capable of making a profit has value?

“I” said, then how do you define value? It is precisely because these projects make people's lives more convenient that they have potential, will produce profits later, and attract investment. Your view sees only the present and ignores the larger future. Tell me: how do you define value?

I said, I'm not sure either. The broccoli is undercooked today.

L had a dream. He dreamed that a man-eating whale was hunting him. He swam desperately through the sea, using every interval between breaths to cry, Help! No one answered. The world contained only the ocean, L, and the great whale. The whale followed behind him, its mouth always ferociously open, though it showed no intention of eating him. Eventually L grew tired of swimming and crawled into its belly himself.

Inside, he saw mountains of scrapped cars and wooden furniture. Then he saw a group of men in striped shirts. They opened their arms and said, welcome. We have been waiting for you a long time. L felt incomparably warm. He lay down in their embrace and fell asleep.

E lay on the lawn. Once every minute, a fallen leaf came down.

She thought: Only to the earth are fallen leaves fallen leaves. To the tree, they are merely the corpses of leaves.

Once, when I called an Uber, my driver was N, from Afghanistan. N said he had come to the United States from Afghanistan thirty-five years earlier.

I asked N: if this seems presumptuous, please don't answer. I am curious about that period. There was a war then, wasn't there?

N said, yes. It was war. One month after I left, my old city was filled with smoke. I flew from Afghanistan to Germany, then from Munich to the United States.

I said, among your generation you must have counted as very fortunate? Perhaps only the most respectable local families had such an opportunity. And now—has all your family come over?

He said, yes. I know I was the most fortunate. Not one person in a thousand had what I did. My parents died before we left the country. I have an older brother who is now in Australia. I met my present wife in the United States. She crossed mountains, slipped over borders, and came by boat before she reached America. Neither of us could speak a word of English then. We earned minimum wage, a little over three dollars. Those were very difficult times.

I said, looking back on those days from where you are now, you must feel much more at ease?

He said, yes. Now I feel extremely happy. I went back to Afghanistan once. It is still the same. Too much chaos.

He also told me about his daughter, who was studying hospital administration at a school in Long Beach. He proudly said she had already been eligible to work as a trainee dentist. He said she came home every day, even though the drive took an hour and a half. At the end he gave me his phone number and said I could call him the next time I needed a ride.

T said he had forgotten. Forgotten everything completely.

He said that at first he forgot the wrong things he had done, because he yearned for peace. Later he forgot his lover, his mother, the river, the sky, and the earth.

T said there was nothing left in his memory now, and this allowed him to embrace a new life more fully. He had learned to break with the dark past and embrace the golden future.

He finished speaking. Then he bowed to the audience. Every seat below the stage was occupied. S could be seen in the sea of people.

Apart from the applause, T said, he could hear nothing.