““Serafim's long-term memory was terrible. He noticed that when other people reconstructed their pasts, the access they had to previous moments in their lives seemed to be much like looking through a kaleidoscope, in that each infinitesimal compartment glowed just as brightly as the next, and merely by focusing on one particular chamber they could almost transport themselves to that place, to feel its textures, hold up its velvet tastes and sounds, and feel the air as crisp as the day they'd lived it. Whereas for Serafim it was more like looking back onto a grey beach, where a long, twig-scratched line in the sand gradually vanished into the sea haze of the distance. Squint as he might, the farther away it was, the less he could see.””
