Cities

Again and again plunging into the deep and gloomy street gaps, climbing the draughty hills studded with cypresses and minarets, I did not dive and did not rise, but walked in the middle as if along the edge. Along the border separating the real and fictional cities, made up of my memories, from books I had read and books I was just about to dive into. These images and memories intertwined so much that over time I could no longer say with accuracy what happened in reality and what was a figment of my imagination; where the real one ends and where my own city ends. The only excuse I had was the fact that its inhabitants themselves had long lived in two houses, in the past or in the future, in reality or in a dream, in a movie or a book, but only partly here and now. — From "The Red Planet" novel