What if we had a chance to do it again and again, until we finally did get it right? Wouldn't that be wonderful? - Kate Atkinson

The whole edifice of civilization turned out to be constructed from an unstable mix of quicksand and imagination.

That was how history worked, wasn't it? If it wasn't written down it never existed. You might leave behind jewelry and pottery, ornamental tombs, you might leave behind your own bones to be dug up at a later age, but none of those artifacts could express how you felt.

The aircraft found the ground before Teddy did and he watched as it exploded in a glittery starburst of light. He would live, he realized. There would be an afterward after all. He gave thanks to whichever god had stepped in to save him.