Скромното удовлетворение на работника от една работа, свършена достатъчно добре, за да бъде приета от неговите другари като честно усилие, е всичко, … - Clifford D. Simak

One world and then another, running like a chain. One world treading on the heels of another world that plodded just ahead. One world’s tomorrow, another world’s today. And yesterday is tomorrow, and tomorrow is the past.
Except, there wasn’t any past. No past, that was, except the figment of remembrance that flitted like a night-winged thing in the shadow of one’s mind. No past that one could reach. No pictures painted on the wall of time. No film that one could run backwards and see what-once-had-been...
One road was open, but another road was closed. Not closed, of course, for it had never been. For there wasn’t any past, there never had been any, there wasn’t room for one. Where there should have been a past there was another world.

But man had changed. He had lost the old knowledge and old skills. His mind had become a flaccid thing. He lived from one day to the next without any shining goal. But he still kept the old vices — the vices that had become virtues from his own viewpoint and raised him by his own bootstraps. He kept the unwavering belief that his was the only kind, the only life that mattered — the smug egoism that made him the self-appointed lord of all creation.

Like so many other fairy tales, I thought it was a horror story.