He Began by Building Landscapes

     He began by creating landscapes; then he created cities; then he created streets and cross streets, one by one, sculpting them out of the substance of his soul— street by street, neighborhood after neighborhood, out to the sea walls of the wharfs, where he then created the ports . . . Street by street, and the people who walked them or gazed down at them from their windows . . . He began to know some of the people, at first just barely recognizing them, but then becoming familiar with their past lives and their conversations, and he dreamed all this as if it were mere scenery to delight the eyes . . . Then he traveled, with his memory, through the country he’d created . . . And thus he created his past . . . Soon he had another previous life . . . In this new homeland he already had a birthplace, places where he'd grown up, and ports from where he'd set sail . . . He began to acquire childhood playmates, and then friends and enemies from his youth . . . It was all different from what he'd actually lived. Neither the country, nor its people, nor even his own past were like the ones that had really existed . . .