We stumble, walking wounded from the in-tray to the tea-tray, numb with disbelief, and when the bandages come off we do not recognize ourselves, our bruised expressions, our ill-fitting lives. How did we come to be these wraiths in treadmill corridors? What were we before we were this? — Alan Moore, The Birth Caul

Cross, rope, and arrow: ancient implements of mankind, today reduced, or elevated, to symbols. I do not know why I marvel at them so, when there is nothing on earth that forgetfulness does not fade, memory alter, and when no one knows what sort of image the future may translate into. — Jorge Luis Borges, “Mutations”