“It was a simulation. Everyone was aware that they were in one. They just didn’t know what kind.”
“The most feared possibility was that they weren’t real. They were simply characters in simulation software, serving as meaningless entertainment.”
“Depending on their time zone, each day at dusk for the Pacific time zone, the simulation reset to September 1, 1988, and everyone was shuffled into a different body.”
“Before the ‘glitch’, I always said that I believe too much of what we live and experience seemed to be by design. I wholeheartedly believed there was a God… Now with the glitch, it has been proven to be by design.” — Ben
“To be honest, if we were just some computer generated existence, I would be pissed.” — Rosie
“In the years of the glitch, they had managed to find one another dozens of times. They lived each day longing for the days they could be together again.”
“I see it in her eyes. I know it is her the second I see her eyes, no matter whose eyes they are behind.” — Ben
“I kissed that old Asian man long and hard. I held her for what seemed like forever.” — Ben, recalling finding Ella in a 70 year old body
“Our pain was shared and only she and I truly knew each other. . . . But in a weird way, it made Ella and my love even stronger. All I wanted to do was spend each day with her. Each day there was hope to see her again.” — Ben
“I have spent years and years in 1988 just wanting to be with my wife… I don’t care what body she or I are in.” — Ben
“Everyone knew of Keith, deemed the angel of death, who day after day tried to dwindle the population by one at the end of each day of the glitch. If people were not aging, there will eventually be an end when Keith was the last one remaining.”
“I knew then, nothing was real. This is all someone’s joke. No one really dies. Not like that. My love for them was wasted, as they were just an illusion to trap me into whatever sick joke this is.” — Keith, explaining his motivation
Passage describing a consciousness who enters a body Keith abandoned in a free fall: “Through the purple-tinted blue eyes, with her brown hair wagging behind her male body, she focused in utter horror on her situation… Seeing the ground racing toward her quickly, she closed her eyes and slammed with a thud, leaving the forty year old male body lifeless and facedown into the rocky ground of the hillside it had cratered.”
“This had become common practice for survival. No one was considered an intruder or had their possessions claimed. It was simply the way of the glitch world for people to acquire a car, food, or a bathroom.”
“Most of the decent people who inhabited a young person tried to stay hidden away each day. People wanted to overpower them, regardless of who was controlling their body, and release their hidden sickness.”
“I am not sure of the age I started to remember, but on lonely days, I can think of each person for each day and add it up to more than sixteen years of days.” — Rosie
“Yeah, living with the glitch as a man, a day of periods or pregnancy can be a hoot.” — Ben
“Looks like my day is set taking care of a baby.” — Ella, upon finding a large man’s body with an infantile consciousness
