Vita Brevis ("Life Is Brief") takes place in a parallel universe in which history as we know it does not exist. Instead, all lives are, essentially, short stories. Though individuals may return many times to live out different brief lives, the concept of all people having connections to one another is entirely foreign in this world.
The landscape of this world is constantly shifting - as soon as a story ends in one place, the setting changes, dramatically and randomly. In one moment, there are craggy mountains, their valleys lined with glaciers, set against a misty sky threatening rain. In the next, sleek structures of steel and titanium rise to reflect the twin suns and the purposeful faces of those who have built them. In another heartbeat, "up" and "down" have no meaning, nor does gravity play an important role in deciding direction, and the humans who have evolved in such a world form lifelong bonds in order to survive its uncertainties.
Time is important in this place only within the context of what is happening at the moment. Once this particular reality splits apart and reforms into something new, time is reset from a new starting point. There are no archives to record the shifts, no fundamental calendar or absolute clock, no importance given to keeping track of this world as whole.
Traditional characters as we know it do not exist in this world - or so it seems at first. As the overall story progresses, we the readers begin to recognize one central individual who recurs in a myriad of different forms. At first, MEE-LOR, the prehistoric man who discovers how to create fire, seems to have no relationship to ELEANOR TAGGART, the bored sophisticate who lives in a glass tower, or THE CHILD, whose summers are spent exploring a lonely seacoast in Ireland.
But we begin to realize that these are all manifestations of the same life force, a human being with an essential longing for
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