@scotlit@mastodon.scot An independent book store in Brussels held a book signing event one drab weekday almost 20 years ago. I made up a meeting with invented people to justify my absence, and snuck out of work to go shake his hand and have him sign my copy of Matter. I was wearing a suit. I looked like a cog in a system. He wore a sweater. He looked like a man who'd seen a future no one else had the courage to imagine.