The Idea on Which Fiction Is Built

This is the idea on which fiction is built. When I call up the concept “my first kiss,” neurons light up in my head (a golf course! A 1969 Camaro! The smell of a now-discontinued 1970s perfume!). Then I type that phrase and you read it and neurons light up in your head in a pattern similar, but not identical to, the one in my head, and we are both, somehow, united, around the concept “first kiss.”

GEORGE SAUNDERS