" So you really think our hearts are decaying?”

“I don’t know whether that’s the right word, but I do know that you’re changing, and not in a way that can be easily reversed or undone. It seems to be leading to an end that frightens me a great deal.” As he spoke, he swiveled the handle of his teacup back and forth. The old man continued to stare at the music box.

“An end,” I murmured to myself. It was not as though I had never thought about this. End… conclusion… limit—how many times had I tried to imagine where I was headed, using words like these? But I’d never managed to get very far. It was impossible to consider the problem for very long, before my senses froze and I felt myself suffocating. Nor was it helpful to talk about this with the old man, since he simply repeated over and over that everything would be all right. "

― Yōko Ogawa , The Memory Police