The Last Book In The Universe

“I shrug and say, ‘I heard, is all. When I was a little kid. About how things used to be before the Shake.’ ‘And you remember everything you hear?’ ‘Pretty much,’ I say. ‘Doesn’t everybody?’” 

In this passage, Spaz innocently reveals to Ryter one of the things that makes him incredibly unusual in this world: his ability to remember. Spaz had called Ryter a liar for saying he had a book in his home, because he had been told as a child that books were kept in libraries. Not only does this passage reveal Ryter’s unique secret, it shares a key trait of Spaz’s that will allow him to become a writer himself one day.

“Those who will be alive at some future date. I don’t know why, but the way he says it gives me a shiver. Because I’d never thought about the future. You want to be down with the Bangers, you can’t think about the future. There’s only room for the right here, and the want-it-now. The future is like the moon. You never expect to go there, or think about what it might be like. What’s the point if you can’t touch it or steal it or shoot it into your brain?” 

Ryter openly talks about the future, and his wish that people will read books again someday. This kind of speech makes Spaz feel uncomfortable because it is so unusual for him. The people he knows can only focus on the present; they aren’t living for a future, but for the moment—what feels good, what keeps them fed, what they want right away. These people are operating as a series of impulses.

“For some reason the idea of ‘future’ gets inside my head and won’t let go. Future. That’s like a time that doesn’t exist yet. A world full of people who haven’t been born yet, doing things that nobody’s thought of yet.” 

At home later, Spaz can’t stop thinking about Ryter’s concept of the “future,” and what it opens up for him in terms of possibilities. And just that quickly, he’s populating the world with people who haven’t even been born, considering a world capable of holding more than just himself and what he sees around him today.