Pleasant Journey

What if you could live your happiest memory forever, and only ten seconds would pass in the real world? Roger Allenby is a carnival buyer who has seen every trick and gimmick the fair circuit has to offer. But nothing prepares him for Jenkins' creation: Journey Home, an immersive experience that doesn't merely simulate reality, it summons the deepest longing of your soul. In a breath, Allenby finds himself in sun-warmed meadows, surrounded by everything his heart has ever ached for. When he returns, the world looks different. Everything feels flat, hollow, tedious. The ten seconds he spent in paradise have spoiled him for everything else. Written at the dawn of the 1960s, this is a sharp, unsettling meditation on why we build illusions, and how dangerous it becomes when they're more beautiful than truth.