One of the primary influences for this story was a recent trip to Indonesia. While I experienced nothing like Trenchtown in my travels, the smells, sounds and sights of Indonesia permeate “Thief of Futures.”

The long debate over the long-range fate of the universe is still unsettled. For a while the notion of a Cyclical Cosmos reigned … that eventually the Big Bang’s expansion would peter out and gravity would pull everything back into a Big Crunch.

I’m fascinated by unorthodox sexuality and the changes we put ourselves through for our loved ones. So I wanted to write about a guy dating aliens, which leads to the question, “Why would aliens want to date a human?”

My guess is that most people who have held down a day job in a corporate atmosphere will recognize something of Mori with very little trouble.