And it came to me, then —

           that we were wonderful traveling companions

           but in the end no more than lonely lumps of

           metal in their own separate orbits. From far

           off they look like beautiful shooting stars,

           but in reality they’re nothing more than

           prisons, where each of us is locked up,

           going nowhere. When the orbits of these

           two satellites of ours happened to cross

          paths, we could be together. Maybe even

          open our hearts to each other.

          But that was only for the briefest moment.

          In the next instant we’d be in absolute

          solitude. Until we burned up and became

                                                         nothing.

                  — Sputnik Sweetheart; Page 117

                                      Haruki Murakami