The Edge

"Is this a dream?"
He shrugs and goes on scrubbing at his hands. "Its the edge," he says.
"The edge of what?"
"Everything." His expression suggests that this much is obvious.
"I thought you only turned up in my dreams," I say, casually glancing at his hands. There is something wrong with them; however much filth Jimmy srubs off, there is more underneath. The basin is splattered with the stuff.
"Well that's one way of putting it, pal. Dreams, high stress hallucinations, or just wrecking your own head like this. It's all the edge, see. The cracks down the sides of reality. Where stupid bastards like me end up."
"Jimmy, you're dead, I'm getting tired of telling you that."
"Uhuh." He shakes his head. "But you got to get right down in those cracks to access me."
The soup of blood and soil in the basin is thinning out and I know suddenly that when it is gone, Jimmy will be too.
"You're saying....."
"Too fucking complicated to go through now. You think we've got the handle on reality, just 'cause we can record bits of it. More to it than that pal. More to it than that."

Altered Carbon - Richard Morgan