Perhaps we don't because we prefer to imagine, as the old curse goes, that we "live in interesting times.

I laughed and said he must be imagining things.

It could not give him back his host of friends, his name, his house and family, nor Carrie, as he had meant to have her.

But I wonder how much of that is real - and how much of that is theoretical?

And what vaporous birds do you hunt in the sky?