I need to dig a hole for these begonias; would you pass me that trowel?

1990, Bears, gay men subculture materials (publication title, Human Sexuality Collection, Collection Level Periodical Record):

My awareness extended beyond human memory and I drifted, lost in the crevices of the now visible Timescape. Then a point of light beckoned me and I strove for it. The light became the memory of my personality and I dove into it. I swirled in an ever-tightening spiral. I was all eight of my great-grand parents, I was both of my grandfathers and both of my grandmothers, I was my mother and my father and, finally, I was Jonathan Crowe again and I could now reflect upon what had been done to me.

There were perhaps half a dozen occasions on which he might have withdrawn and returned to the life that had been marked out for him. He needn't have been tortured in South Africa; he needn't have written his book; he needn't have taken the job with Sablich's; having taken the job, he needn't have become associated with Thrushcross Grange and Jimmy Ahmed.