'A bus was coming. No numbers on it, only the destination, FINSEY-OBAY. Not a place I’d heard of. The bus was a tall and delicate thing of bamboo and rice paper, sheets of yellow, orange and pink pasted together and candlelit from within like a Japanese lantern. It was much bigger than a double-decker, towering so high above me that even when I tilted my head back I couldn’t see the top of it.'