When I was very young, frightened and sleepless, I devised my own method of counting sheep.  I imagined my bed was flying through the clouds I had seen from the window of a plane.  I began to elaborate on this nocturnal vehicle.  The bed became larger, was enclosed in glass, an intelligent capsule with so many functions that it could never be endangered.  

As I became older, it became more difficult to maintain the sedative effects of this imagining, but I persisted, slid beneath arctic ice, became invisible, travelled through time to right wrongs.

I gave up on this sleep aid many years ago, but when I sold my schools in Beijing, I revived this dream and began work on Vehicle. 

I worked on it for a few years, and then I put it aside. I returned to it after completing A Man Without Talent, revised and added the first and last two chapters. 

It says now what I want it to say.