Dark Matter: A Novel

“And we’re not lost.” We are so fucking lost. Literally adrift in the nothing space between universes. “We’re not lost.”

If you strip away all the trappings of personality and lifestyle, what are the core components that make me me?

We’re all just wandering through the tundra of our existence, assigning value to worthlessness, when all that we love and hate, all we believe in and fight for and kill for and die for is as meaningless as images projected onto Plexiglas.

I think of Daniela, and the emotion breaks back through, accompanied by the actual horror of the moment. Fear returns, and with it a homesickness that cuts to the bone. I need her in this moment more than I’ve ever needed anything in my life.

There’s an energy to these autumn nights that touches something primal inside of me. Something from long ago. From my childhood in western Iowa.

“Exactly.” “Sure you want to stick with that?” Leighton opens the laptop on the table and types something.

And maybe I can let go of the sting and resentment of the path not taken, because the path not taken isn’t just the inverse of who I am. It’s an infinitely branching system that represents all the permutations of my life between the extremes of me and Jason2.

It’s the beautiful thing about youth. There’s a weightlessness that permeates everything because no damning choices have been made, no paths committed to, and the road forking out ahead is pure, unlimited potential.

Being with Daniela isn’t like being home. It defines home.