Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

Life starts all over again when it gets crisp in the fall.

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.

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.

Nothing exists. All is a dream. God—man—the world—the sun, the moon, the wilderness of stars—a dream, all a dream; they have no existence. Nothing exists save empty space—and you…. And you are not you—you have no body, no blood, no bones, you are but a thought. MARK TWAIN

“We all live day to day completely oblivious to the fact that we’re a part of a much larger and stranger reality than we can possibly imagine.”

‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.’ ” Amanda looks at me. “Einstein’s words, not mine.”

What a miracle it is to have people to come home to every day. To be loved. To be expected.

“I have a friend whose gallery opening is tonight. Want to come?” And I think: I will go anywhere with you.

All your life you’re told you’re unique. An individual. That no one on the planet is just like you. It’s humanity’s anthem. But that isn’t true for me anymore.

For anyone who has wondered what their life might look like at the end of the road not taken.