Dark Matter

by Blake Crouch

What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened. —T. S. Eliot, “Burnt Norton”

maybe that’s what makes tragedy so tragic. Not just what happens, but how it happens: a sucker punch that comes at you out of nowhere, when you’re least expecting it.

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 air between us carries a positive charge, humming on some frequency right at the edge of our perception.

What if our worldline is just one of an infinite number of worldlines, some only slightly altered from the life we know, others drastically different?

“ ‘The most beautiful thing we can experience is the

We’re all made of the same thing—the blown-out pieces of matter formed in the fires of dead stars.

As I would stand facing the target, aiming the heavy pistol, I couldn’t escape the thought that I was holding death.