Challenger Deep

by Neal Shusterman

while it’s five in the morning here, it’s also five in the evening somewhere in China—proving that incompatible truths make perfect sense when seen with global perspective.

This journey began with him, you suspect it will end with him, and everything between is the powdery meal of windmills that might be giants grinding bones to make their bread.

Time is different here. It doesn’t move forward; it sort of moves sideways, like a crab.

“It’s my business to have my fingers curled around the heart of your business,” he told me.

“Indeed, nothing awful is without its beautiful side.”

conclude it would be a good place to be alone with my thoughts, but I should already know that my thoughts are never alone.

So what happens when your universe begins to get off balance, and you don’t have any experience with bringing it back to center? All you can do is fight a losing battle, waiting for those walls to collapse, and your life to become one huge mystery ashtray.

“Burn all your bridges,” the captain says. “Preferably before you cross them.”

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself,” the captain announces from the helm, “and the occasional man-eating monster.”

Then she leaves me to stew in thoughts I refuse to sell.

Forget solar energy—if you could harness denial, it would power the world for generations.

“We bob above many things unseen,” the captain begins. “Mountains of mystery lie low in the lightless, bone-crushing depths. . . . But as you all know, it be not the mountains that obsess us, but the valleys.”

“Those who speak of having seen the bottom lie,”

It’s kind of like religion. It gives us comfort to believe we have defined something that is, by its very nature, indefinable. As to whether or not we’ve gotten it right, well, it’s all a matter of faith.

“You’ll find in life, Caden, that many decisions are made by morons in high places.”