Dark Matter (10 page)

The ocean.

A desert landscape scrolling past.

I continue along my path.

Into dead ends.

Around blind curves.

The imagery appearing with greater frequency, on faster loops.

The crumpled remains of a car crash.

A couple in the throes of passionate sex.

The point of view of a patient rolling down a hospital corridor on a gurney with nurses and doctors looking down.

The cross.

The Buddha.

The pentagram.

The peace sign.

A nuclear detonation.

The lights go out.

The stars return.

I can see through the Plexiglas again, only now there's some kind of digital filter overlaid on the transparency—static and swarming insects and falling snow.

It makes the others in the labyrinth look like silhouettes moving through a vast wasteland.

And despite the confusion and fear of the last twenty-four hours, or perhaps precisely
because
of all I've experienced, what I'm witnessing in this moment breaks through and hits me hard.

While I can see the others in the labyrinth, it doesn't feel like we're in the same room, or even the same space.

They seem worlds apart and lost in their own vectors.

I'm struck for a fleeting moment by the overwhelming sense of loss.

Not grief or pain, but something more primal.

A realization and the terror that follows it—terror of the limitless indifference surrounding us.

I don't know if that's the intended takeaway from Daniela's installation, but it's certainly mine.

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.

At the labyrinth's exit, there's one last loop—
a man and a woman each hold the tiny hand of their child as they run together up a grassy hill under a clear, blue sky
—with the following words slowly materializing on the panel—

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

I step into another anteroom, where the rest of my group huddles around the plastic bag, retrieving their phones.

On through, into a large, well-lit gallery with glossy hardwood floors, art-adorned walls, a violin trio…and a woman in a stunning black dress, standing on a riser, addressing the crowd.

It takes me a full five seconds to realize this is Daniela.

She's radiant, holding a glass of red wine in one hand and gesturing with the other.

“—just the most amazing night, and I'm so grateful to all of you for coming out to support my new project. It means the world.”

Daniela raises her wineglass.

“¡Salud!”

The crowd responds in turn, and as everyone drinks, I move toward her.

In proximity, she's electric, so sparkling with life that I have to restrain myself from calling out to her. This is Daniela with an energy like the first time we met fifteen years ago, before years of life—the normalcy, the elation, the depression, the compromise—transformed her into the woman who now shares my bed: amazing mother, amazing wife, but fighting always against the whispers of what might have been.

My Daniela carries a weight and a distance in her eyes that scare me sometimes.

This Daniela is an inch off the ground.

I'm now standing less than ten feet away, my heart thumping, wondering if she'll spot me, and then—

Eye contact.

Hers go wide and her mouth opens, and I can't tell if she's horrified or delighted or just surprised to see my face.

She pushes through the crowd, throws her arms around my neck, and pulls me in tight with, “Oh my God, I can't believe you came. Is everything all right? I'd heard you left the country for a while or were missing or something.”

I'm not sure how to respond to that, so I just say, “Well, here I am.”

Daniela hasn't worn perfume in years, but she's wearing it tonight, and she smells like Daniela without me, like Daniela before our separate scents merged into
us
.

I don't want to let go—I need her touch—but she pulls away.

I ask, “Where's Charlie?”

“Who?”

“Charlie.”

“Who are you talking about?”

Something torques inside of me.

“Jason?”

She doesn't know who our son is.

Do we even have a son?

Does Charlie exist?

Of course he exists. I was at his birth. I held him ten seconds after he came writhing and screaming into the world.

“Everything okay?” she asks.

“Yeah. I just came through the labyrinth.”

“What did you think?”

“It almost made me cry.”

“It was all you,” she says.

“What do you mean?”

“That conversation we had a year and a half ago? When you came to see me? You inspired me, Jason. I thought of you every day I was building it. I thought of what you said. Didn't you see the dedication?”

“No, where was it?”

“At the entrance to the labyrinth. It's for you. I dedicated it to you, and I've been trying to reach you. I wanted you to be my special guest for tonight, but no one could find you.” She smiles. “You're here now. That's all that matters.”

My heart is going so fast, the room threatening to spin, and then Ryan Holder is standing next to Daniela with his arm around her. He's wearing a tweed jacket, his hair is graying, and he's paler and less fit than the last time I saw him, which was impossibly at Village Tap last night at his celebration for winning the Pavia Prize.

“Well, well,” Ryan says, shaking my hand. “Mr. Pavia. The man himself.”

Daniela says, “Guys, I have to go be polite and mingle, but, Jason, I'm having a secret get-together at my apartment after this. You'll come?”

“I'd love to.”

As I watch Daniela vanish into the crowd, Ryan says, “Want to get a drink?”

God yes.

The gallery has pulled out all the stops—tuxedoed waiters carrying trays of appetizers and Champagne, and a cash bar on the far side of the room under a triptych of Daniela self-portraits.

As the barkeep pours our whiskies—Macallan 12s—into plastic cups, Ryan says, “I know you're doing just fine, but I got these.”

It's so strange—he carries none of the arrogance and swagger of the man I saw holding court last night at my local bar.

We take our Scotches and find a quiet corner away from the mob surrounding Daniela.

As we stand there watching the room fill with more and more people emerging from the labyrinth, I ask, “So what have you been up to? I feel like I lost track of your trajectory.”

“I moved over to U Chicago.”

“Congrats. So you're teaching?”

“Cellular and molecular neuroscience. I've been pursuing some pretty cool research as well, involving the prefrontal cortex.”

“Sounds exciting.”

Ryan leans in close. “All seriousness, the rumor mill has been crazy. The whole community's talking. People saying”—he lowers his voice—“that you cracked up and lost your mind. That you're in a rubber room somewhere. That you're dead.”

“Here I am. Lucid, warm, and breathing.”

“So that compound I built for you…it worked out, I assume?”

I just stare at him, no idea what he's talking about, and when I don't provide an immediate answer, he says, “Right, I get it. They've got you buried under a mountain of NDAs.”

I sip my drink. I'm still hungry, and the alcohol is traveling too fast to my head. When the next waiter passes within range, I grab three mini-quiches off the silver tray.

Whatever is bugging him, Ryan can't let it go.

“Look, I don't mean to bitch,” he says, “but I just feel like I did a lot of work for you and Velocity in the dark. You and I go way back, and I get that you're in a different place in your career, but I don't know…I think you got what you wanted from me and…”

“What?”

“Forget it.”

“No, please.”

“You could've shown your old college roommate a little more respect is all I'm saying.”

“What compound are you talking about?”

He looks at me with thinly veiled contempt. “Fuck you.”

We stand silently on the outskirts as the room grows dense with people.

“So are you two together?” I ask. “You and Daniela?”

“Sort of,” he says.

“What does that mean?”

“We've been seeing each other for a little while.”

“You always had a thing for her, didn't you?”

He just smirks.

Scanning the crowd, I find Daniela. She's poised and in the moment, surrounded by reporters with notepads flipped open, scribbling furiously as she speaks.

“And how's it going?” I ask, though I'm not sure I really want the answer. “You and my…and Daniela.”

“Amazing. She's the woman of my dreams.”

He smiles enigmatically, and for three seconds, I want to murder him.

At one in the morning, I'm sitting on a sofa at Daniela's place, watching as she sees the last of her guests to the door. These past few hours have been a challenge—trying to hold semicoherent conversations with Daniela's art friends while biding my time to get an actual moment alone with her. Apparently, that moment will continue to elude me: Ryan Holder, the man who's sleeping with my wife, is still here, and as he collapses into a leather chair across from me, I get the sense that he's settling in, possibly for the night.

From a heavy rocks glass, I sip the dregs of a single malt, not drunk but good and goddamn buzzed, the alcohol serving as a nice buffer between my psyche and this rabbit hole I've fallen down.

This wonderland purporting to be my life.

I wonder if Daniela wants me to leave. If I'm that oblivious, last-remaining guest who doesn't realize when he's outstayed his welcome.

She shuts the door and hooks the chain.

Kicking off her heels, she stumbles over to the sofa and crashes down onto the cushions with, “What a night.”

She opens the drawer to the end table beside the couch and pulls out a lighter and a stained-glass pipe.

Daniela quit weed when she became pregnant with Charlie and never took it up again. I watch her take a hit and then offer me the pipe, and because this night can't get any stranger, why not?

Soon we're all stoned and sitting in the softly humming silence of the spacious loft whose walls are covered in a vast, eclectic array of art.

Daniela has the blinds swept back from the huge, south-facing window that serves as the backdrop to the living room, the downtown a twinkling spectacle beyond the glass.

Ryan passes the pipe to Daniela, and as she begins to repack the bowl, my old roommate slumps back in the chair and stares at the ceiling. The way he keeps licking the front of his teeth makes me smile, because it was always his weed tic, even from back in our grad-school days.

I look through that window at all the lights and ask, “How well do you two know me?”

That seems to catch their attention.

Daniela sets the pipe on the table and turns on the sofa so she's facing me, her knees drawn into her chest.

Ryan's eyes snap open.

He straightens in the chair.

“What do you mean?” Daniela asks.

“Do you trust me?”

She reaches over and touches my hand. Pure electricity. “Of course, honey.”

Ryan says, “Even when you and I have been on the outs, I've always respected your decency and integrity.”

Daniela looks concerned. “Everything okay?”

I shouldn't do this. I
really
shouldn't do this.

But I'm going to.

“A hypothetical,” I say. “A man of science, a physics professor, is living here in Chicago. He isn't wildly successful like he always dreamed, but he's happy, mostly content, and married”—I look at Daniela, thinking of how Ryan described it back at the gallery—“to the woman of his dreams. They have a son. They have a good life.

“One night, this man goes to a bar to see an old friend, a college buddy who recently won a prestigious award. On the walk back, something happens. He never makes it home. He's abducted. The events are murky, but when he finally regains his full presence of mind, he's in a lab in South Chicago, and everything has changed. His house is different. He's not a professor anymore. He's no longer married to this woman.”

Daniela asks, “Are you saying he
thinks
these things have changed, or that they've actually changed?”

“I'm saying that from his perspective, this isn't his world anymore.”

“He has a brain tumor,” Ryan suggests.

I look at my old friend. “MRI says no.”

“Then maybe people are messing with him. Running an elaborate prank that infiltrates every aspect of his life. I think I saw that in a movie once.”

“In less than eight hours, the inside of his house was completely renovated. And not just different pictures on the walls. New appliances. New furniture. Light switches were moved. No prank could possibly be this complex. And what would be the point? This is just a normal guy. Why would anyone want to mess with him at this level?”

“Then he's crazy,” Ryan says.

“I'm not crazy.”

It becomes very quiet in the loft.

Daniela takes hold of my hand. “What are you trying to tell us, Jason?”