52

When you get down to it, there really is no “there” there. Or at least not much of one. Most of the universe is empty space: tiny sub-atomic particles, relatively few in number, separated by vast expanses of nothingness.

That’s what keeps me calm. Literally, there’s not much to get upset about. Let’s just say I’ve got perspective.

So, when my house burned down and my girlfriend left me, I took a shower and read a book—at a cheap motel. I didn’t watch the TV. It was an old analog one and they only broadcast digital signals nowadays. Even if I wanted to watch, I couldn’t. The old TV would wait for beams of tiny particles (electrons) to draw lines on the screen. But only digital satellite and cable signals are being transmitted, signals the old TV couldn’t intercept.

Analog or digital, either way, it’s almost nothing. Of course, my book is also insubstantial even though it’s Plato’s Republic. The pages and ink are primarily nothingness.

Before the Big Bang spread out all the tiny particles, the entire universe was an infinitesimal dot, a speck. To this day, that’s all there is.

So, now Jennie has burst into my motel room and is pointing a gun at me, threatening to shoot. I have to laugh. She’s upset that I was cheating on her, so she burnt down my house, left me and vowed revenge. Sure enough, here she is.

Well, let me clue you in sweetie. If you want, fire away. Disperse my atoms. Thirty four years ago, I didn’t exist. Never bothered me then. Shoot. Whatever. Matter can be neither created nor destroyed.