The Dark Matter

Prologue

Katherine O’Reilly had never contemplated suicide. But now the professor of Cosmology and preeminent expert on dark matter prepared to kill herself.

Closing her laptop’s lid and pushing back from her desk, she walked to the wall where the image hung. Her crowning achievement of 57 years. The first true photograph of dark matter. Stretching over the brown leather couch beneath, she pulled it down and slid it behind a bookcase.

Pictures are hung to be remembered, people hang to be forgotten, Katherine thought.

She turned for the window, passing her desk with her planner open to tomorrow, April 14th, a day she would never see. Two lectures, an interview with The Astrophysical Journal, and lunch with her boyfriend.

Outside, the blue sky of the warmest April day on record shone, and eight stories below, busy students followed pathways to classes or lunch. Young men and women, beaming with optimism on the pleasant day, wore shorts and t-shirts to soak in the sunshine. Some of them she recognized.

She placed her hands against the top of the window’s frame, pushing it up a crack, then positioned her fingers under to lift it open completely. It creaked with age and tossed dust.