There are rules for just about everything that the Author has done of late. These are the rules that he must abide by. To not end on a preposition is one such rule, albeit a minor one. There are many others.

When he follows especially the more major rules of the genre of his life, which is fictitious if not also truthful in every respect, the world is pleasant to walk around in. When he does not or is incapable of following the rules for whatever reason—when he breaks his own rules—the world can come dangerously close to teetering on some abysmal world-ending apocalyptic chaos (or so he fears).

If it turns out to be a good, rule-abiding day, the sun shines eagerly and bright—not harshly, but temperately so. It is as if at these moments the sun is given permission to be itself, and as itself, the sun is a fairly happy thing. On other days, on the other hand, he may well ask:

See that sun of my own dark planet? No, you do not, for I have blotted it out. I have blotted out the sun by breaking the rules.

And yet how is it that nobody else seems to notice?

That is the confusing thing about rules. When he breaks the rules of his own genre, so as disrupt, even, the celestial bodies in their various orbits, how is it that nobody else seems to notice? It leaves him wondering where these rules come from and, most importantly, if they can change.

Now this brings us to the dark matter, or that one rule that when broken, everyone would surely turn to him at once and point. He is the one. He broke that ONE thing.

But have you done this? he asks himself. Have you really disrupted the flow of the universe? There may not be wireless here, but is not the coffee still pouring? Is not that horse in the dusty yard across the road standing with blinders on? Is not the wind still pushing that reluctant tumbleweed through the abyss?

Granted, this town may well be a black hole, a fictitious place narrowing to a point of zero volume all its own, but even here, at 2 a.m., you might be surprised by those flowers coming out on those cacti just outside the window there, or so the waitress says. “They bloom only at night. They’re short-lived.” She spends a moment chewing her gum so as for him to take that in.  She’s holding onto his empty dish. “Can you imagine that?” she says.

“No,” he says, and shakes his head. But why can’t he imagine it? Or why should he even have to imagine it? He sees them there—does he not?—and they’re blooming yet.