Story Details
Categories Science Fiction
I watched the monitors while Varia looked through the viewing port, flipping her glasses up and down. Every time we set up the experiment, it was the same. There was a delay of exactly 44.5 seconds from the time Varia saw the dragons to the first spike on the detectors. There are theories that dark matter universes are layered right on top of our own, undetectable, at least with current technology.
Author Details
Terry’s tenth grade paper on the evolution of Frankenstein’s monster from tragic construct to boogeyman set her on the path to write her own stories of the weird and wonderful. As an award winner for both short fiction and screenwriting, Terry has explored settings from the historical to the far future and finds inspiration in the classroom where she teaches chemistry and astronomy. She is the author of the fantasy series, Three Wells of the Sea, and her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Story Notes for Dark Matter Myopia: We all experience the material world through our biological interface, the five senses, all imperfect, all unique. We don’t all “see” the same color when we look at blue. This is made clear by several photos circulating the internet revealing that some of us see a striped dress and some see a golden dress. I hear “Laurel,” but others hear “Yanny.” This can only mean that reality is heavily filtered through our personal sensorium. My story, “Dark Matter Myopia,” takes this fact one step further. What if someone could see dark matter? Any scientist willing to work three kilometers underground in pursuit of truth is likely a person who feels on the fringe of society. Isolation of this kind appeals to those of us who have never felt like they fit in. My character, Varia Hoit, has retreated from society in the name of research. But when a group of physicists invades her paradise in search of dark matter, she finds that isolation has kept her from seeing people as they really are. And she likes what she sees.
Dark Matter Myopia, by Terry Madden
Author Details
Terry’s tenth grade paper on the evolution of Frankenstein’s monster from tragic construct to boogeyman set her on the path to write her own stories of the weird and wonderful. As an award winner for both short fiction and screenwriting, Terry has explored settings from the historical to the far future and finds inspiration in the classroom where she teaches chemistry and astronomy. She is the author of the fantasy series, Three Wells of the Sea, and her short fiction has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies. Story Notes for Dark Matter Myopia: We all experience the material world through our biological interface, the five senses, all imperfect, all unique. We don’t all “see” the same color when we look at blue. This is made clear by several photos circulating the internet revealing that some of us see a striped dress and some see a golden dress. I hear “Laurel,” but others hear “Yanny.” This can only mean that reality is heavily filtered through our personal sensorium. My story, “Dark Matter Myopia,” takes this fact one step further. What if someone could see dark matter? Any scientist willing to work three kilometers underground in pursuit of truth is likely a person who feels on the fringe of society. Isolation of this kind appeals to those of us who have never felt like they fit in. My character, Varia Hoit, has retreated from society in the name of research. But when a group of physicists invades her paradise in search of dark matter, she finds that isolation has kept her from seeing people as they really are. And she likes what she sees.
