Prologue: An ordinary man

The cracking of fire resonates softly from the fireplace. The dim light spreads the shadows from the contours of the furniture across the room.

The night above and outside the house is particularly silent in the absence of all activity and surely it, and its only remaining inhabitant are content with that fact.

His eyes blink to the navy painted concrete ceiling, a vision so familiar and dry it has long lost his interest.

His shallow breathing joins his ears a second later as awareness falls upon his pupils.

The end is coming nigh.

There was once a time when this fact would leave him restless, his heart beating loudly with unwillingness washing through his veins.

The coming day though, no longer.

It is not that he would reject the opportunity to extend his life, yet for all the troubles and pains he's had to live through, he has indeed lived a good, decent life.

He is an ordinary man.

He grew up with loving parents, only child. He went to a good school and had a thorough education. He fell in love with a young lovely girl, and after they married they went on to live fulfilling lives. He became a researcher in the department of chemistry of his university and she an attending physician working at the regional hospital.

A baby came not long after, a beautiful healthy girl who took after her mother in all but the color of her eyes. Those light verdant eyes were spitting replicas of his.

Time took its course, the years slowly passed.

His daughter married a good man and she left to start her own family.

He and his wife retired and went off to live in the countryside.

He said goodbye to her one last time many years later. The same lovely smile that made him fall adorned her face, and reminded him once again how fortunate he was.

Indeed. He is an ordinary man, and the approaching death no longer feels unwelcome.

He takes his time to listen, to take in everything around him like he knows he won't be able to in the coming future.

It is a goodbye as much it is a gesture of remembrance

A cold breeze brushes past his aged skin like an old friend.

And the end comes peacefully, silently...worthy of a once wonderfully ordinary life. As the lights in his eyes slowly fade away, there is no tingling of regret, no source of needless worry or any speck of distant sadness...and yet...there remains a tender yearning; an innocent wish of wayward youth. "I would've liked to understand...a little more about this world."

There are many things that are not known across the vast universe, events and phenomena that seem completely unexplainable. And sometimes, only sometimes there exists the opportunity to come just a little closer to the truth.