Plank-Level

The following is the opening section of a book that maybe someday I’ll finish.

There was a breakthrough. The kind of moment that reshapes the air around you. The smallest quantum of energy, delicately coaxed from the void, manifested itself here—at CalTech, of all places. It was as if the universe exhaled, and we caught a whisper of its breath. Everyone in the lab sensed it, the silent shiver of something monumental. We had made history.

The room buzzed with anxiety and excitement; a cocktail of emotions too potent to contain. Faces that had been stoic through countless failures now lit up with cautious hope. All whispered of future possibilities and felt the palpable tension of what this meant. Their uncertainty would ripple far beyond these walls.

In those fleeting moments, we were acutely aware of standing at a crossroads. The magnitude of our discovery was both exhilarating and terrifying. What had been a theoretical concept, laughed at and dismissed, now demanded answers—answers we were not yet ready to give. As the night outside began to lift, revealing the city in its muted glory, the weight of what we had unleashed settled over us. The future had arrived, uninvited and full of questions.