Page 102 - Dark Matter Issue5 Part II

Portraying nature. A great challenge for me lay in how to write a human-focused story,

about people in an urban environment, without the natural world being subordinated to

mute background—its customary role in everything we write, from fiction to science. I

tried to emphasize the weather, terrain, stars, and presence of animals naturally yet

persistently to keep non-human dynamism and drama present. Yet I also wanted to

suggest that this field of earthly and cosmic relationships in which we are perpetually

enfolded has agency and intelligence. That there’s always communication happening

within the field, between ourselves and other beings, whether or not we’re aware of it.

We are never alone, and always influenced.

To suggest this, I tried several strategies. First, I tried to show that each character’s

obsession with nature isn’t something that they decide, but that finds them. We are part

of the world, and thus the world speaks and acts through us. The characters might resist

the call, but resistance only makes things harder.

Another strategy involved the characters’ dreams and intuitions, which are important. I

wanted to suggest that the non-human world often communicates through these

experiences, giving us messages through the heart and subtle senses. As the

characters begin to align with these, they find a strength and grounding they didn’t

expect.

Finally, I wanted to show a more direct intra-species communication, human to

nonhuman. Everyone knows we ‘speak’ to our dogs and cats, yet these are familiar,

domesticated species. I wanted to push into different territory, and this was the most

risky thing I did, in my opinion. In the novel, one of the characters is searching for a

species of luminous moth that only she’s seen. Finding it consumes her, yet despite her

skill and effort, the moth remains elusive until she stops trying to lure it to her and learns

to be called. Without giving too much away, I tried to show how the moth chooses when

to meet, and where; that it demands a surrender of will, assumptions and ill-intent, and

that this experience—meeting a consciousness and agency equal to our own—is the

message. This isn’t simply a creature fleeing humans or being rescued by them; it’s

actively rescuing itself and positing a different kind of relationship.