The End of the Line

'If you believed in such a thing, I suppose you might have called it fate. And thus, as he would have said, did say, more than once, something to be loved. Always in Latin. Amor fati, Paul.' After a childhood in which his sensitivity to the suffering of others leads him to feel that he has been hollowed out, unable to make sense not just of his own life, but of human life as such, Paul heads off to university, where he encounters a charismatic figure, Storm, as well as his half-sister, Mal. For Paul, it is as though he has finally found what he needed, as though Storm possesses the power to fill the void within him, persuading him that he has the power to make his life meaningful through what his new friend describes as an aesthetic justification of his existence. The enigmatic Mal, however, seems to be warning Paul that Storm has taken him to be someone other than he is, while Paul has misinterpreted Storm's advice to him. When Storm disappears from his life, Paul sets out to become the person whom Storm believes him to be. It is a journey that will lead him into a darkness from which there appears to be no escape, a journey all the way to the end of the line.