Who Ever Heard of a Place Called Nowhere?

"The Road out of Nowhere," is a play on words. Roads usually go nowhere if they lead to some insignificant place. They don't normally come from nowhere. And who ever heard of a place called 'Nowhere' anyway?

In fact, there is a long tradition of people writing about 'Nowhere'. The Latin for the word 'nowhere' is 'utopia'. It translates literally as 'not a place', but has come to mean for us an ideal world. The man who invented this idea was Thomas More, a great English writer and politician from over 500 years ago. He wrote about an imaginary perfect island called Utopia, and set about describing a place that seemed to solve all the problems of England under King Henry VIII. A king who worked his way through six wives has problems, and so did England when he was its king! Thomas More's perfect world was not real, so he called it 'Nowhere'.

Lots of people have tried imagining a perfect world since then. There is now no end of people telling us how to live in 'Utopia'. Unfortunately, like the original Utopia, they don't exist. There is no such place where things are perfect. The giveaway is in the name. The problem comes when people don't realise this. We have been sold a lie.

This wonderful western life is often an illusion. We are told that everything can be perfect. If we just work harder, if people are more empathetic, if the government gives us more money, if technology just gets a bit better, if the markets are allowed to roar away... The 'ifs' pile up until our disappointment weighs us down and nothing, in the end, makes it all right.

We realise that we need something more, something of a different kind. We need to get out, but how can you get out of the world? My father had a saying, "Stop the world, I want to get off!" For him it was a joke, yet for many people it is the cry of their heart. This rich western world could be, should be, a utopia. Instead, it turns out to be 'Nowhere'. The world keeps turning, spinning on its axis, day follows night follows day and our hearts break.

Many people secretly want a road out of Nowhere. My story is about someone who finds their way out. It is a fantasy, a fiction, like Thomas More's story, but unlike his story, it doesn't paint a picture of a perfect world. Instead, “The Road out of Nowhere," is a story about how relationships are the key to hope, and one relationship that we can all have is truly 'out of this world'.

I hope people enjoy it, but even more, I hope they find "The Road out of Nowhere."

-Matthew