I’ve just finished reading Dust by Hugh Howey. It’s the ninth and final book in the Wool series. The series starts off with the remaining human population living in an underground silo more than a hundred floors deep. They’ve been living there for many generations and have forgotten everything about the world above them. As the series moves on, we find out that there are several independent silos. We find out who built the silos and ultimately what happened to the world that forced people underground.

Dust is a great conclusion to the series. It offers a finality that really ends the story but leaves room for the hope that the survivors will make a better life for themselves. It’s about overcoming impossible odds and in the end reclaiming their humanity.

One of the scenes that rang true for me is a conversation between two characters. Lukas says:

I’ll tell you what does last forever, our decisions. Whatever we do, it’ll always be what we did. There’s no taking them back. And every mistake, but every good thing we do as well, they are immortal, every single touch we leave behind. Even if nobody sees them or remembers them, that doesn’t matter. That trail will always be what happened, what we did, every choice. The past lives on forever. There’s no changing it.

I have always believed that it’s the culmination of our decisions that have landed each of us where we are today. Good or bad, right or wrong, it was a series of choices that moved us to this point. We make decisions every day. Does the knowing that your choices are going to last forever make a difference in the decisions you make going forward?

It certainly will for me.