Book excerpt: The Heart of a Comet is a collection of poems and short stories offering the tale of Comet, who fell from the sky unto an unfamiliar plane of existence. On his quest to return home, he has many life-altering encounters with people and places that completely change his perspective of what it means to love and to live. Through this series of truths, the lines between dreams and reality so often blur, this creates a new mosaic to an ultimate revelation: the internal lesson of the true meaning of purpose. What are we here for? Why do we experience the things that we do, and why do we react to them in the ways that we do? All questions posed with seemingly infinite answers. In this conceptual miscellany, author Pages Matam touches on topics of immigrant experience to fatherhood and love in all of its beautiful but also often tragic and traumatic faces. As the tale unfolds, we become swallowed by a self reflective journey with a destination that could only be sought from one's own soul searching heart...the Heart of a Comet.