When I went to the bowling alley as a kid, I always wondered where the balls went after they hit the end of the lane. They knocked down some pins, or no pins, or all of them, then fell into this deep, strange underworld of conveyor belts and pulleys. I imagined that if I fell down there, my body would be squished and folded into a bowling-ball shape, Willy Wonka–style, and I’d roll out of the machine a few minutes later into the waiting hands of one of my siblings. If I stood still at the end of the lane and closed my eyes, I could feel the hum of this hidden universe beneath me. I wanted to know it, see it, but I knew it was one of those things I’d never really be able to know or see.