X Y Factor

by Jeff Layton

Additional titles for this “The X and Y Factor,” and “The X -Y-A and E Factor.”

X and Y represent multiple meanings and metaphors in this story. X and Y are variables used in mathematics. They are sex chromosomes, Yin Yang, and more. The A is for Adam, and the E is for Eve. The letter E could also relate to evolution as a timetable moves from 150,000 years ago to the present. You will find scientific, creative, reflective, metaphoric, and associative thinking in this story—a whole lot of thought going on. Don’t let the scientific narrative stop you. It moves along in the story. I use it to tell you how things are built and made, so it is believable. Otherwise, my story would be magical realism, one of my favorite genres. Gabriel García Márquez was my favorite author when I got out of the military and started college on the GI bill, and pursued my interests in literature and horticulture.


I also weave religious elements into the story; I must if I’m talking about Adam and Eve and genesis and relate them to modern scientific, spiritual, and plausible explanations. When I say modern and plausible, I mean no disrespect, but the language has changed, and our thoughts and consciousness have with it from a story written in the 8th century B.C. If an asteroid or meteor streaked overhead in the sky, or a tidal wave struck a shoreline in the 8th century B.C. The event and its description would be told entirely different than today.

Adam and Eva—modern Eve have a romantic relationship. Adam and Eva are scientists, Adam is an Archaeologist/Archaeogenetic, and Eva is an Archaeologist. They meet on a dig and fall in love. Their relationship builds from dating to moving in together.

I mention magical realism. This story does talk about magic and what it takes to create magic—real magick through references to the quantum and, in physics, the wave function. Everything is energy; it’s the building block of all matter. Energy and matter can change forms but cannot be created or destroyed. So, a magician does not make something out of anything; they change the form of energy or matter into something else. We have all heard of the equation from Einstein, E = mc2. It's the world's most famous equation, but what does it mean? Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. On the most basic level, the equation says that energy and mass (matter) are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing.

This is the science stuff I referred to. This is also a love story between Adam and Eva. Adam and Eva, I mean Eve, also the two of them, in conjunction with a lab team, do some scientific detective work. The team discovers strange things about the human genome and why modern civilization has gotten so angry and destructive. History tends to repeat itself. Is this due to the cyclical nature of history or a genetic gene that is wreaking havoc on civilization and the world environment? Adam and Eva discover the secret.

An excerpt of a narrative flow of consciousness, Chapter 12. “Thoughts upon thoughts flowed from the universal consciousness into the third eye. There is no other way to describe this millisecond image flash of illumination. What is seen is not important as it is personal in how it is defined, which is impersonal. It is what it is. The only thing real is the feeling. Feelings are subjective and don’t interfere with objective creation. Feelings can bare witness. Thoughts, creation, thoughts creation, from thoughts, come forth creations. It is happening millions, billions, trillions of countless times in a nonspatial continuum where language doesn’t exist. It is too much. The human brain can’t keep up…” – The X and Y Factor.

This is Jeff Layton’s fifth book
Reading is the theater of our minds. The curtain is opening.

158 pages, Paperback

Published August 11, 2022

About the author

I have done and experienced lots of things in my life. To stay relevant to writing, after I completed my six-year commitment in the military. I went to college on the GI bill. I started out in liberal arts with a focus on becoming a writer. I really enjoyed my English and literature classes. I changed course after about a year realizing I might want to earn a living financially with my degree. I focused on horticulture my second interest and finished with a degree in Landscape Horticulture.
As years went on, I would enroll in community college and audit creative writing classes. I enjoyed this. In doing so I also fell in love with visual arts—painting and went on to have ten professional one-man shows in art galleries, and gain recognition in that endeavor.
My activities of interest: Hiked most of the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada, raced my bicycle across the United States, fell in love with windsurfing, and opened a shop—from there living fives years in Maui, Hawaii where I taught windsurfing, and then go on to Kiteboarding. I am a fly fisherman and open a shop. I have created many videos of my fishing endeavors in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia…and it goes on.
I have had some spiritual experiences along the way. Some garnered through near-death in big surf, car accident, and spiritual journey deep into British Columbia where I have gone through some smokehouse sessions and a journey to the light experience that I still reflect upon today. So, I have returned to writing and will paint with words through metaphors my experiences, and thoughts of existence.