И снова добро пожаловать в Найт-Вэйл. Милый городок в пустыне, где светит жаркое солнце, сияет дивная луна и загадочные огни проносятся над головой, когда все делают вид, что спят. Здесь живут привидения, ангелы, пришельцы и… вполне обычные люди. Казалось бы, странные события для этого городка – неотъемлемая часть повседневной жизни. Так было всегда, пока по всему Найт-Вэйлу не стали появляться загадочные глубокие воронки… Именно поэтому ведущий ученый Найт-Вэйла Карлос поручает своей новой...
Out in the desert is a road, built by no one. Its blacktop is cracked, its paint faded. You will walk it one day. It goes nowhere.
"Young man," he said. "Please watch your tone when you are speaking to your Church Elders. We know what is best for you. What`s best for you is that you get eaten by just a great big centipede."
"Nilanjana, listen to me," said Darryl. "You know me. Everything I told you was true. I didn`t know this would happen."
But did she know him? Of course she didn`t. She knew what he presented to the world. She knew how his hands felt, what the sweat on his neck smelled like. But that wasn`t knowing someone.
I think that what we believe and what we are, those are inseparable and singular.
There was a lighthouse, he said.
On top of a mountain, he said.
In the middle of a vast waterless desert, he said.
"Carlos." She lowered her voice, forced herself to sound calmer, so that he would not write off what she was saying as an emotional outburst. "Your experiments are what has been opening up those pits. Your experiments have been destroying the town. It`s not that the city or anyone else is causing the destruction to stop you. Every time you start one of the experiments the destruction happens. Our causation was backward the whole time."
Defensiveness is natural, protective. The body`s number one objective is to preserve itself. Being told that your actions are bad would seem a threat to your well-being, harming your reputation, your self-esteem, leaving you vulnerable to retaliation, possibly losing your job, which is your livelihood, which is what keeps you sheltered and fed and alive. In the quick moment of a single piece of negative feedback, however catastrophic, the subconscious mind processes all of that far below the surface. It doesn`t make these proceedings transparent to the conscious mind. It doesn`t speak to itself in any kind of human language with constructed arguments for and against. There is no Robert`s Rules of Order in the subconscious mind. The subconscious mind is ruled by neurons and synapses and the deep, conservative demands of instinct.
So while Carlos`s reaction to Nilanjana`s statement was rich and complex in terms of physiology and, neurologically speaking, was profoundly interesting, what he said was:
"Oh, come on."
Therapists will say that the root of much human anger is guilt, that what makes a person most angry in another person is a reflection of their own recognizable shortcomings. "I hate it when people are aggressive drivers," says the aggressive driver. Or just the feeling of guilt can make a person find any other thing anger-worthy. "I hate it when people are aggressive drivers," says the person who realized they forgot to call their daughter on her birthday.
As moments passed, and nothing continued to happen, they realized they were going to survive. Most of them started weeping. One woman just started swearing, as many words as she could think of. She didn`t even know why. Delayed fear, maybe. Or a celebration of the existence of her lungs.
They did what all scientists do when following proper scientific method: (1) hypothesis; (2) argument; (3) fight; (4) cry; (5) hug.
"I would trade all of Night Vale for you," Cecil said. He kissed Carlos again, a lengthy kiss that smashed their lips and hurt a little. A kiss that expressed not just love but anxiety and relief, all the worry of the past couple weeks pushed into a kiss. Breaking off, he added, "But I would really prefer not to. You stay away from desert otherworlds."
All of this was broadcast on the radio. Cecil broadcast almost everything he did on the radio, to the gentle exasperation of an understanding town.
I`m not joining the church. I hope that`s cool with you. It`s the same way I wouldn`t expect you to learn science and join our lab. We have different things. But we could do those different things side by side, in parallel, you know?
It didn`t work out.
That`s a simplification. Just because something eventually doesn`t work out doesn`t mean it never worked out. It was working out fine until, not much later, it wasn`t working out at all.
Happiness is not canceled out by unhappiness. A relationship is not canceled out by its end.
What is experienced and what is believed are not often related.