Two days after Josh had split his skin open when sparring with Sara, his arm was almost completely back to normal. There had been no further dreams, no further injury, and no further contact from Kerry. Connor and Sara had taken to sparring with each other and narrating what they were doing to Josh as he watched. It was intriguing, and Josh felt like he was learning a lot. There was an obvious setback of not being able to practice what he was learning just yet, but that didn’t bother him. Everything was fine.
Margot would return when she was able to. She would give Josh a mark. And then Josh would wait for that mark to activate. When it happened, he could begin his life all over again. He would be able to discover what he was really capable of, would become who he was really capable of being. All he had to do was wait patiently and prepare himself. In the time since he had put down his list of anxieties, Josh had spent his effort steeling his mind in preparation of learning something new and mind boggling. In essence, Josh had prepared himself to be confused.
Classwork and homework, and lectures and school life carried on. Though, Josh hardly paid them any attention. The didn’t matter as much as they had in the weeks before everything had changed. How does one focus on the topic of moral philosophy when they have to face the reality that they are burdened by the presence of an alien mind boring into their thoughts and dreams. Human philosophy didn’t have any sort of room for things beyond the reality that it knew. So many theories and thought experiments were designed around the ideas that were fundamental forces in the world, but could be so easily discarded if there were things beyond it. What was the worth in understanding what made gravity work, when it may have well been a concept unique to the world Josh found himself in.
And, rather than be disturbed by the helplessness that he felt—the feeling of being so inconsequential as a speck upon a speck in a sea of endless other specks—Josh took comfort in the scale of everything. Not much was to be expected from a speck. He could learn to do amazing things, could gain the power to upset the balance of the world he knew, but he would still be a speck. It wasn’t precisely comforting, and the more he lingered on it the less genuine comfort he took from the perspective he’d gained. It was humbling.
“He’s being a little creepy today, right?” Connor had whispered to Sara while Josh sat placidly on the window seat overlooking the city below.
“He’s been like this for almost two days now, how have you not noticed?”
“I was busy?” Connor shrugged in his defence. “And I mean, it’s creepy… but it’s not that bad. I just meant something seems off. I don’t know if he’s doing okay.”
Josh, of course, overheard none of this. He knew they were talking quietly on the other side of the apartment, he could hear that much. The first indication that he was the topic of their conversation was Sara walking over and placing a had gently on his shoulder.
“You doing okay?”
Josh wasn’t sure how to respond. “Fine? I guess? It’s a little weird, though, right? Nothing here really matters.”
“Oooooh, no.” Connor groaned from across the room.
“What?” Josh asked, ,alarmed at the sudden shift in the mood of the room.
“It’s just something that everyone goes through before they get their mark.” Sara answered with a chuckle and half smile. “Nihilism is a big hurdle, but everyone gets there one way or another.”
“What do you mean, nihilism?”
“Nihilism is—”
Josh held up a hand to stop Sara mid-explanation. He knew it was rude, but he’d misspoken. “I know what nihilism is. I already had a class on moral philosophies and it kind of comes up a lot when you’re a philosophy major. But I’m not being nihilistic.”
“You just say none of this matters. Which is what I’m talking about. But what are you talking about?”
After a deep breath, Josh rested his chin down on his fist in a relaxed and contemplative pose that sat in contrast with how little he’d actually thought about what he was about to say. “That’s not exactly nihilism. It’s one version of it, sure. But nihilism rejects that there’s any sort of real truth or knowledge or morality or value or meaning to anything. And that’s not what I’m saying.”
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“Okay…” Sara drawled off as she sat down next to Josh with a frown on her face and processed what he was saying. “So you’re saying, you still think there’s truth and all of that... but that it still doesn’t matter?”
“No.” Josh said bluntly. “I think… Well, some of it has to matter. But If I can’t grasp it, why should I bother. Right? Every individual has their own truth and meaning to them, and there are things out there that aren’t even human but just as intelligent or more so. They must have a truth and meaning to them as well, but it couldn’t possibly be the same as our own vision of those concepts.”
Sara was about to object, but Josh just kept talking.
“And you’d think truth of any kind would be pretty easy to figure out. Like am I sitting down on a chair? Well, you’d think so. But there are places, modes of existence beyond this reality, where I could be sitting on a chair and simultaneously not sitting on that same chair. You wouldn’t be able to discern the truth of the present from a different simultaneous present or any sort of overlap in temporary reality. And that’s not even getting close to morals. Even in our own world, there are cultures where what is moral and right is completely different than what other people thing is moral and right. There are cultures that eat the bodies of the dead, and it’s considered a good and noble thing to do. But that feels so wrong, doesn’t it? I can’t possible even image what other kind of—”
Without warning, at least none that Josh could see, Sara slapped him across the cheek. The shock of the strike caught him completely off guard.
“What the hell?!” There was a shrill hint of panic in Josh’s voice, as though he had been betrayed.
“Did that hurt?” Sara asked calmly.
“Yeah! That hurt a lot!”
“Okay. Well, there you go. There’s some objective truth for you.”
“That’s not how—”
Sara slapped him across the other cheek. Josh managed to move out of the way slightly, but the slap still connected.
“You feel it, right? That’s what matters.”
Connor joined in from across the room. “Maybe you should slap him harder.”
“No.” Josh held out his hands in protest. “Stop. No more slapping.”
“Do you still feel like the things you’re experiencing don’t matter?”
“Maybe? I don’t know?” Josh still wasn’t processing things again. The shock of being slapped twice was preventing him from thinking much of anything.
Sara put her hand gently on Josh’s shoulder again, ignoring the flinch that occurred when she brought her hand close to his face again, and smiled. “I’m sorry for hitting you. But you were scaring us, and that’s how we were brought out of it when we went through the nihilism part of our journey.”
“You probably just could have just tried explaining it to me.” Josh grumbled.
There was stifled laughter from across the room as Connor shook his head. “Doesn’t work.”
“Ignore him.” Sara shook her head, but kept smiling. “What’s important is that you stay close to the people around you, the people you care about. We care about you, because your well being is part of our responsibility now. It’s our fault… mostly my fault that you can’t live a normal life anymore. And I hope, if you care about us too, that you’d do the same things to keep us from giving in to the kind of thinking you were getting stuck in. You can slap me back if that ever happens.”
“I do care about you guys.” Josh bit his lip as he said it, it still felt strange to admit because he hadn’t known them for very long at all. “But how can you just ignore it all? There’s proof right in front of you that there are experiences more than human out there and that what we’re doing isn’t worth doing.”
Sara let out a sigh and lifted her other hand to Josh’s other should. “Listen. I know you’ve seen some things—the kind of stuff I’m probably never going to be able to comprehend—but the universe isn’t that complicated. It’s complex, but it doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s just you, the people you care about, and the things you have to do to keep them safe. Does that make sense?”
“Yeah. I guess that makes sense.”
With her hands on his shoulders, Sara leaned in to make close eye contact with Josh. “It doesn’t have to, at least not right away. But there’s more to existing than just doing the things you want. And even if there isn’t a purpose to it all, you still get to exist and choose and do things. You can understand yourself, you can understand the people around you, and you can understand why there are problems that endanger the people you care about.”
“I guess that’s what you guys are doing, isn’t it…” Josh muttered. He suddenly felt more awake than he had been before, though he hadn’t noticed feeling tired. “You’re trying to figure yourselves out.”
“That’s why I’m studying biology.” Connor nodded. “I want to make sure that whatever form I take is reliable and healthy, no matter what world I’m in.”
“And it’s why I’m still taking classes.” Sara added, letting go of Josh’s shoulders and leaning back against the window frame. “I want to know what I want to do with the time I have, I want to figure out everything that interests me. And I’ve found a few things, but I know there’s still more out there that’s fun and interesting. And I want to figure it out so that I can share it with the people around me.”
“Maybe I should switch out of some of my classes, then.” Josh said, more to himself but he knew Sara and Connor were still focused on him. “I don’t think what I’m studying is very useful.”
“It’s what you make of it, dude.” Connor said with a shrug. “Maybe you don’t really need to know yourself, at least not right now or any more than you already do. Maybe you aren’t ready for that. But you can always try to figure out other things.”
“Maybe… maybe I can try to figure out… why.”