and shew thee not so great and mighty things

“What are you thinking about?”

“Just remembering some stuff.”

“Like what?”

“This year. And what preceded it.” I nuzzled into his cheek one more time and peered at the sea. “Ohh look, is that them?”

He dragged his gaze from me to the horizon, where the chicken boat had appeared as a small dark blot. “I think it is.”

Sliding sideways towards the coin-operated binoculars, we fed it a metal circle on a string, one of those Rafi had crafted for every local, and took turns to check. Professor Stavrou stood on the prow, not looking as bored and angry as we expected her to be. Wataru was trying to engage her in a conversation. Perhaps even succeeding.

We extricated the fake coin and exchanged glances.

“I’m a bit tired of standing, are you tired?”

“Yes.”

Despite the newly installed engine, it would take the boat no less than six minutes to reach us. Knowing that we might need to spend some time on our feet later, we decided to sit down. On the same bench we’d sat on over a year ago, where Wakuu had told me the truth about his side hustle and Da Bomb’s expensive insanity, and lamented his own inability to ‘break the system’. Where I had casually implied to him that I was getting all of the hair waxed off my hoohaah every month. A generally inappropriate factoid that had somehow made him feel for me on a deeper emotional level.

Then again, the thing that had made me feel for him the most was a dumbass broken string of lights. And pinky sex.

Humans were weird and random.

“You said you had a couple of questions?”

Right, before I’d started waxing nostalgic.

“Yes. I’ve been wanting to ask for a while. But maybe later?”

He shrugged. “We have time.”

I wasn’t so sure. One of those questions was of Great importance.

“The answers might be too long for the amount of time we have right now.”

“Can I at least hear the questions?”

“Sure. But feel free to opt out, okay?”

“Opt out? Why?”

“One of the two might be unpleasant.”

“I think I can handle unpleasant questions now,” he assured me. And I trusted him to know that he would. “I’d like to start with the unpleasant one.”

“Very well. Here goes.” Bracing, I took a deep breath. “The Great Filter. I wanted you to explain it to me.”

“Like you’re five?”

Looking at his face, which was not as brooding as I had expected, not even sardonic, but rather wry and maybe a tad impish, I grinned. “Let’s say, like I’m fifteen. I imagine it’s impossible to explain this concept to a five year old.”

“Hmmm.” He rubbed the wispy and fragmented stubble on his chin, pondering. “An interesting point. Worth examining later. May I start explaining now?”

I nodded. “Gloop it down hard.”

Instead of quipping back at me, he stroked over my hair, once. Silent. His smile dissolved, but the tenderness in his gaze stayed. I was taken aback.

Wakuu took a very deep bracing breath of his own, raised his chin, and closed his eyes for a long moment, as if he, too, was standing on the prow of a ship approaching the Island.

Exhaling, he started, “The universe is vast, and so is the number of potentially habitable planets. The latter is indisputable. And we have been sending radio signals for over one and a half centuries. Logically, there should be a lot of life out there. Even in our neighborhood, we’ve got,” Wakuu smiled softly, “a buttload of G-type main-sequence stars.” With this, he pointed up just as I opened my mouth to ask, and I shut it and smiled back at him, understanding that he meant ‘stars like ours’.

He noted that if life was as common as many believed, then we should have seen at least some indication of it, even with our ‘primitive’ technology. “Yet all we hear is silence. All we are is lonely. It is a paradox. And a paradox calls for an explanation. In regards to aliens,” he gestured over his shoulder, back towards the town, “they all have their own explanations. They all believe in something. Noah and Alice believe that aliens are studying us and are in cahoots with the government. Kenny believes that aliens are already among us as neutral and non-interfering observers. Ben believes they’re here and incorporeal, and you can meet them if you are uuuh,” pursing his lips, Wakuu gave a cough while I held back an endeared snort, “in the right state of mind. Frank believes in incompatible consciousness. Yuri thinks we’re in a galactic infirmary, or a zoo. You believe that our planet is so unremarkable that we aren’t isolated on purpose, but simply ignored, as if we were galactic Kiahee. Right?”

“Right,” I exhaled, abstaining from telling him the truth for now. The truth was: I wanted to believe that we were these awkward and boring galactic hillbillies living on the most average and unremarkable planet ever, and that no one was giving us a second thought. I wanted to believe that, because for a number of personal reasons this belief was comforting. The truth was, deep down inside I believed in something else. Something really not that great. Something I did not want to believe in.

Much like Wakuu.

He took a long, lo-ong look at my face. “By the way,” he said, not blinking, “you should ask Dimitra about Kiahee.”

“Hmm?”

“Just trust me. Ask her about Kiahee.” The corner of his mouth twitched, but he resumed speaking before I was able to barge in and specify the reason for his advice.

In a droning, monotone voice, Wakuu bullet-pointed a list of explanations popular among people we both knew and interacted with regularly, and a few extras common around the world: the aliens were here now, the aliens were in cahoots with the government, the aliens were the government, the aliens had been here but then fucked off, they liked to visit occasionally, they would be here soon, they didn’t want to be here because the planet was unsuitable for their swim-in-sulfur needs, we didn’t want them here because they equaled imperialist colonizers or swarms of all-devouring locust, they hadn’t found us yet, it was better for us to never be found, they had found us but then pretended they hadn't found us because we were just that cringe, they were out there laughing at us through their Reality TV, they were on their way, the way was very long, the way would be short, they had a base on the moon, they had a base inside the molten core, they had a base on the bottom of an ocean, they had a base under a mall, they were coming soon but only to meet with a choice few, they were not coming but they were watching or listening without Reality TV, we had no means of reaching them because FTL travel was impossible and-or because stable wormholes were impossible, they had no means of reaching us for the same reason or for a different reason...

“We’re early. We’re rare, albeit not uncomfortably rare. They can travel the galaxy, but choose to retreat into a safe virtual reality instead. They can travel the galaxy, but choose not to. And so on. Everyone believes in one explanation or another. Everyone. But the Great Filter is more of a lack of b—”

Flinching, he trailed off when his father rang the formerly decorative brass bell. It was supposed to be the figurehead Chicken’s neck adornment, but Wataru had transferred it to the deck. We’d gotten so distracted by the conversation that we hadn’t noticed the boat about to dock nearby.

“Continue later?”

“Yes.”

Standing up, we waved at the captain and the solitary passenger, and approached to help. Wakuu with the parking, and I with getting the traveling bag, and offering my hand and then a bottle of water to the gloomy-looking Professor Stavrou. She looked a little green too. I related very hard.

This was our first in-person meeting, but we acted like it was the hundredth. Not even because we knew a lot about each other through Wakuu. Mainly because even shared intergenerational trauma had a silver lining, and the silver lining was this: all of the survivors’ descendants were family by default.

Or, as she would flatly put it an hour later when asked if we were related to each other, as we seemed to be on very familiar terms: ‘No, our peoples simply got genocided together, that’s all’. I’d never seen the Mayor looking that wide-eyed and awkward-faced, or backing away so fast. Not even during the preceding events.

I’d never laughed this hard at a black-comedy deadpan. By that time, I would already be head over heels for her. In a platonic sense, of course... I wasn’t into older women.

“I've brought you a gift,” she said right away. Not a cat earring. Something better: out of her hip hip-bag, she produced the largest sumac shaker I’d ever seen.

Although I felt like crying, I managed to not burst into tears. Not even when I threw a glance at Wakuu securing the last rope on the mooring bollard and giving me his signature sunny grin with a touch of the conspiratorial.

With half an hour to the celebration’s start, I offered Professor Stavrou to use my shower, even though she was staying the night at the local inn. A shorter walk. Grudgingly, she agreed, but asked if she could visit the bathhouse later on.

“I heard you have a capybara there. Sitting stock still in the pool and watching the bathers.”

“Oh.” I hated to disappoint her, but alas. “No, that’s just Charles on Sundays.”

The party was set up on the Alun-Alun square near the cherry grove, where townwide potlucks and barbecues usually took place. For all intents and purposes, this was a potluck too, and everyone had helped set it up: the food, the drinks, the picnic tables, umbrellas, burners and mini-fridges, the small stage-like temporary platform, the generator, the microphone, the speakers, the recessed-top wooden lectern dragged here from the school. Emma’s extra-mobile taco station, of course.

Wakuu was asked not to help, because ‘Your party, after all!’ Which was an additional reason why he sneakily helped anyway.

The majority of people were gathered there for the food. No, all of the people. And some non-people too. Taco was already waiting between Emma’s station and the biggest grill, looking from one to the other as often as if he was at a beach volleyball match, and dropping slobber.

I joined Wakuu, Professor Stavrou, Wataru, and Judge Ross (who looked like she hated being there, but by then I knew that I was seeing her happy face) at the chipped table next to the platform.

The ceremonial part was supposed to be over quickly. The lectern was turned towards the audience, all of whom either sat on picnic tables like us, or half-lay on picnic blankets; careful not to show anyone, Millie unglued the framed certificate from her chest, planted it on the lectern, and covered it with a small cut of purple velvet. The Mayor ascended the platform, approached the microphone, and pulled the microphone up to his mouth just as his foot landed on the cord... Everyone shrieked and covered their ears. Aaliyah had to run for the speakers and check the wiring. Luckily, she got everything fixed in seconds. Wracked with guilt and gratitude, the Mayor restarted the speech by thanking Aaliyah and reminding everyone (who all knew, because every last tourist and trader and visiting fish and fly and virus was told this before ‘hello’) that she was a Real Astronaut (turned consultant) who’d gone to space basically yesterday (she’d returned from the base over two months ago and had had her own welcome-back party). The tech was fine. The rest of the ceremony was supposed to go off without a hitch...

The Mayor said more things that everyone already knew. And some more.

“He’s stalling,” murmured Wakuu and pressed his jaws together.

Professor Stavrou sighed.

The Mayor said more words. Reaching for the stars... Communal achievements... Blahblah.

He even explained what supernovas were and why they went ‘starburst’ (a caretaker joke; a strange decision, considering the circumstances — why was he trying to draw everyone’s ire?). He was quoting from an online encyclopedia while throwing glances at a printed-out sheet of paper in his hand. He then produced a smaller piece of paper out of his chest pocket and said that the star ‘is’ (‘was’ objected Wakuu under his breath) nine hundred light-years away, located in a region between the two main galactic spiral arms, twenty-five thousand light-years to the galactic center and twenty-five thousand light-years away from its rim, so uuuh roughly halfway between the center and the edge of our galaxy, and (‘Gia onoma tou Theou!’ objected Professor Stavrou under her breath) that region was also an arm, three and a half thousand light-years across and ten thousand— “Is the name! Big Bottom!” interrupted a distorted, creaking mechanical voice.

As if Ollie was fast enough to hide the prank device and feign innocence before all the heads turned towards the kids’ table, sure. He was no Conan. And his best accomplice Archie, with the ‘hehehe, bottom’ was no mastermind either. But one had to admire Ollie’s gall. The boy, as any heckler ever, totally was police material, and I found myself really-really hoping he’d ultimately choose botany or art as his career.

“No, it, uh. The name, uh.” The Mayor shifted from one foot to the other, his round and usually friendly face drooping in misery.

“Dimitra. He is.

Stalling.” Wakuu closed his eyes, going paler. I squeezed his wrist, and his upper body almost imperceptibly tilted towards me.

In the meantime, Wataru was waiting with the patience of a fisherman (who’d ever guess how he’d acquired that trait!), an oblivious and placid expression on his face.

“I’m. Not quite. Uh.” I thought the Mayor looked to Judge Ross for help, but she was powdering her nose, either way. Pretending. She was pretending to powder her nose.

Brought on by Ollie’s derailment, the pause was getting too long and awkward.

“Oh for crying out loud!” Professor Stavrou repeated, this time for everyone to hear and understand — and with fewer non-existent entities involved in her vocal exasperation. Heaving all of herself up, nose and eyebrows and nose and jorts and flannel and sidecut and sandals in harmony, she strode past several tables, to the platform and up.

Breaths were held, figurative daggers were shot: despite her local connections and word-of-mouth reputation, and despite her not being a businesswoman much less an oil person, she was a stranger, a newcomer, an outsider — not to be trusted. The Island’s collective trauma would persist for many years to come.

The Mayor’s face fell lower, although he stepped away to let her pass, perhaps in reflex. His hand reached towards her hand, a moment too late. The velvet was yanked off the certificate, crumpled, and discarded. Millie caught it.

“FakesGloop. Okay? Two halves. One word. The name is Fah-kes. Gloop,” said Professor Stavrou, enunciating louder than the Mayor with the microphone.

Expressionless, she raised the certificate high, like a severed clown head by the rainbow wig above a battlefield, and slowly pivoted, showing it to the semicircle of spectators.

I looked at Wakuu, startled. My eyes were filling up with moisture. He looked back at me, his gaze apologetic at first, his half-smile goofy. Then he saw the tears.

“I taco you,” I mouthed, and he repeated it back at me, soundless as I wiped my stupid, sober, happy face with my sleeve.

The screeching distracted us: after stuffing the fabric into her fanny pack, Millie stepped forward and plucked the microphone out of the Mayor’s petrified fist. Aaliyah moved to stand up, but Chaem held her back by the forearm.

The Mayor closed his dry mouth and left the stage almost backwards, defeated and resigned now to let everything play out, come what may.

“Would you say a few words?” Millie offered to Professor Stavrou who planted the certificate back on the lectern and accidentally leveled the top platform. The name was now looking up towards the skies. She swung around.

Millie received an equally friendly smile in return as she was passing over the microphone.

“Yes, I would like to explain why I chose this name. The first half’s mine.”

Scattered giggles crawled through the crowd, most of them awkward and uncertain. Either from kids, or those who were as immature as me, or those who experienced misguided vicarious embarrassment. Would she shrug and say ‘because I thought it would be funny’ or ‘I thought it was obvious why’?

The Mayor, who’d by now lowered himself into a foldable chair, as well as some of the older townies, stirred uncomfortably, frowning at Millie and her friendliness, unsure of what the explanation would be, unsure of whether or not they wished to hear it at all. Was this strange woman being uncouth? Was Millie granting her permission to be unacceptably vulgar on ‘stage’?

“Thank you.” After clearing her throat, Professor Stavrou faced the audience and planted the microphone into the holder. She started, “Well, I chose this name, because fakes holds a special and odd place in my heart. It is a simple green-lentil soup that I ate almost every day when I was a child.”

The gigglers exchanged disappointed glances. The prudes relaxed. Bored, Ollie and Archie unsheathed an emergency candybar. The soft-spoken Mayor, who knew the value and power of food nostalgia, smiled and nodded his head.

I narrowed my eyes like a damn hawk.

“However, I did not enjoy it. Cheap and easy to make, lentil soup was considered a healthy dish. It had a thick and grainy texture I personally was finding unpleasant. Lentil soup was imposed not only on me, but on every visitor of the restaurant my family owned. It was free. A small bowl filled to a quarter, no more than four to five spoonfuls, served while you wait for your order to arrive. I had helped wait tables since I was seven. And as a child, I wondered why the visitors always ate it. When they, unlike me, had the choice not to eat it. Why every single one of them praised it, with no exception, when this soup was so clearly revolting. All I could think was: when I grow up, I will never ever eat it again.” After a short and wistful pause punctuated by polite and compassionate chuckles, she continued, sweeping her palm across the audience, “I’m sure that on this wonderfully multicultural island many of you can relate to the notion, albeit with your own unique examples and dishes from all over the world.”

Many people hummed in agreement.

I continued squinting.

She continued talking. About the tradition and how the soup had been helping maintain the air of hospitality and improved the restaurant owners’ reputation, how they were praised for their generosity. How she grew up and continued eating the soup, and why, and how that whole notion w— Okra. Fakes was her Okra. Her personal existential food-metaphor.

Yes, I was surprised to learn that okra wasn’t her Okra. But I was not allowing myself to get too distracted by her poetic musings. Or by the second part of the name. Not yet.

“And this is why I chose the name ‘Fakes’. Thank you,” concluded Professor Stavrou.

As she remained by the microphone and waited for the applause to die out, I finally saw. I recognized. I felt validated. My heart leapt. I held my breath on her behalf and fumbled for Wakuu’s fingers as he fumbled for mine, holding his breath on her behalf.

“And also because it sounds like ‘fuck this’.”...The commotion died down in a couple of minutes. Wakuu readily bore the consequences and did some brilliant damage control. Instead of taking her place on the stage and giving his half of the speech right away, he stood up and offered everyone to fill their plates first, as the food was ready and waiting, and surely everyone was hungry.

Some ace diplomacy right there.

“Wakuu,” I whispered when a couple of minutes later he returned with two filled plates, planted them on the table in front of us, and nodded sideways, poised to leave again. “You’ve done enough. Please, eat.”

“In a few. I’ll be back soon. I’ll just mingle a bit.” Seeing my frown, he understood and added, “No placating. No guilt. And no accepting drinks from Frank ... Actually, I think I’ll go find Dad.”

Smiling now, I nodded and let go.

Alone at the table with Professor Stavrou, I sidled up closer to my plate and got to shaking sumac over everything. Ev-very-thin-ng-g. “Fakes is a soup. How could you miss out on an opportunity of naming that star GloopSoup!”

She was already folding a taco as she deadpanned, “I really wanted to go first.”

My hands were already occupied with folding a taco of my own. “Ba-dum-tsss.”

After a couple of minutes of silent mastication and blissful eye-rolling, she said, “It’s admirable how much he’s grown lately. Your accomplishment?”

“Ours. Why do you sound relieved?”

“Well, we met when he was barely nineteen. Just a boy, really. Looking for a guiding star in the darkness. For a time I felt like I had an obligation of playing the role of substitute mother. Not only was I bad and helpless at it, but also, this was absolutely not what he needed. So yes, I am relieved that he found you. You’re great at calling him out on his bullshit without putting extra pressure on him.”

I wouldn’t call trauma response 'bullshit', but whatever...

“I see. Thank you. Yes, not a nice role to play, and I would not want it either. Plus, you’re his academic advisor and superior. So is that even ethical?”

“Shmethical,” said Professor Stavrou and passed me a glass of water.

“Please adopt me,” I mumbled through a silly smile, taking it. “Wait. No, sorry. I forgot that you hate kids.”

“I don’t.”

“But uuuh. Wakuu mentioned that you're childfree..?”

“No. I'm an antinatalist.”

“Aren’t these one and the same?”

She swayed her head from side to side. “Sometimes. Sometimes not. Being childfree means making an active and conscious choice of not having and raising children. Birth, adoption, everything: off the table. An individual choice fueled by personal reasons. Either they are not ready, or dislike children, or value solitude. While antinatalism deems that conscious procreation overall is immoral. Incidentally... Unethical.”

“How so?”

She took a sip of water before looking me dead in the eyes and asking, “Did you consent to being born?”

“Heck no.”

Once again, she shrugged, thus relaying: well, there you go.

I urged, “So you believe that—”

“That condemning a self-conscious being to this life is a punishment none of us has any right to dole out. That bringing a child into this world is the ultimate act of violence.”

Gosh, I loved casual lunchtime conversations. “Would that outlook not be an obligation to commit suicide?”

“If a person so chooses. Yes. It is an individual choice. On my part, I believe not.

Life may be sufficiently bad that it is better not to come into existence, but not so bad that it is better to cease existing.”

“Right. Since we’re already here, might as well stick around and have some tacos.”

“Exactly. Besides, antinatalism does not advocate against adoptions. Still interested?”

I wasn’t.

We went on talking, staying put as people celebrated and mingled around us. She offered more quotes and explanations. I was thinking about the vague concept of woe from wit as I listened, not interfering.

I was thinking about how I’d been told by my mom so many times as a child: eat your okra, or you won’t get your dessert. But by the time I’d finished the goddamn okra, I was always full and miserable, and dessert no longer looked appealing. Dad had told me: that’s how it’s supposed to be, see, we have two stomachs, one is for regular food and The Other One is for dessert, but The Other One is really small.

I was thinking of how I’d told Wakuu about this at Aaliyah’s welcome-home party. No one else knew.

According to Professor Stavrou, the very concept of civilization already entailed a rebellion against primal urges, and procreation was the primal urge. Thus, the apex of any civilization’s development was to stop procreating and die out.

She was describing the ultimate and conscious triumph over Terror. Huh.

“Ever heard of TMT? The Terror Management Theory,” I inquired, curious.

“The what? No. I haven’t.” She leaned forward, curious too.

I explained. “In short. We are no better than any other species on this planet. There is nothing special about us or our existence, no meaning, no purpose, no mission. There’s just one crucial difference. Like all other animals, we have a self-preservation instinct. Unlike all other animals, we are aware of our mortality. This awareness was given to us randomly by evolution, when we acquired self-consciousness. Also randomly. The self-preservation instinct versus the knowledge of our inevitable death. These two notions clash in an unending conflict which creates what is known as the Terror. And we need to somehow live with the Terror every minute of every day. Although this paradox makes no sense for anyone who can't accept that the universe itself makes no sense, that it’s random and pointless. Well, according to the TMT, everything humanity has ever created or invented or developed individually and collectively, including religion, laws, art, science, philosophy, research, culture, mythology, conspiracies, you name it... everything was and is done to cope with the Terror. Everything serves to either make sense of the Terror, through convincing ourselves that we humans are special, and that is why we have this knowledge, or to distract ourselves from the Terror. And so, according to TMT, our entire civilization was built out of this one specific source of cognitive dissonance. Everything we do and have ever done and will ever do, on an individual scale or societal scale, is done because we know we’ll die and because us having this knowledge doesn’t make any. fucking. sense. And we keep on trying and trying to make it make sense.”

“Pretty much,” she exhaled almost inaudibly, looking away.

“I’m surprised you never heard of it.”

“Why? That sounds like something from your domain, not mine,” argued Professor Stavrou.

“Come on, don’t sell yourself short. Moral philosophy isn’t technically your domain either.”

Earnest and bright and sassy and miserable, she smiled back at me while simultaneously pointing at the platform behind my back. “Your children will hate you so much.”

I was about to say: we’re not having any, but abstained. Or maybe I didn’t have enough time to say it. Not sure. The microphone was gently tapped, and heads turned, mine included.

Wakuu stood on the platform, his gaze fixed on me as he said through a grin, addressing everyone else, “Why don’t we finally get to the best part, now that everyone has had some food.”

Instead of awkward chuckles: heartfelt and welcoming applause. Someone even yelled: “Speech!”

And not in a distorted, mechanical voice.

Slicking his hair back and getting it electrified in the process, he waited for silence.

“I’m the furthest from a philologist that one could ever be.” His eyes on the audience, Wakuu pointed up at the sky.

A few oldies now chuckled politely, out of habit and not knowing where he was going with this opening. But I knew. Right away. My throat got all choked up again.

“So perhaps the official definition would be ‘dialect’, not language? Although I know that even conlangs are considered languages, it’s in the name ... Either way. Every day across the world, tens of thousands of languages die. You probably heard a different number, which terrified you just the same, despite how miniscule that number was in comparison. You probably heard of linguicide and language attrition. And I know you likely believe that language death occurs when the last native speaker passes away. Which is true, in a sense. But this definition does not account for millions of unique languages that exist on a smaller scale. Much smaller. As in, only in families. In tight-knit, tiny communities. Let us not forget, between creepy horror-movie twins...”

Laughter. Again, he patiently and calmly waited for silence. His eyes found mine.

“And couples.”

Taco interrupted the perfect solemnity by huffing, puffing, and quietly borking as he dug and dug a hole in the ground by the body of water nearby.

Wakuu and I smiled at each other. The next phrase — ‘I don’t want ours to die’ — he said only in his head. But I heard him.

He continued the out-loud part. “Recently I've learned a counterintuitive truth that states: honest communication is the best weapon against strife. Thus, I honestly admit, at first I was upset about this ceremony and considered it unnecessary. I was upset, because I perceived it as a private moment being dragged into the spotlight. I was associating the notion with all of the fake veneers that are imposed on us, that we misguidedly choose to put on. However, I have changed my mind since then. Because I know all of you, and you know me. Us. You all know us. And we humans are social animals. We must never stop being social animals.”

Tears were running down my cheeks and dropping into my lap. Taco was dropping a deuce into the dug-out hole and looking super happy as he did so.

Wakuu sighed. “And so, please allow me to briefly explain infrared astronomy to you...”

He, too, talked for a while. Reminiscing, he said a thing about me, about us, that made everyone laugh. It made me laugh, too, but by that time I was full-on sobbing. Looking helpless and confused, Professor Stavrou passed me half a napkin.

Wakuu pointed out other people in the crowd who’d arrived around the time I had — Utami, Ihor, Yuki, Brice, Kymani, Luciano, Rangga, Melitta, and others — thanking each of them for the part they played in saving and improving the Island.

When he was done, everyone wanted to congratulate him, and I was left with the impression that they didn’t know what exactly the congratulations were about. For what he himself had done and sacrificed for the town, the Island? Discovering the star? His PhD? Improving his relationship with his dad? Getting steadily laid throughout a whole year..? From the scattered bits that were reaching me, I failed to figure out. Maybe it was everything and nothing. Maybe they were congratulating him for being a friend. Or for being alive.

This time without excusing himself, he disappeared again, to mingle some more. I let him go, not feeling a looming catastrophe, relying on the knowledge that I’d take off and go looking for him and see him soon.

In the meantime, I remembered Wakuu’s advice. Unsure of how to pose the question, I simply told Professor Stavrou that he’d told me to ask her about Kiahee.

“Oh. He warned me. Yes, you see—”

Several seconds later, my world was irrevocably changed: a living, breathing human, someone I knew, had been to Kiahee. Someone had gone to Kiahee on purpose.

“B-but why?” I bleated, eyes wide, lower lip quivering. “Why would. Anyone. Ever.”

“Family. I hated going. But I have family there.”

And I felt like the entire universe was beating in sync with my heart.

I felt like I was seeing the Starlight in everything forever.

Professor Stavrou had to get me some water. And another napkin.

“Are you okay?” she asked, looking at my abdomen and reaching for her hip bag, in actuality meaning: ‘you’re acting way too emotional today, and I’d hate to presume, but do you maybe need a tampon?’

But I had one extra in my pocket.

“Yeah. I am. So uuuh out of sheer curiosity, what’s your explanation for why aliens aren’t visiting us?”

With a theatrical frown, she waved me away. “Because our solar system has received terrible reviews. We only have one star.”

Unsmiling, feeling as apprehensive and called out as I hadn’t felt in months by then, I pressed, “No, but seriously. No joke. Why?”

“Well, I believe they are visiting. The government is just hushing it up, that’s all,” she compromised.

Which solidified my suspicion that Professor Stavrou wasn’t being sincere about this one. That her actual explanation of choice was something else. I was about to voice my suspicion when— “That’s what I believe too!” exclaimed Noah. He’d been sneakily listening in on the last bit of the conversation. Probably because someone had said ‘aliens’, and this word summoned either him, or his girlfriend Alice, or both.

I introduced them to each other, and he and Professor Stavrou got to talking, while I excused myself and ventured out to find Wakuu. Or finally mingle with other townspeople. Or to simply go on a stroll.

Wakuu found me first, right as I was stuffing my pockets with extra napkins.

He was carrying two plates again. The big paper plate held tacos; for himself, I assumed. The dessert plate with a mango-buttercream calamansi-glaze poppy-seed muffin, he attempted to pass to me.

“Thanks, but I’m kinda full.”

Nudging my hands with the plate so that I’d take it, he argued, “But the Other One.”

I conceded and took the plate. “Fair enough.”

Wakuu was right: if we died right this instant, the meaning of so many words, the new meaning we invented for them, would die with us right this instant. No one else had our context.

No one would ever double over laughing but also get turned on upon hearing ‘there romancer’ or 'transparent almonds'. No one else would fathom the tragedy of ‘sipping cocktails’ or ‘expired phoenix’, or the grandiose scope of a hundred meanings behind ‘taco’.

Or ‘blood juice’. Or ‘fucktastic stories’. Or ‘secure the handle’. Or ‘gonna call mom’. Or ‘according to local cat’.

No one needed to know. Other people had their own unique languages and their own contexts and their own unique tragedies.

They needed to cope with their own Terror.

But I felt sad, and I knew he felt sad too. I wanted to rage against this inevitable language death. I could rage against it. We could continue raging against it... Or we could just try and accept the notion, by being a little less sad together.

Accept that everything, everyone was senselessly becoming star-stuff in the end. Even Gloop, despite Wakuu’s speech and explanation, was doomed. FakesGloop had died nine hundred light-years ago, and we knew that FakesGloop was dead. We just needed to try and make peace with the fact. We'd spend our whole lives trying.

The weather was mild and pleasant. Grabbing a spare blanket off the communal pile, we went around the pond and found a dry, clean, not-been-dug patch between the water and a tree with branches that bowed forward and provided shade. We sat down facing the pond, with our backs against the trunk, legs stretched out.

Into one of the pockets of his cargo pants, Wakuu had stuck a bottle of imported cider. As we ate, we passed it back and forth. The cider was still cold, although the bottle wasn’t.

Putting the plate aside, he asked, “Do you want to go back to our marina conversation?”

“I do. I don’t exactly want to. But I think you need to talk about it, and so do I. Now, when we’re feeling okay, when we’re equipped to talk about it.”

“Yes. Attach thrusters,” he recalled, nodding and looking smug and violating my pinky with his pinky.

I yanked my fingers aside and lightly shoved his shoulder with my fist. “Okay, really? ‘ We’re not going to be friends’?” I repeated, teasing.

Wakuu grinned. “It was a good joke. You heard them laughing.”

“It was great. But jokes aside, you are, actually. You are my friend.”

“As you, mine,” he replied in a quiet voice and reached out for me again, intending to pull me into a hug. “Best friend.”

Then we sucked face and groped each other for about three solid minutes, as all best friends always did, duh. Eventually, though, we had to come up for air. As all living breathing humans did.

He adjusted the front of his pants. I adjusted the back of mine. We slid lower, into half-lying positions.

“So the Great Filter is—” I urged, bending my legs and settling on my right side, hand under my chin.

“A downer,” said Wakuu and half-laughed, half-sighed. “Okay. It is. Although in its original form, it’s not even an explanation per se, it’s more of a way of thinking about the likelihood of certain events happening or not happening in their own natural course. But through the lens of my personal interpretation, it is one of the bleakest explanations to the paradox.”

He trailed off, looking at how the wind swayed the leaves and branches above, and rubbing my wrist to and fro with the tips of his fingers, to the rhythm of the swaying. Once more, I considered not asking. In the end, though, I did.

“What’s the original form?”

Wakuu turned his head towards me. “An examination of what needs to happen before a civilization becomes a spacefaring civilization. As in, the proverbial aliens.”

I overturned my palm and let him thread his fingers through mine. “What needs to happen?”

“A lot. A stable star that supports life, not eradicates it. One. A planet that can harbor life, forming in that star’s habitable zone. Two. Lifeforms must develop on that planet. Three. Those lifeforms must be able to reproduce, using one of the two most important molecules. Four. Prokaryotes need to evolve into eukaryotes. Five. Multicellular organisms must develop. Six. Sexual reproduction has to take hold. Seven. Complex organisms capable of using tools must evolve. Eight. Those organisms must create advanced technology needed for space colonization. Nine. They must leave their star system and go on to colonize other worlds and star systems. Ten ... Each of these is highly improbable. During each of these, life can get filtered out, and likely is, again and again and again. Chances are, even on our planet. However, if the Great Filter is past us, we’re okay, right? Thus the Great Filter theory states: we’re rare, we’re first, or we’re doomed. Personally, I think that we’re neither that rare, nor the first. But definitely doomed, as many before us and many after us. And we’re doomed right now. The Great Filter is right now, and it's capitalism.”

I laid my head over my arm. “We’re at—?”

“Technically at the start of nine. But you see, our planet is four point six billion years old. For the purposes of a thought experiment: if our planet formed at midnight and the present moment is the next midnight, twenty-four hours later, then we humans have only been around since twenty-three fifty-nine fifty-nine. For one second. One. And we’re bad at this. Very bad. I’m not sure if we can make it another fraction of a second.”

To this remark, I had nothing noteworthy to offer. But as all humans ever did, when I had nothing, I clung to hope.

“You said, one of the bleakest,” I remembered. “One. But not the bleakest.”

“Yes.”

“Do you believe in the bleakest too?”

“No. Luckily for me, I also find it the least believable of all.”

“Why do you find it the least believable?”

“I need to consider it the least believable,” Wakuu said with emphasis and squirmed around to lie on his back, my folded shirt now under his neck, “or I lose all faith. Not merely in humanity. All of it.”

“So what is it? What’s the bleakest explanation? In your opinion.”

“Ever heard of Hunters in a Dark Forest?”

“I haven’t. That already sounds uh, pretty bleak.”

“It states that there are many civilizations, but they are always hostile and they always maintain silence, because the resources in the galaxy are finite, and whoever pipes up, gets eradicated.”

“Yikes.”

“Yeah.” Stumbling through words and concepts a little, he told me that this explanation of the paradox was contemporary, and he thought it was fully borne out of capitalism. “The idea of infinite expansion is a capitalist idea. Infinite capitalism that is not a filter, but a gateway. One might say, unviable and ridiculous, and I want to believe that it is, but also—the Dark forest theory bases its assumptions on the only observable example of intelligent life’s evolution: us. A narrow-minded, selfish, and exceptionalist theory. And cynical. In a ‘might is right and always will be’ sort of way. It does not even dare to dream of other paths, other values. Of communication, empathy, compassion. Instead of even allowing the possibility that not every civilization is like us, instead of inspecting our cultural and developmental flaws, or even acknowledging them...” Sighing, he trailed off, looking miserable.

I crawled closer, cuddled up to him, and rubbed my head against his shoulder. “Instead of that, this theory just goes: yup, everything checks out, our history is the norm, and everyone is always like this..?”

“Yes,” he whispered, cupping his palm over my head to pull it closer, “Isn’t this just ... soul-crushing?”

“Very much so, yeah. Like, thanks, but no thanks. It’s like narcissism on a galactic scale. Also, makes me think of how our parents hope that our lives will be better than theirs and that we will become better people. That we’ll evolve, that we won’t repeat their mistakes. But imagine if no child ever did? On any scope, big or small, one might find solace in the idea that states: even if we don’t make it, others will make it. But this shitty theory goes: nope, not gonna happen. Oof.”

He hummed in agreement. The cider had low alcohol content, but low was enough for us today; we were oscillating between chatty and sleepy even from that insignificant amount.

I continued, “Okay, I get what you mean and why you think it’s worse. The Great Filter goes: we’re not getting better, so we’ll all die out by our own collective hand, and every civilization dies out, alone and separated by millions of years from other civilizations, always before they could unite and develop the means of leaving their solar system, and that’s sad, but maybe someday, someone will get past this particular Filter. While this Forest theory goes: nopesies, we’re not getting better, but we’ll survive and continue being evil and immature and yucky until the universe goes crunch, and that’s normal.”

“Yes. Bleak, right?”

“The bleakest. But I don’t believe in it either. Can we please not believe in it?”

He yawned and said, “Done.”

“Wait. I remember. In the marina, you started saying that the filter was a lack of. A lack of what?”

“Lack of belief. No, a lack of faith.”

“In aliens?”

“In humanity. In the intelligence of intelligent species.”

“And in the meaningfulness of life..?”

Nuzzling into my temple, he kept silent.

“We need to do something about it.”

“What could possibly be done? We can’t change anything of substance. Besides, don’t you feel the same?”

He’d cracked me. How could I ever have thought he wouldn’t crack me?

After a long pause, I admitted, “I do. I do feel the same. And no, we can’t change the senseless and random and pointless way in which the universe operates. But there’s something we can actually change.”

“What?”

“The way we perceive it.”

“How? By talking?” he asked with a noticeable air of (jocular) skepticism to his voice.

“Not quite. I’ll tell you later, if that’s okay.” I needed to find Ben first. “Do you want to stay a little longer or—”

“Yeah. I want. What was the second question?”

“Hmmm?” Languid and relaxed, I was thinking of maybe taking a nap right here, and enticing him into one. I was also thinking of the joke he’d made during the speech, and laughing at it in my head. This time, without tears.

‘You know how therapists can't make friends with their clients because it's considered unethical? Over a year ago I heard that our town was getting a resident therapist. Being in a sorry mental state, I thought: well, she and I are certainly not going to be friends. And guess what!’

He pulled me out of the sleepy reverie. “You said you had two questions.”

“Oh. Yeah. Just something minor that confused me,” I mumbled, closing my eyes and holding back a contagious yawn too.

“I’m listening.”

“Wakuu, who or what is The Farmer?”

“Ah. The Farmer,” he said, accompanying it with a breathy chuckle. “Just a joke. Wait, no. Actually, it’s The Joke.”