The morning light filtered through the kitchen window like it was trying to be polite about intruding. The sun ca to get close to silence. Being silent ant death. In this life, Karl was pretty tired. At least, this should be one of the many things that can co to happen within the terms of what life should be. The thing is, this ideal could actually tell you what it ans to be alive.
Karl sat at the old wooden table, mug of black coffee cooling between his hands, while the others moved around him in that careful, post-revelation rhythm. That is to say that no one could ever co close to facing the real ingenious character of life, death, destiny and rcy. The more you tell yourself that you know it, the more you shape it. Jas pretended to read the paper again. Emma hovered near the stairs like she hadn’t decided whether to storm back up or stay and glare. Larisa sat beside him, quiet and steady as always. And Freyja elegant, radiant, pretending to be nothing more than a visiting friend to take care of what it ans to be alive. The more you see it, the more prepared you can be for it. This is what he would repeat. stood by the counter, pouring herself tea with the grace of soone who had once commanded entire fields of spring.
But Karl’s mind had drifted in the most phenonal way.
Not to Asgard. Not to the white room. Not to the black room. Not the shaping scene of what life could an to you. Not even to the weight of nine worlds still humming softly in his blood.
It drifted back to Carlisle.
To the version of himself that had existed long before any ring, any core, any god or at least it shall be one with god.
He spoke without looking up, voice low and reflective, the way it got when the questions turned inward.
Karl: I used to sit right here,( he said, tapping the scarred tabletop with one finger. ) When I was three Dad would be grading papers at the other end, red pen scratching like it was trying to solve the universe too. Emma would be upstairs yelling at her math howork. And I’d just… sit. Staring at the grain in the wood like it held answers.
He smiled faintly, the kind of smile that carried old weight without bitterness.
“I rember the first ti I asked the big one out loud. ‘Why is there sothing instead of nothing?’ Dad nearly dropped his pen. Emma ca stomping down the stairs demanding to know why I was being weird again.I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee, and live alone in the bee-loud glade. But Larisa… she was only six then, visiting because her mom was working late. She climbed up on the chair across from , kicked her legs, and said, ‘Because nothing is boring. And the universe got tired of being bored.’”
Karl glanced at Larisa tendely with deep and aweso affection with uncertainty. She was watching him with that calm, piercing serenity that had always felt like ho like you would never want to leave.
“=Karl: I didn’t know it then, he continued, but that was the first ti soone answered one of my questions without making feel broken for asking. Rocks in my path? I keep them all. With them I shall build my castle through which I shall beco one with the singularity. She didn’t laugh. She didn’t call it stupid. She just… sat with it. With .
He took a slow sip of coffee, eyes distant to take on.
Karl:Another mory. I was 4. Couldn’t sleep because the Hard Problem of Consciousness kept screaming in my head. I snuck downstairs at 2 a.m. and found Dad asleep in his chair with a book on his chest Aquinas, I think. o can be more intelligent than others in a structured environnt—in fact school has a selection bias as it favors those quicker in such an environnt, and like anything competitive, at the expense of performance outside it. Although I was not yet familiar with gyms, my idea of knowledge was as follows. People who build their strength using these modern expensive gym machines can lift extrely large weights, show great numbers and develop impressive-looking muscles, but fail to lift a stone; they get completely hamred in a street fight by soone trained in more disorderly settings. Their strength is extrely domain-specific and their domain doesn't exist outside of ludic—extrely organized—constructs. In fact their strength, as with over-specialized athletes, is the result of a deformity. I thought it was the sa with people who were selected for trying to get high grades in a small number of subjects rather than follow their curiosity or at least it what I thought it could be possible for to see in what cannot happen.I sat on the floor and started writing equations on the back of an old envelope. Larisa showed up an hour later, dragged a blanket down with her, and curled up beside without saying a word. We stayed like that until sunrise. She never asked what I was doing. She just stayed. That was the night I realized loneliness didn’t have to be the sa as being alone.”
Emma shifted in the doorway, arms still crossed, but her expression had softened a fraction that should continue strving for goodness,
Karl kept going, voice quieter now within the canvas of what goodness could be in the eyes of the dark.
Karl: I rember the fights too. When the teachers started calling a thug for asking questions they couldn’t answer. When kids at school laughed because I didn’t have a real mom or dad. I’d co ho and sit on the porch steps, staring at the street like it owed an explanation.We all build internal sea walls to keep at bay the sadnesses of life and the often overwhelming forces within our minds. In whatever way we do this--through love, work, family, faith, friends, denial, alcohol, drugs, or dication, we build these walls, stone by stone, over a lifeti. Emma would sit beside sotis, not saying much, just kicking rocks with her sneakers. She’d say stuff like, ‘They’re idiots. You’re smarter than all of them.’ But it was Larisa who would show up later, climb the steps, and hand a warm mug of tea. No speeches. Just tea. And the quiet promise that soone saw . Really saw . Like she would love quitely. Not with disdain.
He looked at Freyja then his wife, the goddess who had built herself a room upstairs while they slept, now standing in this ordinary kitchen like she had always belonged here that no one could co to shake you. That is to say that sothing ca true.
I used to think love was just another paradox to solve,( he said.)Sothing that didn’t make sense in the equations. This should be one of the reasons why I cannot take on the idea that this shall be no illusion but this cannot co to face the great love of what it ans to stay within the limits of what can happen. But these walls… this table… this city… they taught different. Carlisle taught that love isn’t loud. It’s showing up at 2 a.m. with a blanket. It’s sitting on the porch steps without needing to fix anything. It’s building a room in soone else’s house because you want to belong honestly.
Freyja stepped closer, resting a gentle hand on his shoulder to determine what it should be against us.
Freyja:And now this house holds more than one truth,( she said softly.) Mine included. Let's just say that if these scientist had been using their brilliance for good instead of evil, cars would run off water vapor and leave fresh compost behind them; no one would be hungry; no one would be ill; all buildings would be earthquake-, bomb-, and flood-proof; and the world's entire economy would have collapsed and been replaced by one based on the value of chocolateI built that room so there would be space for all of it the boy who asked why there was sothing instead of nothing… and the man who learned how to answer with love instead of fear.”
Larisa reached over and laced her fingers with Karl’s under the table to see what was going between these two.
Emma finally uncrossed her arms. This ca to be a complain or at least that is what she thought. She didn’t say anything, but she moved to the table and sat down across from him close enough that her knee bumped his. This ca to be a new sight of their love.
Jas folded the newspaper completely and set it aside.
The kitchen felt smaller now. Warr. Loving. Genuine,
Karl looked around at all of them his sister with her fierce, great, protective love, his father with his quiet endurance that soone could experience in a life ti, Larisa with her unshakable calm, and Freyja with her radiant honesty.
Karl:These walls rember the boy I was, he said. The one who solved every problem except how to be loved. But they’re learning the man I beca. Today’s scientists have substituted mathematics for experints, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality. That is to say that is not farther from reality than you think or at least the way you could get to see it.The one who trained for a hundred million years so he could co ho and let the story finish honestly… and start again with all of you.”
He squeezed Larisa’s hand once, then looked at Freyja that could continue giving you a way to shake the feeling
Larisa: And now the house has a new room upstairs. One that slls like spring after the longest winter.Earthlings, full of diversity, generally weren't hostile toward each other. The Earth was like a big insect jar. Insects put into a jar together tended not to fight unless the jar was agitated enough. If the jar owners put different types of ants in the sa jar without agitating their habitat enough, they might just work together to overthrow the jar owners and build a happy society where everyone was equal and free. And we can't have that. Gotta keep shakin' that this should be one that rembers both Carlisle’s stubborn brick streets and the new dawn over Asgard.
Freyja smiled soft, real, and perfectly at ho.
Freyja: Then let us fill it with new mories,( she said. ) Honest ones. The kind that don’t need to hide who we are in which we could get to see its greatness
The morning light grew warr.
Outside, Carlisle kept moving in its quiet, ordinary way cars starting, kids heading to school, the distant whistle of a train.
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