12
"You love your friends, do you not?" asked Director.
"Of course."
"These enemy fish give poison to your friends, friends both of the actual and the potential variety. Now, if you love your friends as much as you love yourself, or even more so, can you see how avenging them is just as sweet, if not more so, than your 'personal' revenge?"
"Director, what you say makes sense. But I don't understand why you are saying it. Why are you trying to steer me away from taking revenge on my poisoner or poisoners?"
"Youth, you've yet to hook a fish. How are you going to go after a whale from your past? Shouldn't you at least get some practice first?"
"Agreed. And then maybe you can help me figure out what happened to me?"
"No," said Director gently but firmly. "That's yours to figure out or not." He let this sink in, then said: "And if you do figure it out, I wonder if you'll be so keen to go after some beast from the depths of your past."
"Why wouldn't I be?"
Director gave Youth a measuring stare. "You may come to believe that you yourself were, in part, or wholly, at fault."
"Was I?" asked Youth in an urgent whisper.
Director looked Youth long in the face, then said: "I don't know."
Youth swallowed hard. "I have a lot of untangling to do, careful untangling, don't I?"
"Perhaps. Or you could simply cut the knot and just not worry about the original poisoning, if there was one. What's done is done."
"Are you, of all people, saying it's better not to know?"
"I'm saying it might not be possible to know, and that you might have to learn to live with that. Or, you could make a choice to simply believe one way or the other. It's up to you. But who knows? Maybe you'll find your proof positive. My only point is that you have a real opportunity to take effective revenge against the enemy, here and now. This other revenge you're talking about might prove to be nothing more than a dream, a barren dream.
Youth nodded and rubbed his chin. He stared at the floor for a moment then looked up. "What if I did it to myself, gave myself all of this anxiety? What if I created an endless loop of low intensity fear stemming from the choices I've made? What if there was no poisoning?"
Director spoke slowly and evenly. "If you come to believe that you were at fault, you have to promise me that you will not attempt to take revenge on yourself."
Youth nodded solemnly. "I promise."
"You have to remember, in that case, that belief is not knowledge. You have to remember that knowledge of these things may very well not be possible. Do you understand?"
Youth nodded. "I understand." He gathered himself up and said: "I want to thank you, Director. You've given me a soothing remedy for my anxiety, something for which I am infinitely grateful. But a remedy is not the cure. I must find that, on my own."
"Maybe there is no cure," said Director quietly.
A thought flashed in Youth's mind, and he suddenly looked at Director in a new light. "Are you... anxious?"
"I get anxious."
"No, I mean are you ridden by anxiety?"
"I like to think I ride it more than it rides me."
Youth beamed a smile. "I'm not letting it ride me anymore!"
Director held out his hand. "Shake on it?"
They shook.
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Nick Pappas, pappasnick.typepad.com
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