Though his questions were intended as rhetorical, Cassandra, his sister, answered them nonetheless — and not as he might have expected: "Yes, nothing is sacred." "I'm looking for a little comfort here, not a lecture on your metaphysical theories," Dave shot back. "Kindly save your wit for a happier occasion." "I wasn't being facetious," Cassandra replied. "I was offering you the truth, which, in the long run, is the only comfort that lasts. If you allow it, that is." "How can nothing be sacred?" Dave demanded. "Everything but nothing is mortal and mean," Cassandra explained. "Everything is finite. Nothing isn't." "What about love? Is it mortal too? That's how it looks from here," Dave sulked. "True love is nothing, and therefore divine. And therefore eternal as well," his sister declared with confidence. "How can you say love is nothing? And how can nothing be divine? Your thinking is off the wall," Dave accused. "Love makes life worthwhile. It matters above all else." "True love is nothing," Cassandra maintained. "No thing. If it were something, love would have no enduring value at all. Love is this very moment, limitless and irreducible, an event without an aspect of thingness to judge or change or regret. True love has no past, no future, no angle or shape, no place where it starts or stops. It simply is." "This conversation is becoming surreal," Dave exclaimed, although losing sight of his precious cargo of pity. "It seems that way because you're stuck in your own little worldview." Cassandra noted. "Nothing is as real as it gets. Nothing is the infinite now, the now that never ends. As soon as we retreat from being involved in it completely, we enter the world of conditions, a most degrading and delusional place to abide. Wherever the past or future comes into play, eternity is lost and suffering is assured." "Forgive me for being mundane, but is there a shred of practical advice in this arcane sermonette of yours?" Dave sarcastically asked. "Yes," she answered, "but it flies in the face of the practical advice we've learned." "In other words, it's the sort of advice that sensible people are going to regard as absurd, is that it, Cass?" Dave baited. "No doubt about it," Cassandra laughed. "Terrific!" Dave continued. "That's what I need, advice for becoming a weirdo!" "No doubt about it," Cassandra repeated. "It goes against the grain of accepted behavior." "Let me guess," Dave said, pausing as he closed his eyes in a Kreskin-esque pose. "Is it, 'Don't worry, be happy'? Is that the weirdo's defense against grief and depression?" "No doubt about it," she three-peated with a broad grin. "I trust you speak from experience," Dave challenged. "Not exactly," Cassandra confessed. "What would people think?" The two laughed heartily, started to talk at once, and then laughed a while more. "Well, I guess I'll be moving on," said Dave, getting to his feet. "Thanks for nothing." "You're welcome," she offered warmly. |
Married for ten years, Dave was being divorced, and he wore the impact of his loss in a slumping posture of pain. "Is nothing sacred anymore? Is promising to love forever just for poetic effect?"