Lair of Dreams

“But hope is necessary! You have to give people hope,” Mabel insisted.

“Why?”

“Why what?”

Jericho folded his arms across his chest. “In an amoral, violent world, isn’t it unconscionable to keep offering hope? It’s like advertising for soap that never gets you clean.”

“Now you’re just being cynical.”

“Am I? What about war? We keep grappling for power, killing for it. Enslaving. Oppressing. We create ourselves. We destroy ourselves. Over and over. Forever. If the cycle repeats, why bother with hope?”

“But we also overcome. I’ve seen people fight against that sort of oppression and win. What you’re talking about is nihilism. And frankly,” Mabel said, taking a steadying breath, “frankly, that bores me.” Nothing emboldened her quite as much as someone claiming the good fight couldn’t be won.

“How is it nihilism to embrace the cycle and let go—of attachments and morality and, yes, the opiate futility of hope?” Jericho fired back. Mabel’s naiveté annoyed him. She might think she’d seen the world, but, really, she saw only a particular slice of the world, neatly bordered by hedgerows trimmed daily by her parents’ idealism. “All right,” he pressed. “If you believe in hope, what about true evil? Do you believe there is such a thing?”

Mabel felt as if the question were a test, one she might easily fail. “I believe real evil is brought about by a system that is unjust or by people acting selfishly. By greed.” She’d never really articulated her thoughts on the matter before, and it satisfied her to say them aloud.

“That’s the do-gooder answer.”

Mabel bristled. “I don’t go for the bogeyman. There’s plenty of evil to fight in life without having to make up devils and demons and ghosts. If you believe that there is Evil in the world, capital E, doesn’t that take away your belief in free will? I still maintain that people have choices. To do right. To have hope. To give hope,” Mabel said pointedly.

Jericho was very quiet, and Mabel feared she’d insulted him. But then he looked her in the eyes in a way that was unnerving.

“Have you ever had a moment that forced you to question what you believe?” he asked. “Something that forced you to reexamine your ideas of morality, of good and evil?”

“I…” Mabel stopped. “I suppose not. Have you?”

“Once.” Jericho was very still. “I helped a friend end his life. Does that shock you?”

Mabel was stunned into silence for a moment. She wasn’t sure she liked knowing this about Jericho. “Yes. A little.”

“He was very sick and suffering, and he asked me to do it. I had to weigh that choice: Was it murder, or was it mercy? Was it immoral or was it, given the circumstances, the moral choice? I’d thought I’d made my peace with it. But now I’m not so sure.”

Mabel didn’t know what to say. She had constructed an entire idea of Jericho as smart and good and noble, and this sudden confession did not fit neatly into that architecture. Her own life had been built upon a foundation of “doing good.” She’d not had much opportunity to challenge what that meant.

“I’m sorry,” she said. It seemed the flimsiest of comforts, but it was all she could offer.

Jericho pushed his plate away. “No. I’m sorry. That probably wasn’t the sort of thing you say on a date. This evening isn’t going very well, is it?”

“Well, it isn’t as bad as the time I accidentally stepped into a latrine at a labor camp, but I’d wager you’re correct.”

Jericho gave a small Ha! and Mabel had her first genuine smile of the night. “Why, Jericho. You just laughed. Will Nietzsche be mad at you?”

Jericho felt like a heel. He’d picked a fight for no reason at all. Mabel’s only sin was not being Evie. She at least deserved a fair shake as herself. If nothing sparked after that, well, so be it. At the very least, he should try to salvage the evening and end the date on a happier note.

He folded his napkin and stood with his hand out. “Mabel, would you like to dance?”

“Well, I certainly don’t want any more tea,” she said, joining him.

“I’m not much of a dancer,” he said apologetically. “And by that I mean that I don’t dance at all.”

“That’s all right. I’m not much of a dancer, either. But we’re the only people under the age of seventy in here, so I suppose that’s something, isn’t it?”