IV.

Part IV of Backwash.

IV.

 

            Garth and I soon fell into a routine, even after the ship had finally cleared the nebula and we returned to normal space. On weekdays, I would work with J in the Subterranean Geological Analysis unit and he worked with my parents, the geologists, in the geothermal lab. Captain H—my designation for Captain Halloway—also utilized Garth’s intelligence and capability; he would often accompany the higher-ranking crew members in the shuttle missions on planets we surveyed. Sometimes, he convinced the Captain to let me go along with the missions just so I could get off the ship for a while. During these times, he taught me how to pilot the shuttles, in case he, as the official pilot, was rendered incapacitated or otherwise became incapable of performing his duty. We were never alone, though. It was not protocol to send shuttle missions of two. Once, I went along on a mission to a planet we had named Nakora X9. Its atmosphere was composed of high levels of nitrogen and carbon. Little oxygen. It also had a surface, with a gravimetric measure similar to that of the moon. In my environmental suit, I stepped outside of the shuttle and onto the crimson dust and rock that littered the surface. F (short for Farhana, the history addict) was the mission leader and told me I was brave. She asked if Garth thought so too. He looked at me through his environmental suit and told me not to wander too far. Seismic activity was common on Nakora X9.

            After work in the lab, I would return to my quarters for some privacy. Garth never asked what I did during those hours. I’m glad he didn’t because I would have nothing to say. Sometimes I’d nap. Other times, I would read more about the Switchover Earth. Maybe stare out into space through my small window, watching the stars drift by as though they were fireflies, searching for home. I’d never seen fireflies in real life, of course. Only in pictures and video. During this time, Garth would spend his extra hours volunteering in Engineering, making enhancements to the thermonuclear reactor. I never understood the mechanics of such things nor why it appealed to Garth so much but it pleased Captain H so I supposed that him tinkering with such a fragile piece of machinery. After that, Garth and I would meet up for dinner. On rare occasions, I would dine with my parents when they requested my presence. They hardly ever did though. Dinner would always be a quiet affair. While the other crew members would talk and laugh, Garth and I would sit and eat in silence. I usually finished first so I’d just watch him eat, waiting for him to finish. He would finish several minutes after I did. With our hunger satisfied, we would head over to the ship library and read. During that time, I believe he was reading the Weston’s Advanced Bathymetric Analysis, Volume IX. I would pick up fiction books, reading several chapters here and there before I got bored. I hardly ever finished a book. I would tire of the stories too easily. And so we’d read in silence. Once I started to yawn (it was almost always me, for Garth could continue reading such things for hours if no one stopped him) we would set the books down and walk again. Conversation would finally begin in the stargazer’s deck. We usually retreated to a dark corner if there were others around. If not, we would sit on the comfortable couches that faced the main window. I’d fall asleep quickly and Garth would let me sleep for a while before waking me and accompanying me back to my quarters. Weekends were different. I spent my time helping F plan for her history lessons for the fourteen children on board. Garth would pursue other activities, random ones in my eyes, which kept him busy. We would hardly see each other.

            And so that was our routine for many months. Once in honor of 4^th of July, the Captain thought it would be a good idea to host a casual party in the stargazer’s deck. J, Garth and I were the only ones who did not attend. J was feeling ill that day; she had been exposed to a nasty strain of the Tankarian flu during a shuttle mission on the Tankarian home planet. It was nothing life-threatening but the Doctor insisted that she spend several days in the medical bay. I bought her tulips I’d synthesized myself. She appreciated it very much. Garth chose to simply not attend. An Emotion’s holiday, he had said, appeals to nationalistic sentiments, to pride, to honor, to the need to want to feel a part of something larger. I tried to convince him otherwise, tried to entice him with food and drinks but specialty food appeals little to a man who believes taste is irrelevant. I tried to seduce him with music. He told me music was a by-product of Emotion. Nothing I said and did could budge him and so I decided to skip as well, to keep him company. To this, he had objected greatly. Why should I sacrifice my happiness to satisfy his want of company? That’s what he had asked. I had no proper answer but I remained as stubborn about staying with him as he was about not attending the party. He finally relented and ceased his protests. I spent the night of the party in his quarters, as the stargazer’s deck was occupied, the library was closed and my quarters were a mess. It was that night that I learned about the Original Switch.

            We weren’t doing anything special. I was staring out his window while he reviewed the bathymetric data needed for a report he was expected to submit the next day. He looked up once and caught me pressing my forehead against the cool glass of the window, my eyes closed.

            “Close proximity does not make your visit to Earth any more likely,” he said blandly.

            “Who said I was thinking about Earth?”

            “That’s all you think about when you look into space.”

            “Who told you that?”

            “No one. It’s quite obvious.”

            “Well, I wasn’t thinking about Earth,” I easily lied. Garth rolled his eyes and returned to the data pad in his hand.

            “It is not wise to be dishonest to your friends,” he said seriously.

            “Friends?”

            “I believe that that is what we are. Regardless of my personal opinions of such Emotional matters, I cannot deny a relationship’s true nature. You consider me a friend.”

            “But I didn’t know you consider me a friend.”

            “For lack of a better word in our language, I must.”

            He judged from my silence that I was confused. Sighing, he put down the data pad and looked at me. I was still by the window but my eyes were focused on him.

            “We spend a considerable amount of time together. I am satisfied by your company. You are not my superior in rank and you have revealed a considerable amount of your personal history with me. By definition, we are friends.”

            “Friends.” But I was not smiling.

            “You are unhappy,” he said, observing my face carefully.

            “Do you like me, Garth?”

            “I do not like anyone. Liking is an Emotion.”

            “But I’m your friend. How can you be friends with a person you don’t like?”

            “I never said I disliked you.”

            “I don’t understand.”

            “Emotional people often don’t.”

            “Do you find it frustrating that I’m Emotional and you’re not?”

            “No.”

            “Why not?”

            “Your Emotions are easy to bear. You do not despair, or become excited or anger quickly. It is easy.”

            “Don’t you—don’t you sometimes want to feel Emotion?”

            “Why would I want to?”

            “I don’t know.”

            “Emotion is volatile and unpredictable. It is the enemy of peace.”
            “But Emotion also helps you to better connect with others.”

            “Humans don’t need Emotion to understand each other. Sympathy, empathy, generosity, kindness…all are unnecessary. It takes only a solid teaching of morals and values. The rest follow from logic.”

            “How?”

            “We wouldn’t need empathy if we didn’t have Emotion. Empathy is the understanding of another’s feelings. The alternative to Emotion—logic and rationality—would then progress to understanding each other through science. I am a Homo sapien, you are a Homo sapien. We share similar physiology, the same history, the same development on the evolutionary scale. We are, essentially, the same. Of course, there are small differences here and there. You may have grown up with a family, I may have not. Your expertise may be in stars, mine may be in rocks. These are minor differences, nothing more and nothing significant. Reason, then, leads to equality. We see every man and woman for what he or she is: a man or woman.”

             “Do you know how the idea for the Original Switch was conceived? It was right after our ancestors nearly destroyed themselves with weapons of slander and distrust. Feelings of doubt, ill-conceived notions of betrayal, of fear led to the eventual disintegration of the global self, the self they had worked so hard to achieve. Every action the enemy performed, every decision the enemy made was stained with their own feelings of fear and dread. It clouded objectivity, silenced reason and destroyed logic until a group of scientists—clever scientists they were—decided to bring back objectivity into the fold and in doing so, accidentally switched off Emotion. The result was remarkable. They were able to see every angle, every corner, ever possibility in the truest light, no longer partially blinded by their own insecurities. There was no more, the chancellor ordered more funding to the arsenals so they’re going to invade. Instead, it was more like, “the arsenals are expanding so either they’re going to invade or they are frightened of us so let us call upon a meeting to discuss our options”. The elimination of Emotion helped them to see truth, B.”

            For some reason, I felt a lump rise in my throat.

            “Not all Emotions are destructive,” I defended, my voice shaking.

            “But they are! Love? Look what good it did to Romeo and Juliet. Compassion? Unnecessary if we teach the correct values and morals to children. Kinship? It destroys the whole notion of equality, by implying that blood is a thicker bond than the bond of shared history. I share a history with you B, not just as a friend but as a fellow human being. But I am not of your blood. Does that make me less worthy, less important or less significant than someone like your father?”

            “I—no.”

            “Charles Darwin theorized this hundreds of years ago but it holds true: the whole point of life is survival. But survival of what? Of the individual self? Of the family? Of the species? You want to know the truth, B.? The universe doesn’t care. For my sake, I can say that my survival is important. For my mother’s sake, I can say that my family’s survival is important. But Darwin had the right idea: nature’s first and foremost basic instinct is survival. And for life to continue, individual animals needed to survive. What does it matter if the thing to survive is a male or female, a mother or brother, this race or that race? As long as the species continues.”

            “But Emotion comes and nullifies all of this. In its most primordial form, life was virtually Emotionless, operating on pure instinct alone. However, humans with our advanced cognitive abilities and symbolic thought came along and for some reason, felt a need to classify every physiological response to a stimulus, every feeling, every blink of an eye and every beat of the heart to a larger, grander meaning. What inevitably followed was complication in such complexity. Confusion. The minds behind the Original Switch recognized this, B., and decided to undercut the system once and for all—or so they thought.”

            “What about guilt? Remorse? If not for those Emotions, we would never realize our mistakes…”

            “What about anger? Hate?” he countered, “if not for those, we would not make mistakes! What would you feel guilty about? So you did not help a man pick up his materials after he dropped them on the floor. You would feel guilty because…what? You made the man feel bad? You left the man alone to embarrassment? Embarrassment is an Emotion; there would be nothing for you to feel guilty about in an Emotionless world. What else would you feel guilty about? Murder? Why would you kill if you knew, if you had been taught your entire life that survival of the species is the most important thing? You would not kill from anger. Anger would not exist. You would not feel the desire for vengeance.”

            I was quiet for a while, thinking deeply.

            “What about happiness?” I asked finally, “isn’t that important?”

            “Happiness! Happiness doesn’t exist.”

            “What?”

            “When have you ever felt happy?”

            “Many times.”

            “Truly happy? Like you had not one care in the world? You were not plagued by worries or little, hardly noticeable pangs of anxiety?”

            I had no answer.

            “Even the most seemingly happiest of things are fake. When you watch a supernova occur before your very eyes—a rare phenomenon to witness—you cannot help but feel the nagging itch on your ankle. When you are engaged in intimate relations, you worry about your partner accepting you. When you are promoted and move up in a social ladder, you are dimly aware of taking on more responsibility and the free time you would have to give up to compensate. When you are reading a book filled with glorious words and grand ideas, you feel a dull ache in your neck because you have spent too much time staring at misshapen letters. Every moment in life is tainted by a feeling of discomfort. There is no such thing as true happiness.”

            I could not stop the watery manifestation of my sadness from escaping my eyes. It did not pass Garth’s notice.

            “I have upset you.”

            “No,” I lied again, feeling another tear slide down my cheek.

            “My words must have been disturbing, indeed. I apologize.”

            I took a deep breath.

            “Good night, Garth,” I said and rushed past him and out through the doors of his quarters. I didn’t stop until I reached my quarters and flopping on the bed with my day clothes still on. My eyes didn’t close but the tears stopped. Looking back, I now realize that he revealed something about himself that night without actually intending to. Garth felt as much as anyone. Only, he felt differently. I only wish I had realized it then.