Cabin Fever | ✓

(27) Solipsism

In the philosophy of time, there are two theories. The A Theory, and the B Theory.

The A Theory describes the flow of the future, present, past in the way that something moves from the future to the present, and that after something happens, it recedes into non-existence,

The B Theory is the belief that there is nothing distinguishable about the past, the present, and the future. That they are all equally real, and time is tenseless. The three are different in the way in which humans understand them - the future exists, but we just know less about it.

The B Theory is more widely accepted than the A Theory for many reasons, but one of them is a simple question.

How fast does time pass?

Saying one hour per hour is not a proper answer, and there is no other one, so this argument concludes that there is no real proof to the idea that time 'passes' at all, or that it moves backwards like one would think of something in the past.

Marley has studied the philosophy of time profusely in the past, with Gabby and excessive amounts of microwave popcorn. But neither of them can truly take one stance over the other, no matter how deep they dive into the thought experiments or the ideas of A Theorists or B Theorists.

So what time is it? What is now, or later, or tonight, or tomorrow? Is it just an illusion to believe that she has spent a minute, a second, a day laying here?

It is an illusion to say how long ago her brother and mother left her? To pinpoint years or seconds or days?

It was lightly raining, not pouring. But not misting, either. Somewhere in between. She had her back to the ground, her eyes closed and her palms open as the water slid across her skin and soaked her clothes, feeling it. Feeling something.

She had to hide at first, because despite her cruelty, despite everything she said - he refused to let her go. So she dove into the trees and slid into a small den beneath a hill, while he called her name.

Searched for her.

She didn't move.

Didn't breathe.

Didn't make a sound.

After his voice disappeared, she made her way through the trees, stumbling and dizzy in the opposite direction.

She thought if she kept moving it would all go away.

But it can't go anywhere. Maybe B Theory is correct, maybe it all exists and it never goes anywhere.

He'll never go anywhere. Maybe he's home, maybe her mother and Jacobi are sitting on the porch somewhere and she can't reach them.

Maybe she's still in class, his hand skidding down her back, branded like she is cattle. Still there.

Maybe he's still in the showers, a hand over her mouth. Maybe he'll never rip it off. Maybe it's always going to be there.

Maybe she just lost the best thing that ever happened to her. Maybe she found it all over again.

Marley wasn't sure how long she walked before she gave up, collapsed in the middle of a clearing surrounded by thick forestation and nothingness. Everything she inhaled was humid, water right into her mouth, her throat, her lungs. Everything she touched was the damp grass. Everything she felt was cold. Soaked.

But it made the drowning inside, outside too. It made the feeling physical. She fluttered her hazel eyes open, blinking up at the sky despite the falling drops landing on her pale cheeks.