Dearest Rachel –
I don’t know where I first heard it, but I have heard that the difference between comedy and tragedy is simply a matter of timing. It’s probably a corollary axiom to the fact that comedy is tragedy plus time; where any occurrence involving the loss of life (no matter how horrific) can be mocked once it’s clear that even any survivors of that event would no longer be alive. That way, either there’s no one left to offend with any jokes that might be made about it, or the loss of human potential from those cut off by it ceases to make a difference. Granted, the former axiom can apply to circumstances that aren’t so dramatic; ordinary, even daily life events can turn into moments of comedy, due to bad timing.
On what might appear to be an unrelated note, the trouble who is sharing a small space with someone is that, eventually, there is going to be a point in time where both of you will need (or at least want) to be in the same place at the same time, even if it’s at an unusual hour of the day. All of which should come is absolutely no surprise to you; after having been married to me for so long, you knew how it was to share spaces like our bedroom and bathroom. Of course, the fact that we were married made it less of a problem. You had been brought up to not be concerned about walking in on someone (at least, not someone as close to you as I – what would either of us see of each other that we hadn’t already, and by deliberate design?), and by extension, you basically taught me that you would not be phased where I to walk in on you.
However, walking in is one thing, and using the same thing at the same time as someone else, is something not really possible. Modesty isn’t so much the issue – although it certainly to a greater extent than between you and I. After all, he and I aren’t used to sharing such close quarters as this cabin; the house is big enough that we could add (and have added) another person quite comfortably, and still not necessarily have space conflicts with each other on any regular basis. Of course, as I implied earlier, the real comedy comes from the timing itself, rather than the actual occurrence, which was bound to happen eventually.
Last night found me in the throes of a nightmare, wherein I was trying to escape a geyser of flame coming from a volcanic fissure that literally erupted at my heels. And as everyone knows, the only way to escape from one of those things is to wake up; you’re not going to escape it otherwise, no matter how fast you run.
I awoke to a cabin that wasn’t completely dark, but wasn’t quite light, either. To be sure, I was facing the wall rather than the window, so I couldn’t see what it was that was generating the light, but at the moment, in my less than coherent state, I assumed that it was morning, and the sun had already risen, and was attempting to force its way through the curtain.
Upon gaining my bearings, and putting my glasses on, I realized I was completely mistaken. The light was in fact coming from Daniel‘s bedside, but Daniel was nowhere to be seen at the moment. It didn’t take that long, but I eventually sussed out that it was in the washroom. Which was rather a problem, because that’s the first place I need to go after I wake up (and, of course, you can understand). I was willing to wait for a bit, but that ‘bit’ turned into quite a while. Clearly, he was taking care of everything he needed to in order to go to bed, which was ironic, as I was leaving to do what I thought I needed to do in order to wake up. One of us, it seemed, was up too early, and the other of us was up too late.
But how early, and how late? I decided to check, as long as I was stuck waiting: 2:30 a.m.
I don’t know if you’d ever experienced this moment, honey, when you would wake up, look at the clock, and realize that you still had most of the night left to sleep. For you, this was probably an hour in which you simply determined (like Daniel in this case) that “oh hey, I need to get to bed,” so that moment of gratifying relief was a foreign sensation to you. But if you can’t quite relate to it, I’m sure you can understand how I was feeling at the moment.
You can probably also understand that I was getting a little urgent after a while, waiting for Daniel to come out, so as to use the room he was presently in. Ultimately, it became clear to me that he wasn’t going to be emerging anytime soon – if nothing else, I could hear the faint sound of one of his podcasts. He had no idea I was awake, and even if he was, he didn’t expect me to be banging in the door, demanding to know when he was going to be done in there. It just wasn’t anything that I would do.
And he was right. I finally got tired of waiting, threw a shirt on, and wandered out into the halls to look for one of the restrooms in the common areas. That’s one nice thing about a ship this size; no matter where you are on it, those common areas aren’t so far away as to be inconvenient. And with the clientele of this vessel, I didn’t have to fear running into anyone at such an hour of the moment – or at least, so I thought. I’ve met a few people at four or five who were still unused to the time zone, and chatted a bit with them, but at two? Come on. This is a crowd that goes to bed at a reasonable hour, and is more likely to wake up to ridiculously early. They’re not the sort to stay up until the wee hours.
But for whatever reason – maybe I still wasn’t awake, after all – I forgot to close the door on the stall. And the next thing I knew, despite having walked through an empty hallway on either level, there was somebody about to burst in on me. Whoever he was (he retreated so fast that I literally didn’t see anything other than the door opening for that brief moment), he apologized quickly and profusely, disappearing to find another washroom on the same or another level. But upon recovering from the moment, having taken care of matters, and gotten back to my room and bed, I found the whole situation rather amusing, and figured I’d tell you about it, in the hopes that you might, too.
We’ve got another day ahead of us to wander about a city without any particular restrictions upon us (apart from the usual time constraints), so I guess all I can do to wrap this up is to ask you, as usual, to keep an eye on us, and wish us luck. We’re going to need it.
Letters to Rachel 