Page 56 of Katabasis
“Well, that we want all the same things. That we want what’s best for each other. That we take one another’s ends as our own, and that our ideal outcome is one in which we’re together. Haven’t you ever been in love?”
“No. Have you?”
“Well, no. But it can’t be all that hard to imagine, can it?”
“I think being in love might be the hardest thing to imagine.” She paused, considering. “I mean, the erotic complications alone. I haven’t even seen your penis.”
“Oh my God,” said Peter. “Law. We do not have time to articulate a philosophy of love.”
“How else do we decide our dominant strategy, then?”
“Just assume we are one person. Your ends are my ends and vice versa. What hurts you hurts me. Our goals are staying together, and pursuing what is best for ourselves as a joint unit.”
Alice did not think this was how real relationships worked, at least not from the ones she’d witnessed, but it did sound nice in theory. “Where did you learn that?”
“Immanuel Kant.”
“Wasn’t Kant a virgin?”
“He was a great philosopher! He revolutionized metaphysics!”
“I believe it was Kant who thought it immoral to masturbate,” said Alice. “Something about treating yourself as a means to an end.”
“Do you have a better idea?”
Alice’s head hurt. To begin with, she did not in fact have an alternate account of love; but second, even if Peter’s account of love made sense, she could not disentangle it from his possible ulterior motives for offering it. Deep down she suspected being in love just was two people lying to each other, concealing their violence, and so Peter’s proposal was thus misaligned with her priority to look out for herself.
“Come on.” Peter nudged her arm. “Law. Is it so hard to pretend you’re in love with me?”
The way he said this—it made her chest hurt. He knew exactly what he was doing, and the worst part was that it was working. She wanted so badly to trust him, to be the object of his love, if only for pretend.Stop it, she wanted to scream.Stop, can’t you see what you’re doing to me?
“Well, my lovers,” called the Weaver Girl. “What will it be?”
“You’re on,” Peter announced. “We’ll play.”
“Wait—” Alice began. But the Weaver Girl seized both their arms and, with startling force, dragged them up a rock until they stood facing each other, atop some hellish parody of a wedding altar. Swathes of silk shot up and made an opaque barrier between them. Peter yelled something, but his voice was muffled by the silk.
“No coordinating.” The Weaver Girl shimmered, then split into two translucent doubles. Each stepped to either side of the silk wall, and they spoke in unison.
“My Cowherd met me on the seventh day of the seventh month for eighty years without fail.” The silks created silhouettes in the sky: two figures running toward each other and embracing, becoming one. “Years passed when I did not see his face. His entire village begged him to forget me and marry—for I could not give him children, you see, nor fulfill any of the duties a wife should. And if ever he did not come, the bridge would break. If ever we were unfaithful, the bridge would break. We were never unfaithful. Always, we chose each other, until the end of his life. Until he chose differently, and condemned me.”
The silks spread to create a fork; one red, one green. “I give you a choice, my lovers. The very same choice. You may choose to go on alone, or to go on together. If both of you choose to go together, I will build you a bridge of stars. If you both choose to go on alone, I will throw you both into the Lethe.”
“What if we choose differently?” asked Alice.
“Then the one who chooses to go on alone may walk this bridge as many times as they like. You will have safe passage throughout your sojourn. I will guard you against everything and everyone. Nothing will touch you.” The bridge danced, shimmered, split into a dozen forking paths. “And the other—well, we might say merely that they will wish for oblivion.”
Alice blinked down. Suddenly before her stood a tray table, atop which sat two shiny, waxy apples. One was blood-red, the other deep green.
“What will it be?” asked the Weaver Girl. “Red to go on together. Green to go on alone.”
“He has the same choice?”
“The very same.”
Oh, Alice thought; then this was just the prisoner’s dilemma.
They’d all done prisoner’s dilemmas in their first year. The obvious solution to the prisoner’s dilemma, if you trusted each other, was not to screw the other party over. The problem of course was that one’s dominant strategy was always to screw the other party over, no matter what they did. But if you cooperated beforehand, then you could both get out of jail free. And they had cooperated. Hadn’t they?
