Near the End

"Is it inevitable that two, two nutters like us, would drive each other away? That we, I mean people with, well, like us, you know, extremists. I'm talking complete bat shit crazy here. Is it pointless to try?"
Mister smiled and looked away, the bare bulb in the kitchen turning Eileen into a painful eclipse. "With a long enough time line is it certain that two people with a penchant for the melodramatic will drive each other away? Think of the lives of such people as strings, through time their extremes make the peaks and troughs of waves," he made sweeping gestures. "Most of the time when these two strings intersect they have a neutral product, but things get interesting when at least one of them is at an extreme. If only one is at either a trough or peak then the extremist encourages the other, pulling it further out, simultaneously the extremist is moderated, proportionately."
Samantha nodded, maybe a smile even manifested on her silhouette. "And when both of us are bonkers?"
"On those rare occasions that both strings are at an extreme they amplify each other making many mighty ripples in their wake. But, on equally rare occasions, the strings will be at opposite extremes. In which case they cancel each other, no ripples, nothing."

© Michael Mosher 2009