She Picks Her Words Carefully

She takes her time, just like me. She picks her words slowly, for entirely different reasons.

I am filled with worry and uncertainty and fear over the meaning. I barely even understand what it is that I'm asking or what it is that I want to know, but she doesn't have that same problem.

This woman, Baba Yaga or whoever she is, she has no uncertainty. She knows everything precisely, from the depths of her soul to the heart of myself.

So when she chooses her words it isn't because she needs to be precise for her own benefit, but rather for mine. She needs to pick and choose carefully, because she isn't willing to lie but too much truth might be far too much indeed.

"That is a broad question," she says, plucking at the words like she's testing out the strings of an instrument, "Tied in to some of the most essential truths of the universe. Do we choose our path? Is it chosen for us? Are we merely automatons programmed to carry out a sequence of actions that we learned long ago? Do we even make any choices at all?"

Something I heard once. A story somewhere. Maybe it was a myth, certainly a legend. Something about religion and something more. Some truth about power and presence.

I don't remember which religion or whether it was just some fantasy story but there was an element to gods that make them capable of destroying people when they are witnessed. If I think I remember correctly then it's common across interpretations but each one is different. In one it's the voice, hearing words in their tones. In the other it's the language, or witnessing their true form. In some they speak through interpreters, remaining silent the whole time. Either way this common thread always comes to the same conclusion.

Witnessing the true face of a god is powerful enough to kill.

Not just kill but destroy, utterly. Rend into a billion pieces and scatter so far that you will never be put whole again. With a word or a glance or a note they can end you.

With a word she can end me. The wrong word.

"But you're not asking about that and so we don't need to address it, not yet at least. We can pretend that big looming question about the ineffable nature of the universe is something that doesn't matter and instead get to the rather imprecise point.

"Are you in control of your own actions? Do you make the choices that you've made?

"Or are you merely subject to your own impulses, your own desires? Do you just fall victim to hormones, to needs that are biological rather than psychological?"

She takes a thoughtful sip, waits for me. I nod and urge her on wordlessly but then I sense that she won't continue until I speak.

"I just never could picture myself doing any of this. I mean not even just being with a man but being so... I was never a prude but I was never so..."

I fall silent, and quiet my voice squeaks out afterwards.

"I've done so many things I never thought I would. So many things and they felt amazing, but they didn't feel like me. So were they not me or was it just that I'd been living in denial this whole damn time because I can't say that I regret them, not one bit. I can't say that I regret a single thing that I've done.

"But I can't say that I know that I would do them, if the circumstances were even a little different."

She smiles, "That is a tricky question in and of itself. For so much of action comes from opportunity, and so much of opportunity from action itself. You would never do if you never had the chance, but now that you have the chance is it you or just the chance that it making it happen.

"Are you in control? That's what you want to know. Are you in control of yourself? Are you in control of your actions? Are you in control, or being controlled?

"And that question, at least, is one that I can answer rather simply."

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