2013 Pennington Award The Double-Edged Sword

[Jylliene 0]

 

“I am half-sick of shadows,” said

The Lady of Shalott.

-”The Lady of Shalott”; Alfred, Lord Tennyson

 

For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.

I Corinthians 13:12

 

There are secrets that people simultaneously want - and never want - to reveal. Things that people long to keep hidden, to protect themselves from the imagined consequences of such revelations. Sometimes, they are proven right; sometimes, also, the consequences are not as dire as predicted, but deepen over time. Perhaps then it’s actually worse: in the immediate aftermath, the listener tries to act as though nothing has changed in their perception of the teller; but over time, the shift is apparent, and perhaps all the more damaging for not occurring, and being faced, immediately.

 

Sometimes, however, the teller is proven incorrect, and is just as intimately and completely accepted as before. The risk is rewarded, and the secret-bearer rests safely knowing that their true and complete self is loved - or at least, this layer of the self; who has but one dark secret from the world?

 

For the teller, though, as well as the listener, there really is little way to know in advance.

 

Is it better to have no secrets? Ever? All things are known before they can build up into a fantasy of walls, towers, dungeons, in which the most sensitive, secret self is protected - or, if one prefers, in which the inner monster is locked safely away. Barely can one erect even a single stone atop another before the Thing That Must Be Hidden is known.

 

And yet, and yet, aren’t there those who reveal such things later, who open the keep to the right person in time, because they can see that sometimes it is best to give that person the time to know the other self - the better self - before the baser side is shown? Is that not what all courtesy is? Perhaps even what all self-improvement is - hiding one’s worse self until that worse self no longer exists, or at least, is no longer a serious portion, but is left merely as the minor temptations faced, and defeated, by nearly all?

 

Is a world where nothing is hidden better?

 

---------

 

Jylliene stood at the ops console on the Aegean, watching the light on the display signal that the cargo bay doors had closed. Nijil was gone, and she didn’t know if she’d see him again. His last little message had been a sweet gesture on his part, but it left her shaken inside. She - they - had already said their goodbyes that morning, before the start of the shift. She had mentally braced herself for this moment, knowing it was coming. And then he had to send that message.

 

Focus, Jyll.

 

It was hard. She could put on a pretty fair front of being professional about the situation. But that didn’t necessarily extend to how she was doing internally.

 

Deep breath.

 

She felt the house emblem in her pocket and watched the display as, well, nothing pulled away from the Aegean. Nijil inside a hidden shuttle on a hidden mission. Her own hidden emotions in a (hopefully) professional exterior on a ship with a hidden agenda secreted within its professional escort duty.

 

“The Nei’rrh should be clear of the Aegean,” Jylliene reported quietly.

 

After a brief moment, Ramson nodded, apparently utterly focused on the task at hand; barely responding to Jylliene’s verbal report and, if she sensed the emotions from the officer, not responding to those at all.