4338.206 · July 25, 2018 AD
Haven't Yet
Paul has spent three days learning what he cannot do. Cannot leave. Cannot build proper foundations. Cannot keep anyone safe. Cannot even fetch water without someone nearly dying in his absence. Standing at the river's edge measuring distances feels like the only honest assessment left — until Glenda appears beside him and starts talking about bridges. The woman who just performed surgery with a t-shirt apparently didn't get the memo about what's impossible here.
The river doesn't care about ungrateful patients or infected wounds or the impossible logistics of survival. It simply flows, indifferent and eternal, and Paul stands at its edge letting that indifference wash over him like a balm. Twenty metres wide, his businessman's brain calculates. Not insurmountable for a bridge — if you had materials, expertise, a construction crew. None of which they possess.
Then Glenda is beside him, arms folded, gazing at the same water and seeing something entirely different. Where Paul sees obstacle, she sees opportunity. Where he catalogues what's missing, she declares what will be built. "We will build a bridge," she says, and the certainty in her voice doesn't waver when Paul reflexively counters with "we can't."
The challenge in her raised eyebrow is gentle but unmistakable. This is the woman who crossed dimensions to perform emergency surgery, who absorbed a dog bite and a patient's hostility without complaint. She doesn't traffic in "can't."
Perhaps optimism isn't something you have or lack, Paul realises. Perhaps it's something you choose, moment by moment, even when every moment argues against it. Perhaps he's been choosing wrong.
