Nearing their destination, or so she thought. Because she finally heard something. Steps ahead, steps uphill, steps everywhere. So she posited optimistically the existence of other people besides them. Other people also walking there. Numerous matching goers trailing alternative paths, their feet smashing uncountable dry leaves, breaking fallen branches. She thought that these people must have been walking for miles, too. She could not see nor smell them, she could only hear their steps. But she felt for a moment that they were all flowing towards the same mouth, and her fatigue eased as she dove and swam in the stream of such an encompassing march. She pictured the entire scene as a group of pilgrims fast-gathering at the final minutes of their journey, rafting different streams leading to the same lake – a strong magnetic yolk attracting them all. How appeasing, she thought, and yet how exciting. But instead of letting herself go for a while more, along came with her now long-running heavy breathing, her fast-racing heart, and the cold sweat sliding through her back and torso, the realization that P → Q, ¬ Q ˫ ¬ P, which bounced her head in another direction: if these other walkers are just my wishing for the presence of matching comers, then there’s no steps, no nearing whatever destination, whatever gathering. And this stream is just reverb. Or worst: it is possible that those who run nearby are not people but beasts, and that at a further crossing we’ll encounter ourselves bruised, all purple eggplant or violet and green in the face and elsewhere. And she suddenly froze.
logical swim egg
