Chapter Text
Joy is not bottled on a shelf,
It cannot feed upon itself,
And even love, if it shall wear,
Must find its happiness in care;
—Edgar A. Guest, No Children
The art of bottling emotions isn't as simple as identifying them as they come.
Sometimes one emotion begets another, and another, until you're dealing with a breakdown several emotions removed from the root of the problem. Extracting those secondary or tertiary emotions without addressing the root cause of the disturbance will not a permanent solution make.
To borrow a metaphor from Bob's figurative repertoire, it would be like improperly weeding a garden. If you don't tear the weeds out by the root, they'll just sprout again later.
Take sadness, for example.
If your favorite brand of chocolate is discontinued, and that makes you sad, simply removing the sadness won't do. It'll only return the next time a craving hits, or you find yourself considering purchasing some, only to remember they can no longer be found in stores anywhere.
You must go to the root of the disturbance.
Upon self-reflection, you recognize you are sad because you can't enjoy your favorite brand of chocolate any more. And why does that make you sad? Well, it's because they're your favorite. Because you like them.
To permit ourselves a bit of hyperbole, you might even say that you love them.
The root of loss is not sadness. It is love. But excise the love, and the sadness goes with it!
And what's the harm? If longing for something unattainable drives you to distraction, impacts your mental health and emotional well-being, then isn't it sensible to put those feelings to bed?
Isn't it better not to be possessive, angry, lovesick?
Yes, Otto thinks. It's much better.
—
One sunny afternoon in the gulch, Cassie shares the conspiratorial observation, "Lucy and Ford have been spending an awful lot of time together..."
Otto looks up from the scientific publication he's reading. Lucy is demonstrating feats of hydrokinesis to Ford across the gulch. Their smitten laughter carries like birdsong on the air.
"So they have," Otto agrees from his reclining patio chair. He uncrosses and recrosses his legs in an attempt to seem bored and unaffected by this development.
Perhaps Cassie interprets this as reproof, because she sighs and says, "I know I shouldn't be jealous. It's not like it helps anyone... And she said she could make time this weekend. I'm just being impatient."
Otto reflects on his own smoldering core of jealousy. He was friends with Lucy and Ford before either one of them knew the other. Logically, he knows seniority has no bearing on friendship or sentiment, but it stings to feel like he's been relegated to the third wheel, now they've become preoccupied with one another.
"I wonder," Otto ventures, "if it would be possible to excise jealousy from our minds. With some kind of tool."
Cassie laughs. "That would certainly be nice!"
Yes, Otto thinks. That would certainly be nice.
—
Ford wanders into Otto’s work area Friday evening. “Say, Otto...”
“Hm?” Otto replies distractedly, peering at a verdant green specimen in a petri dish through a microscope.
“I know we have plans to do lab work together tomorrow...”
“Oh, yes!” Otto lifts his head from the microscope’s eyepiece and spins his chair around, perking up instantly. “I’m looking forward to it! In fact, I have some fascinating findings I’m excited to share with you...!”
Ford rubs the back of his neck. “Well, when I was in town getting supplies, I overheard that the grand opening of the new bowling alley was on Saturday. And I wanted to take Lucy, since she’s never been—so I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind a rain check...?”
Otto takes a moment to process this. “Oh,” is all he says at first.
Ford winces. “I’m sorry, Otto—”
“No,” Otto interrupts. “It’s... fine. I was just—surprised. Of course I don’t mind.” And he smiles.
Ford pales. “C’mon, Otto, don’t be angry. I mean, I can take Lucy bowling another day—”
Otto laughs gently. “Why on earth do you think I’m angry?”
Ford pauses to consider his answer carefully. “... You usually only skip the shouting if you’re really peeved.”
Otto snorts. Well, that is true. “I’m not angry,” Otto assures him. “I’ve just been doing some... self-reflection.” He rests his elbows on the arms of his chair and spreads out his hands, showing that his palms hold no weapon waiting to stab Ford in the back. “We’re friends, Ford. Whatever makes you happy makes me happy.”
“Oh,” Ford says, relieved. “That’s... actually kinda sweet. Uh, thanks, Otto.”
Otto beams. “Think nothing of it, Ford. You come see me whenever you want that rain check. Or anything else," he adds with a wink.
“Sure,” Ford says with a grin. He wiggles his fingers at Otto in a wave—and a TK hand musses up Otto’s hair. “Catch you later, Odd.”
Otto scoffs, swatting at the intangible force putting his hair into disarray. “Get lost, Ford,” he laughs, shoving a TK hand in Ford’s face in retaliation.
Ford laughs as he goes. “Alright, alright...”
When Ford is gone, Otto turns his chair back around. He picks up the sealed vial close at hand, tilting it so its gleaming green contents glint in the lamplight, rubbing his rough thumb pad over the smooth paper label in wonderment.
“Extraordinary,” he murmurs.
—
Otto steps out of the Heptadome for a cigarette late Saturday evening and finds Cassie moping on one of the lawn chairs. He stops in his tracks.
"I thought you had plans with Lucy today," he says with a concerned frown.
"Me too," Cassie scoffs. Then she sniffs. "She broke plans to hang out with Ford instead."
"Oh," Otto says in belated epiphany. It’s not like him to take so long to connect the dots. "That’s right. He broke plans with me yesterday."
"He what?" Cassie rises from her slump to brace her hands on the arms of the lawn chair, as if thrown off-balance by this declaration. "And you just let him?"
Otto steps outside completely, and he stands at the walkway's edge to tap the ash of his cigarette into the water. "I'm not his keeper," Otto says reasonably.
"... I mean, I guess I'm just surprised,” Cassie admits. “You always want to spend time with Ford."
Otto shrugs. "We can't hold our friends hostage. If they make each other happy..." He pauses to take a drag of his cigarette, and as he does he looks out over the water. Tonight the gulch is abuzz with dragonflies stacked in mating pairs, aglow with the mating signals of fireflies. One firefly mistakes the cherry of his cigarette for a prospective partner, and Otto brushes it away with TK before it can divebomb his face.
Otto exhales a plume of smoke, and with it the conclusion of his thought: "Then we should be happy for them."
It is a long moment before Cassie mutters, unconvinced, “I guess.”
Otto feels culpable for the part he played in Cassie’s lonesomeness, and he is sympathetic to her plight besides. He may not experience jealousy any more, but he still remembers how unpleasant it was. “Here’s an idea,” he offers, “why don’t we catch some fireflies and study the properties of their bioluminescence?”
Cassie perks up immediately. “You want to?” she asks hopefully.
“Don’t you?” Otto asks, just as eager now he's talked himself into it. “I think our findings could prove to be quite illuminating!”
Cassie snorts and rolls her eyes, but she's fighting back a smile. “Alright,” she says. “Bet I can catch more than you.”
Otto hums in exaggeratedly pensive thought. “Compete with the country’s foremost psychic insect specialist in an insect recruiting competition...?” He grins, silly and rakish. “What could possibly go wrong?”
Cassie laughs like a chorus of bells, fully uplifted from her dark, swarming mood.
Otto decides a little extra incentive won’t hurt, and adds, “Loser owes the winner a favor.”
“Oh...?” Cassie challenges coyly. “What kind of favor, hm?”
“I suppose that’s for the winner to decide,” Otto says airily, as if the conclusion were not already certain. Having seen them before exiting the Heptadome, Otto uses TK to retrieve two glass jars from within. He floats one over to Cassie, and he tucks the other under his free arm.
Doing so many things at once, he forgets himself when his cigarette burns down to the filter, and he flicks it into the water on reflex.
Cassie’s dark eyes follow its descent with cold scrutiny.
“... Oops?” Otto says with a wince.
“... What if the favor is no cigarettes for a week?”
“Oh no.”
“Or a month?”
“Cassie, please,” Otto begs, holding out his hand in the manner of one vainly petitioning the executioner to stay her axe. “Have mercy.”
“I might reconsider,” she says, “if you can find that cigarette butt before I’m done collecting fireflies.” And with that she pushes off, as graceful and precise in levitation as a skater on the ice.
Otto abandons his own glass jar and leaps without hesitation into the water, searching for his fallen cigarette.
In the end he doesn’t find it—in all likelihood it’s already unraveled and dissolved, carcinogens and all, indistinguishable from the rest of the particulate matter floating through the water. But Cassie takes pity on the wet and shivering Otto, and in acknowledgment of his sincere effort, decides upon a much more mutually gratifying favor to ask of him.
... Though he has a bit more trouble than usual tracking down cigarettes for the next few days, he supposes that’s fair game, and well worth the price of entry.