Ted Chiang - Division by Zero

Albert Einstein once said, “Insofar as the propositions of mathematics give an account of reality they are not certain; and insofar as they are certain they do not describe reality.”

Carl was in the kitchen, stringing snow pea pods for dinner, when Renee came in. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.” They sat down at the table. She looked studiedly out the window: her habit when beginning a serious conversation. He suddenly dreaded what she was about to say. He hadn't planned to tell her that he was leaving until she'd fully recovered, after a couple of months. Now was too soon.

“I know it hasn't been obvious—”

No, he prayed, don't say it. Please don't.

“—but I'm really grateful to have you here with me.”

Pierced, Carl closed his eyes, but thankfully Renee was still looking out the window. It was going to be so, so difficult.

She was still talking. “The things that have been going on in my head—” She paused. “It was like nothing I'd ever imagined. If it had been any normal kind of depression, I know you would have understood, and we could have handled it.”

Carl nodded.

“But what happened, it was almost as if I were a theologian proving that there was no God. Not just fearing it, but knowing it for a fact. Does that sound absurd?”

“No.”

“It's a feeling I can't convey to you. It was something that I believed deeply, implicitly, and it's not true, and I'm the one who demonstrated it.”

He opened his mouth to say that he knew exactly what she meant, that he had felt the same things as she. But he stopped himself: for this was an empathy that separated rather than united them, and he couldn't tell her that.