COSMIC TEARS
I've taken a small break from my other works to do this. It's something that just came to me as I watched the space shuttle cross the sky on it's way to dock with the space station today.
What is it really like to search for answers that no one seems to want to hear, to questions that go ignored by and large, asked only for rhetorical value, even by those who claim to be the "spiritual" ones? We all know Dib is a paranormal investigator, but what does that job really entail? I think I know, if only because I am a paranormal scientist myself. So, I wrote this, a little insightful drabble from Dib's point of view, about how he feels at the end of the day. Is it about Dib, or me? Can't it be both? Read on. I don't really care if you review or not. I don't own Invader Zim. I own only my own thoughts, my willful persistance in a field that has yet to garner respect, amd my own periodic moments of weakness. But I don't own Zim.
An astronaut takes part in an average of three space missions. Three. That's it. When their spacewalking, moonlanding, shuttle piloting days are over, they are given a full psychiatric evaluation. They don't reveal this on the flyer for Spacecamp, or brag about it to newly elected program members. They are given a psych evaluation just like a soldier returning from the heat of battle.
You can't just send an astronaut home with a fat pension, and expect it to all be a piece of cake for them. Ask any old skywalker, and they'll tell you with a gleam of sadness in their eye, that once you're up there, once you've broken through the gossamer of our dingy atmosphere, millions of stars, invisible from the Earth suddenly appear. In that singular moment, an entire universe is unfolded before you, trillions upon trillions of light years of nebulas, burning orbs of gas, and other worlds. Limitless possibilities, and unimaginable hope.
You come back. You have to of course, sooner or later. And when you do, nothing seems right. You can stand in the middle of a boundless field, and feel like you're in a box. Claustrophobia sets in in your bedroom, and an entire planet with seven continents and seven seas, all seems so small, so insignificant. That's why every old spacedog has at least one decent telescope in their house, or in their garage. A three hundred and fifty millimeter reflector makes Jupiter the size and clarity of the moon, lets you watch the twin stars of Betlegeuce orbit each other in their eternal waltz. It gives you a taste of that greatness. A small taste, if you've actually been 'out there', but a taste nonetheless. It's like smoking a cigarette on a crashing airplane to calm your nerves. When an old astronaut cries, it's cosmic tears.
Somehow, I know. I feel it deep in my heart. No one will ever believe that Zim is an alien. Just like no one will believe that ghosts, sasquatch, and werewolves are as much a part of our world as a bucket of buffalo wings from Chickey Lickey. I've accepted this. I think I accepted it long ago. But acceptance is a far cry from giving up. And that is something I'll never do. Because whereas an astronaut seeks answers of a certain kind, I seek those of another.
Insanity is a funny thing. Henry Ford was insane. He was insane because he wanted to churn out more than a few cars a day. I'm sure he would think the lightning fast assembly lines at a Toyota plant are insane. Galileo was threatened with death for his heretical statements. Statements that we know now to be rudimentary scientific facts. We canonize those who, before, were ridiculed. Robert Goddard thought it possible to launch a rocket into space. Before a group of scientists, engineers and government officials, he did just that. They laughed at him. Less than a century later, we walk on the moon. Everyone says I'm insane now. I sometimes wonder how I will be remembered a hundred years from now.
Why do I pursue Zim? After all of the ridicule, the abuse, the dissapointment, why do I keep trying? Because Zim is what I've always searched for. Zim is what I prayed for on those long nights, sitting on my roof with a telescope, high-bandwith receiver array, and a silent plea on my lips for the cold, unfeeling cosmos to send me the answers I sought. Zim is the answer to all of the questions I have asked for so long. One can only investigate the unknown for so long, before it becomes mindnumbingly monotonous. Chasing shadows, triapsing through muddy corn fields, listening to hour after hour of recorded static for that one priceless EVP, tracking dots across the black night sky, only to have it be a satellite, and then, you get the trophy. You know that it's going to be the find of a lifetime. You know that it's going to open the eyes of every human being, shed light where there was darkness, and answer every question that religion and science have been arguing over and pursuing for millenia. But it doesn't, and it turns out to be a castle in the air. You know what you have, but others don't even seem to care.
I am Ahab, I suppose, cursed to chase my white whale until it drags me down in its death throes. I guess I should feel lucky. I have my proof, even if no one else chooses to believe it. I've done what MUFON, TAPS, and the ASPR have yet to do. As a paranormal investigator, I should be proud. But what good is it to cross the finish line first, if you're in a one-man race with no spectators?
Let come what may. Maybe Zim will one day succeed in destroying mankind. I kind of doubt it. He is after all an imbecile. Maybe not. But I know I will always have him, and always have that accomplishment. I'll always have that one little thing to hold onto, and no one can tear it away from me. Not with a hundred punches or a thousand insults. If they lock me away in the crazy home for boys until I grow old and grey, I'll still have Zim. My proof. My answer.
A two hundred millimeter reflector and my SETI receiver still sit beside me on the roof, every night. I have answers, but there are still so many questions out there. When I'm not battling Zim, chasing chupacabras, or sitting up all night in a haunted house, I'm on the roof. It's grown into kind of a ritual for me. I sit, waiting, watching, listening. I count my blessings. I have my duty. I have Zim. I have the night and the stars. And I always...always have my cosmic tears.
They say that you really don't know how a man feels until you've walked a mile in his shoes. I've been there, and I've done that. I haven't found my answers yet, and probably never will. Though Invader Zim is merely a cartoon (kill me for phrasing it that way later), and no entertainment medium is reality, nor really meant to be taken seriously, at times I really feel for Dib. Paranormal science has yet to come into it's own, and is criticized from every angle, sometimes even by those within it's own ranks. I'm considered one of the top minds in the field in my area, and if it weren't for the royalties from my old store, I wouldn't be able to survive financially. Maybe I put too much of myself in this one. As I said, I feel for Dib sometimes, and this is not a work of sympathy, but one of empathy.
Anyway, I think I'll dissapear for a week or so to work on other projects. I will return soon with updates for my other works. I hope you enjoyed this fic. Cheerio for now.