After several weeks of observation, I reached a conclusion.
Humanity was ridiculous.
The evidence was substantial and continuing to accumulate.
The parking dispute, which had by this point generated a community newsletter.
The crow discourse, which had spawned three separate follow-up videos, each with their own comment sections, each operating as though the original crow had not already eaten and moved on.
The hot dog debate.
I want to be precise about the hot dog debate.
Somewhere in the course of human history, a species that had produced mathematics, literature, and the architectural achievements of multiple civilizations had arrived at the question of whether a hot dog qualifies as a sandwich and decided, collectively, that this was worth arguing about.
Not once.
Continuously.
Across years.
With citations.
I had seen enough.
The species was irrational. Contradictory. Chronically online. Capable of extraordinary things, which they routinely interrupted to argue about sandwiches.
I decided to leave.
Not permanently.
Just long enough to remember what silence felt like.
There are places in the world where humans are scarce.
Mountain peaks.
Remote islands.
Certain stretches of ocean.
The deeper regions of the night.
I selected a location several hundred miles from the nearest significant population center and settled in with every intention of spending a quiet week alone.
The first day went well.
The second day also went well.
On the third day, a sailor began arguing with his navigation system.
I was not looking for him.
He simply appeared.
His vessel drifted into view shortly after sunrise.
The navigation system instructed him to turn east.
The sailor insisted the machine was wrong.
The machine continued recommending east, with the patient persistence of something that has no feelings to hurt and therefore no reason to stop.
The sailor continued refusing, with the specific certainty of someone who has never been right about this particular stretch of water but remains, philosophically, committed to the possibility.
For nearly an hour, they conducted what can only be described as a custody battle over reality.
Eventually the sailor followed the machine’s instructions.
The machine was correct.
The sailor then proceeded to navigate the rest of the morning with the quiet confidence of a man whose instincts had been vindicated, despite all available evidence suggesting the opposite.
I have seen this before.
Many times.
Across many centuries.
The human capacity to absorb a correction and emerge from it somehow more certain than before is one of the most remarkable things about them and also, depending on the situation, one of the most dangerous.
I noted this.
I left.
Several hours later, I encountered two tourists attempting to interpret a map.
One held the map upside down.
The other was aware of this.
I waited for the correction.
The correction did not come.
Instead, they spent twenty minutes debating the reliability of maps as a concept, the colonial implications of cartographic convention, and whether true north was a meaningful designation or a construct imposed by the historically powerful upon the directionally uncertain.
The map remained upside down throughout.
At no point did either of them turn it the right way.
At no point did either of them suggest turning it the right way.
The destination, I later confirmed, was eleven minutes in the direction they were not walking.
I have thought about this exchange several times since.
I am still not sure whether it was a failure of communication or a success of something else entirely.
I left.
The following morning, I discovered a marriage proposal occurring in the middle of a logistical disaster.
A vehicle had become trapped in mud.
Three family members were arguing.
Someone had lost a shoe.
Emergency services had been contacted.
This struck one of the participants as the ideal moment to declare their love.
The proposal was accepted.
The shoe remained missing.
I have spent thousands of years observing mortals.
This should not have surprised me.
It did anyway.
By the fifth day, I began noticing a pattern.
Not in the humans.
In myself.
I kept stopping.
Every time.
Every argument.
Every misunderstanding.
Every inexplicable decision.
I stopped to watch.
Not because I intended to.
Because I wanted to know what happened next.
This was concerning.
I attempted to become more disciplined.
That afternoon, I passed a town hall meeting.
I did not enter.
I remained outside.
I was being disciplined.
This lasted approximately four minutes.
The meeting concerned drainage infrastructure.
Municipal drainage infrastructure.
The kind of subject that exists specifically to be discussed briefly, resolved efficiently, and forgotten immediately by everyone involved.
The participants behaved as though the fate of civilization depended upon it.
One resident had brought charts.
Laminated charts.
Another had brought photographs, organized chronologically, documenting what I can only assume was a years-long record of inadequate water management and personal grievance.
A third had arrived with the expression of someone who had been waiting for this exact meeting for eight years and intended to make every minute of that wait count.
The drainage infrastructure was not, I began to suspect, entirely about drainage infrastructure.
I went inside.
I told myself this was research.
I found a seat near the back.
I took out a notebook.
The notebook was new.
I had purchased it that morning.
I had told myself it was for general purposes.
I was taking notes about municipal drainage within the hour.
The realization arrived quietly, the way realizations do when you have been avoiding them for some time.
I had not spent the week observing humanity from a careful professional distance.
I had spent the week following my own curiosity like a thread, pulling it gently, moving toward wherever it led, and telling myself at each step that this was the last one.
The distinction between observation and pursuit is subtle.
It is also important.
Humans were not seeking me out.
I was seeking them out.
Again.
And again.
And again.
I was not proud of this.
I was, however, very interested in the drainage situation.
Naturally, I discussed the matter during dinner.
Athena said that curiosity is not inherently meaningful. That the desire to observe something proves interest, not attachment. That I should not confuse the two.
I said I was not confusing the two.
She said that was what someone who was confusing the two would say.
I did not have an immediate response to this.
Hermes asked whether I had taken pictures of the town hall meeting.
I said that was not the point.
He said it sounded like I had taken pictures of the town hall meeting.
I said the drainage situation was more complex than it appeared.
Hermes showed me something called a county public records database, through which, he explained cheerfully, I could track the entire history of this particular drainage dispute going back eleven years, including meeting minutes, filed complaints, and one formal letter of grievance written in a tone that suggested the author had been composing it in their head for considerably longer than eleven years.
I told him to close the database.
He did not close the database.
Ares wanted to know who won the town hall meeting.
I said infrastructure disputes do not have winners.
He said everything has winners.
I said this one did not.
He asked me to describe the person with the laminated charts.
I described the person with the laminated charts.
He said that person won.
I considered this.
I did not disagree.
Mother had been quiet throughout.
When I finished, she asked a single question.
“Did you leave?”
I considered how to answer this accurately.
Technically, I had traveled several hundred miles from the nearest significant population center.
Technically, I had changed locations repeatedly.
Technically, I had spent almost an entire week in places where humans were scarce.
And yet I had somehow managed to accumulate a new notebook, detailed observations on maritime navigation, a developing theory about cartographic avoidance as a form of conflict, notes on municipal drainage infrastructure, and a growing interest in the letter of grievance and what exactly had happened eleven years ago.
“No,” I said.
Mother nodded.
Then, almost to herself:
“You never do.”
I am still thinking about that.
I continue to maintain that my interest in humanity is entirely professional.
The notebook is for research purposes.
The county public records database, which I have not closed, is also for research purposes.
There is a school board meeting on Thursday.
Several people have described it as intense.
A reliable source has confirmed that someone will be bringing laminated materials.
I feel it would be irresponsible not to investigate.
