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Cecil had been quiet all night, deep in one of his funks. (His funks were different from normal funks, of course, as normal funks were gelatinous and loved to suck people in deep for long periods of time. While they usually released people, it was a lot faster to drag the victims of funks out of them. Cecil’s funks were more of what Carlos’s original definition of a funk is.) His eyes seemed hazy in that I’m-not-sure-they-are-completely-solid way that unnerved Carlos to no end, and he wasn’t getting that contended smile he normally got when Carlos went into way too many details of his day, the smile that made him have a much harder time holding back on his ‘bad’ habits of infodumping.
Carlos popped in one of the ancient sumerian westerns Cecil loved and joined him on the couch, trying to think of some way to drag the radio host out of his funk. Like Night Valian funks, the best way to get someone out is to drag them out of it, though with Cecil’s funks the terminology is a bit more figurative, Carlos noted, before pushing the thought aside and going back to his contemplating.
Carlos leaned against Cecil, doing his best to ignore the large flashy plastic glitter things that were sown onto Cecil’s sweater sleeves. “What are you hung up on now, figuratively speaking.” Why am I hung up on the word figurative, Carlos wondered.
Cecil seemed to flinch a little, and frown, thinking. “I just...” he mused, his voice low, “feel a bit lonely, I guess...”
“Well, I’m here, whatever you want to talk about, whatever you want me to try and understand, I’m here to do it, within reason.”
“I'm not even sure that I'm real, Carlos. How can I be sure that you are?”
Carlos was quiet. Comforting people wasn't exactly something he was good at and existential crises were very much not easy to push away. Finally he whispered, “Cecil... In science, we don't really prove anything... We just fail to disprove it. Theories like quantum mechanics and even something as huge as gravity, that's all stuff that we just have failed to disprove yet. Your existence, our existence... It's something that hasn't been disproved yet. Maybe we only exist because we ourselves are some kind of lab experiment, or maybe for the entertainment of other beings that keep us in their minds, giving us life and dimension. Maybe we don't exist as matter and reality... Before I came to Night Vale I hadn't realized this yet, but the Why doesn't nearly matter as much as the What is. Why we exist, or even if we exist, it doesn't matter. What matters is we are here, I am with you, I am here. We exist based on the evidence we can see, and, sometimes, that's enough to accept that that's how things are... I love you, Cecil, and we can exist or not exist together.”
Cecil smiled and hugged Carlos tightly. “Ok...”
Carlos smiled. “Besides, I think you're over your municipaly approved existential crisis limit for the week,” Carlos joked.
“Carlos, the limits are monthly and I've been exempt from those limits for 23 years.”