Writings
There are many instances of beautiful writing on The X-Files, where the dialogue sounds like poetry, falling from the mouths of two sensitive and inwardly beautiful people. Here are Scully's journal entries from Memento Mori, and the poem Mulder quotes in The Field Where I Died, some of the most lovely moments on the show.
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way.
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light led in by death,
That life was blotted out--not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
From "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning
Scully's journal entries to Mulder in 'Memento Mori'
("Memento Mori" = "remember that you must die")
For the first time, I feel time like a heartbeat, the seconds, pumping in my breasts like a reckoning. The numinous mysteries that once seemed so distant and unreal, threatening clarity in the presence of a truth entertained not in youth, but only in its passage. I feel these words as if their meaning were weight being lifted from me. Knowing that you will read them and share my burden as I have come to trust no other. That you should know my heart, look into it, finding there the memory and experience that belong to you, that are you, is a comfort now as I feel the tethers loose and the prospects darken for the continuance of a journey that began not so long ago and which began again with a faith shaken and strengthened by your convictions. If not for which, I might never have been so strong now as I cross to face you, and look at you, incomplete, hoping that you will forgive me for not making the rest of the journey with you.
In med school I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself. This is the evil of cancer. That it starts as an invader but soon becomes one with the invaded forcing you to destroy it but only at the risk of destroying yourself. It is science's demon possession. By treatment, science's attempt at exorcism. Mulder, I that hope in these terms you might know it and know me. And accept a stranger someone you recognize but cannot ever completely cast out. And if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done, and though we've traveled far together. This last distance must necessarily be traveled alone.
For me, I estimate their works and them
So rightly, that at times I almost dream
I too have spent a life the sages' way.
And tread once more familiar paths. Perchance
I perished in an arrogant self-reliance
Ages ago; and in that act, a prayer
For one more chance went up so earnest, so
Instinct with better light led in by death,
That life was blotted out--not so completely
But scattered wrecks enough of it remain,
Dim memories, as now, when once more seems
The goal in sight again. All which, indeed,
Is foolish, and only means--the flesh I wear,
The earth I tread, are not more clear to me
Than my belief, explained to you or no.
From "Paracelsus" by Robert Browning
In med school I learned that cancer arrives in the body unannounced. A dark stranger who takes up residence, turning its new home against itself. This is the evil of cancer. That it starts as an invader but soon becomes one with the invaded forcing you to destroy it but only at the risk of destroying yourself. It is science's demon possession. By treatment, science's attempt at exorcism. Mulder, I that hope in these terms you might know it and know me. And accept a stranger someone you recognize but cannot ever completely cast out. And if the darkness should have swallowed me as you read this, you must never think there was the possibility of some secret intervention, something you might have done, and though we've traveled far together. This last distance must necessarily be traveled alone.
