With a mind occupied with a series of thoughts, Re-l has to face the constant recurrence of the same food, the same weather, and the same behavior (perhaps her own as well). Within a larger environment--social and physical--someone can avoid the recurrence of the same things, since there is simply so much more to experience. Except that in this case, stuck in very close quarters, Re-l meets the same things which show very little variation each time they cycle around once more in her mind. It's like having "idea1" always in the mind, never transforming into a fresh insight. Instead, with each appearance in the mind the idea adds on a long tail of numerals, making it worse: idea1, idea1.1, idea1.11, idea1.111, etc. (Why oh why can we not have idea1.n transform into Insight1!?) The effects that all of this cognitive regurgitation and stagnation has on her personality are clearly negative. Whatever is acting upon her personality manifests its effects in her emotions. As a consequence, we notice that her boredom has the peculiar tendency to adjust the frequency of a particular emotion within it, viz. anger. When in the right mood, certain emotions tend to be volatile, set off by almost anything. As one noticeable result of being attuned in this way, Re-l's frustrations do not always remain hidden; they get focused or shifted onto other things. We often see her focusing most of her criticisms on Vincent, for example, even when some things are beyond his influence or control: while eating--beans again--Re-l openly chastises Vincent for his evident lack of planning, though knowing full well that neither of them can do anything about the lack of wind. But the sheer frustration she feels is somewhat understandable; these mood-heightened emotions can make any atmosphere absolutely palpable. Some people often speak of cutting the room-tension with a knife. Emotions and feelings demand to be written with a tensed authority when mood is doing the typing: Angry, Frustrated, and Tired. Perhaps, as graceless existentialists, we can poetically conclude this section by saying that Re-l's eternal recurrence is presently more aimless angst than joyful affirmation. Hell is others in repetition. Let's explore further this metaphorical landscape in which some poor souls are forced to dwell. We will extract the reality which is concealed in the metaphor and see what it too holds.
Often, when one considers the concept of a hell, the resulting image is rarely a bright and colorful one. When it is picturesque, the palette is usually visceral, not dreamy. When thinking of the usual concept, the colors are usually washed out, muted, stifled, dense, opaque, dark. Think of Gustav Dore's interpretation of the inferno. When we consider such a representation, the mental imagery that seems to naturally follow is itself shrouded in muted colors. Our thoughts asphyxiate; they are cloaked with the heaviest of materials, making it very difficult to think clearly anymore. What on this or any other planet could have such an effect on our minds? At this point, we must consider a not entirely obvious candidate: the weather. There are times when the entire weather seems to weigh down on us, like it exerts an extra sort of gravity--felt only as an emotional experience. In fact, some people are often subjected to Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD), which is partially due to minimum exposure to daylight and warmth, i.e. life in winter. Let us take this concept further. What would it be like to experience permanent winter for the very first time? How would things eventually seem to us as we first experience such conditions? We can get an idea of what it would be like when we examine Re-l's situation from another aspect. This time, we approach the questions as metaphysical meteorologists.
It appeared to us that life in Romdo is life as normal, or close enough when you are living in a gigantic dome. Perhaps even in these domes, taxes are inevitable as well. There is plenty of artificial light simulating day and night, so sleeping patterns are kept steady. No need for the citizens to worry about vitamin-D deficiency. There is also a controlled climate in Romdo, so the physical environment's temperature stays at a nice constant. Consequently, the conditions in the dome resemble summer. Life in Romdo, it seems, is not too different than living in a major city located close enough to the equator to experience steady summer. The biggest difference is the presence of the dome which separates the outside environmental elements from the inside ones (remember that the outside world's climate is permanently winter). Growing up in Romdo, it seems, would not be that different than growing up in a large city with a fairly stable climate. It's not hard to imagine that such an environment would be deeply ingrained in any given citizen of Romdo, so much so that any significant variance in it would entail a significant change in those citizens as well. And this brings us directly back to Re-l's displaced life on the Rabbit, with two companions getting on her nerves, food that progressively tastes worse, and weather that never changes for the better.
