Chapter Twenty-seven: The Veil of the Waterfall

Summary

• The protagonist and Shannon discuss the significance of the screams heard in a video related to the disappearance of the protagonist's father.
• The protagonist initially believes that the screams have no connection to their father's absence or Eugene's emotional breakdown from earlier footage.
• A concept from cognitive psychology featuring Type I errors (false positives) is introduced, suggesting humans often see connections and patterns where none exist.
• The protagonist imagines a scenario involving their father and Eugene (the protagonist's sibling), proposing an accident occurred after an argument between the two.
• This imagined scenario aligns with the police's perspective and human inclination towards creating narratives, but the protagonist considers alternative explanations for their father's disappearance.
• The protagonist challenges the idea that all events must be causally linked, suggesting sometimes coincidences are just that and not part of a larger narrative.
• Shannon, however, insists they need a plausible story that covers all evidence and exonerates Eugene to be acceptable in the legal context.
• The protagonist reflects on personal unease with unsolved mysteries, drawing from various media, and worries that their father's case may never be resolved.
• Late at night, after working on various tasks related to their father's case, the protagonist, alongside family members, converges in the family room, leading to a moment of rest and bonding.
• A quiet reflection with John brings up a past incident in Seoul, which parallels their current concern for Eugene being potentially harmful without intending to.
• Amidst a storm and with Eugene asleep on the protagonist's lap, they and John construct a scenario where their father might have died saving Eugene from falling off a cliff during a confrontation with other people.
• The constructed narrative fits the evidence and exonerates Eugene, aligning with the story Shannon suggested they needed for legal defense.
• Vic, who wakes up during the storytelling, affirms the plausibility of this narrative, inadvertently bolstering the protagonist's guilt and doubts about speaking the scenario into existence.
• The notes discuss how humans create narratives even from random images and mention another book in the context of unsolved mysteries, relating it to the protagonist's parents.
• One note humorously discusses the phenomenon of loosening jar lids and is metaphorically connected to the process of finding the password to the father's files.