Question

its easy to imagine mercer, but trickier to remember it. in my mind i reassemble the city from a stock of memories that grow a little more ghostly each time i summon them. the morning always appears first - the liquid shine of fresh - washed sheet glass, taxi vibrations in roosevelt park asleep beneath the shadow of a bronzed anchor, days smelling like bits of soft gravel scavenged from behind the fair - grounds - these scenes i return to often, and theyve become like old, handspun lace - intricate, diaphanous and fragile. i sometimes wonder when at last that lone thread of true memory wears through, whether or not the whole reverie, the fact, will unravel.
of course its possible to approach mercer from without, to finger it on the globe, or trace the serpentine belly of highway e1 across the pages of a road atlas, right through the hills of pennsylvania into town. but thats not the town that i remember. my memories begin in the center and radiate outward like a ripple, dying off as they collide with the hilltops that surround the valley.
the poet james wright once wrote that no one would choose to die in mercer. he might be right. but the people who inhabit mercer when i remember it dont die. they dont have the energy to die. they say that, in the universe, energy cant be created or destroyed, but transferred, transformed - thats something i learned after i left for school. and all the energy must have left mercer a long time before i did. i can imagine the last clay - tired train, spitting out of rodney station - cargo load just half - full of ore - leaving mercer and the ground beneath it hollow.
i suppose thats the trouble with a mining town. it thrives on the land like an uneasy parasite, marveling at its own good fortune. but when the host gives out, its hopeless. with every shard of anthracite picked clean from the riverbed, i can see the kids who live outside of town, staggering home along the banks, galvanized buckets dangling empty from their hands, maybe thats what bothered james wright - not suicide to die on dead land. but when i remember mercer, the people there live an arrested, unable to grow or die, and a few mad miners persist, still hollowing out the mountains from a mile underground.
sometimes i try to imagine how the town has changed - which store windows on market street are empty, boarded up, or shuttered, and whether the train yard is overgrown now in either rust or wildflowers. left alone, the universe tends toward maximum chaos. thats another thing i learned at school. if thats true, then i guess mercer must have fallen apart entirely, and suddenly i see the valley sinking, as the mountains stretch out and fold in on every, like kneaded dough, burying the town, breaking it, and redistributing the pieces throughout the soil. other times it seems more likely its just my memories of mercer that are collapsing. i guess eventually there will be two mercers - the one i left in pennsylvania, and the one that i return to, built up and founded entirely in my mind.
but tonight, at least, im remembering one fourth white on the fair - grounds. in garden it by ten - dozen lemon - yellow marigold bulbs, acting huge, delicate torches in the late august night. light in motion i remember clearly i can see the white - hot glow of fountains through a glass factory window, the prismatic gleams of headlights right across the ceiling as a car turns down my old street. theres an old trick used to prove that light travels as a wave - clip up, light shining through a keyhole will just take the shape of a keyhole, but if the beam travels a greater distance, it refracts, and reveals the boys and features of a hidden object. the lights of mercer reach me at the far field, blurred and fractured by the long journey theyve taken. like starlight, i cant be sure the source is still extant. but if light is a wave lapping against us, an ocean undulating through dimension and shadow, then time is the stick, and it puts a wave of light into the chaos, engulfing and feeding it. then light recedes, taking with it what was left of near waves, and leaves the rest, all land, in darkness.
which of the following can we infer that the narrator would most likely believe about the nature of existence?
mental processes alone are not real, there must be physical reality.
mental processes alone can be real, the physical reality needs no longer to exist.
mental events are the only reality.
physical events are the only reality.

Explanation:

The passage reflects on memories of Mercer, suggesting that the narrator's mental recollections are a significant part of how they perceive the town and existence. It implies that mental experiences can be as real as physical reality, and there's a sense that the town exists in the narrator's mind as much as in the physical world. The idea that the narrator's memories are vivid and ever - changing indicates an emphasis on mental experiences.

Answer:

Mental processes alone can be real; the physical reality needs no longer to exist.