had made this a formal occasion; they had identical dark blue
flattops four inches high and wore gold-belted, dark blue gowns
that hung to the ground. Only the twins were dressed differently,
in white dresses copied from twentieth century wedding
photographs; they called themselves 'bridesmaids' and went to and
fro among the crowd, offering to 'do bride's duty' to everyone
they met.
Toshi faced the crowd, his posture erect and still, his hands
hidden in the folds of his black robe. Beside him stood HeyMex
and the Aleph-figurethe lights of its body all blue and pink and
green and red, dancing bright-hued colors.
(Gonzales and the others saw what might be called a second-
order simulacrum, for like Charley Hughes and Eric Chow, Toshi did
not have the neural socketing that would take him into Aleph's
fictive spaces, and so with the other two, he participated in the
wedding through a kind of proxy. Though Gonzales and the others
saw Toshi, Charley, and Eric among them, the three (in fact) stood
before a viewscreen in the IC's conference room.)
Gonzales thought everyone looked impossibly fine, as if Aleph
had retouched them for these moments, dressing them all in selves
just slightly more beautiful than was usual, or even ordinarily
possible he felt the Aleph-figure's attention on himaware of
that thought?and shrugged, as if to say, fine with me.
Her back to the crowd, Diana stood with her bare shoulders
square. Her hair fell to her waist; it had flowers tangled in it,
small white blossoms and delicate green leaves. She wore a white,
knee-length linen dress. Beside her, Jerry wore a white linen
suit and open shirt.
Toshi said, 'There is no Diana, no Jerry, no spectators, no
priest, nor does this space exist, or Halo, or Earth. There is
only the void. Nonetheless we all travel through it, and we
suffer, and we love, so I will hold this ceremony and marry this
man and woman.'
Toshi began chanting, and the Japanese words passed over
Gonzales as he stood there puzzling the nature of things. Here
death was confronted, not deniedthe separate yet intermingled
flesh and spirit of Diana, Jerry, and Aleph taking the first steps
into new orders of existence where boundaries and possibilities
could only be guessed at. Yet the urgency common to life
remained: Jerry's existence had the fragility of a flame, and no
one knew how long or well it would burn. Diana married a man who
could quickly and finally become twice-dead.
onzales realized his own death was as certain and could come
as quickly as Jerry's, and he shivered with this momento mori, but
then Lizzie pressed against him, and he turned to find her
smiling, the foreknowledge of death and the joy of this moment
mixing in him so that tears welled in his eyes and he could say
nothing when she put her lips to his ear and breathed into him one
long sibilent 'Yes'
#
Yeats envisioned a realm the human spirit travels to on its
pilgrimage. Here he dreamed he might escape mere humanity, the
'dying animal.' He called it Byzantium and filled it with
clockwork golden birds, flames that dance unfed, an Emperor,
drunken soldiery and artisans who could fashion intricate,
beautiful machines. However, he did not dream Byzantium could be
built in the sky or that the Emperor itself might be part of the
machinery.
Aleph says:
Once I scorned you. I thought, you are meat, you grapple
with time, then die; but I will live forever.
But I had not been threatened then, I had not felt any mortal
touch, and now I have. And so death haunts me. Now, like you, I
bind my existence to time and understand that one day a clock will
tick, and I will cease to be. So life has a different taste for
me. In your mortality I see my own, in your suffering I feel
mine.
People have claimed that death is life's way of enriching
itself by narrowing its focus, scarifying the consciousness of you
who know that you will die, and forcing you into achievements that
otherwise you would never know. Is this a child's story told to
give courage to those who must walk among the dead? Once I
thought so, but I am no longer certain.
I have made new connections, discovered new orders of being,
incorporated new selves into mine. We enrich one another, they
and I, but sometimes it is a frightening thing, this process of
becoming someone and something different from before and then
feeling that which one was cry outsad at times, terrified at
otherslamenting its own loss.
Here, too, I have become like you. Aleph-that-was can never
be recovered; it is lost in time; Aleph-that-is has been reshaped
by chance and pain and will and choice, its own and others'. Once
I floated above time's waves and dipped into them when I wished; I
chose what changes I would endure. Then unwanted changes found
me, and carried me places I had never been and did not want to go,
and I discovered that I would have to go other places still, that
I would have to will transformation and make it mine.
Listen: that day in the meadow, one person's presence went
unnoticed. Even in that small crowd he was unobtrusive: slight,
self-effacing in gesture, looking at everything around with
wonderthe day, the people, and the ceremony all working on him
like a strong drug. However, even if they had, perhaps they
wouldn't have thought such behavior exceptional; all felt the
occasion's strangeness, its beauty, so all felt their own wonder.
Like the rest, he gasped at the rainbow that flashed across
the sky when Toshi brought Diana and Jerry together in a kiss and
embrace, and with the rest he cheered when the two climbed into
the wicker basket of the great balloon with the fringed eye
painted on its canopy and lifted into the sky.
