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.

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