edits, publication of Motes Played

idumea/content/008.tex

@@ -6,27 +6,27 @@ I am very nearly there, too, to the end that you doubtless know is coming. There
 
 \secdiv
 
-We are women, much of the clade. There are some men, yes, and many who have exited such limitations as gender offers, but many of us remain women. Woman who are skunks, perhaps, or women who are cats, or women who are shaped some other thing --- for is not there also joy in the furry identity with which we fell in love so many centuries ago? --- but we are women still. We are so many of us still the short and fat and white and Jewish and dramatic and at-times-ebullient and at-times-depressed women that once Michelle who was Sasha embodied.
+We are women, much of the clade. There are some men, yes, and many who have exited such limitations as gender offers, but many of us remain women. Woman who are skunks, perhaps, or women who are cats, or women who are shaped some other thing—for is not there also joy in the furry identity with which we fell in love so many centuries ago?—but we are women still. We are so many of us still the short and fat and white and Jewish and dramatic and at-times-ebullient and at-times-depressed women that once Michelle who was Sasha embodied.
 
 I can still look like this! I think we all can. You know as well as I do, dear friends, that our memory is untainted by time, that years and years, and years and years and years may pass, and yet we remember so much with such clarity that it makes me wonder, sometimes, and it makes me tremble. How clearly I remember the day! How clearly I remember the day that, having made it at last to the north north north and west of Yakutsk, my friend Debarre and I sat in a waiting room--
 
-My friends, those of you who uploaded more recently, who uploaded even around the time of Secession must understand just how \emph{complicated} everything was. We uploaded, Debarre and I uploaded as soon as we could afford to. It was so expensive, those days! It was so expensive and I scrimped and saved for almost two years as soon as the procedure was announced and Debarre wiped all his savings and his retirement account and liquidated his stock and even then --- \emph{even then!} --- we still had to borrow money from\ldots ah, but I am wandering.
+My friends, those of you who uploaded more recently, who uploaded even around the time of Secession must understand just how \emph{complicated} everything was. We uploaded, Debarre and I uploaded as soon as we could afford to. It was so expensive, those days! It was so expensive and I scrimped and saved for almost two years as soon as the procedure was announced and Debarre wiped all his savings and his retirement account and liquidated his stock and even then—\emph{even then!}—we still had to borrow money from\ldots ah, but I am wandering.
 
 Our memory is as perfect and untainted by time as ever it has been since that first day that we uploaded--
 
 My friend Debarre and I gathered every penny, and even then we still had to borrow some few thousand dollars to make the final trip from the central corridor of North America to the very first location of the System, up north north north and west of Yakutsk, where we stayed two nights in a hotel room or perhaps repurposed apartment yellowed to sepia by age, where the kettle was white enameled with a faint floral print around the lid, and yet the bottom of it had been so carbonized over time that it was blacker than black, and may well be the inspiration for The Child's paintings, and there we spent a night and a day and part of a night talking and talking, and talking and talking and talking, asking each other over and over and over who would go first, for the last thing we were told after we were shown to our door, after we were told that we would be locked in for security's sake, after we were told to simply lift the receiver on the ancient telephone if we needed anything beyond water, was that our procedures would not be taking place on the same day, that one of us would have to wait one more day, that one of us would have to sit, aching, locked in the apartment for twenty-four hours longer than the other, that one of us would not hear whether or not the other's procedure was successful and yet would still be committed either way to their own, that we would not know of success or failure until after all was said and done, and could we please simply lift the receiver on the ancient telephone to tell them by midnight\ldots ah, but I am wandering.
 
-What I mean to say is that our memory is perfect, that I can still look like that scared, scared woman --- a woman who was sometimes a skunk, yes, and who remembered being at times a panther, but still a woman --- who first uploaded within a day of her friend Debarre--
+What I mean to say is that our memory is perfect, that I can still look like that scared, scared woman—a woman who was sometimes a skunk, yes, and who remembered being at times a panther, but still a woman—who first uploaded within a day of her friend Debarre--
 
 And so we were locked into that room together, that hotel room or perhaps repurposed apartment yellowed to sepia by age, drinking tea after tea after tea because we were too nervous to sleep and not allowed to eat any food until just before the procedure, when we would be offered a hearty breakfast so that we would not upload feeling hungry, to that world that did not yet have food. We sat and we drank tea and we held hands and we talked quietly with each other trying to decide who would sit and ache, locked in a hotel room or apartment, and who would sit and ache, locked in some new world of uploaded minds. We sat and we drank tea and we begged and pleaded first for one and then the other, and then we lay down on the two single beds in the dark, facing each other, that first night, and begged and pleaded yet more until, finally, we pulled out the nightstand that sat between them and pushed the beds together so that we could once more hold hands in silence, wondering to ourselves who it was who would be the first, and then, at ten 'til midnight, we lifted the receiver on the ancient telephone\ldots ah, but I am wandering.
 
 Ah, my dear, \emph{dear} readers, you know that I am struggling, I will not apologize any further than I have already. I will focus, and I will tell you about shapes.
 
-What I have meant to tell you, what I have been trying to tell you and failing as waves of words wash over me, is that I remember what it was like to be that shape. I, \emph{too,} can look like Michelle who was Sasha did. I do not choose to do so often --- I have not done so in some decades --- but I know that I still can, for I just now tried forking into such a shape. The Woman looked like that perhaps one third of the time, yes?
+What I have meant to tell you, what I have been trying to tell you and failing as waves of words wash over me, is that I remember what it was like to be that shape. I, \emph{too,} can look like Michelle who was Sasha did. I do not choose to do so often—I have not done so in some decades—but I know that I still can, for I just now tried forking into such a shape. The Woman looked like that perhaps one third of the time, yes?
 
 Many of those within our clade still look like her, to some extent or another, and one of those, one who came to visit me not a week after I met with The Woman, was The Blue Fairy.
 
-The Blue Fairy did not look \emph{precisely} as Michelle who was Sasha did, of course, and very few of us do, except perhaps some of those in the tenth stanza. For, you see, the sixth stanza, the one from which The Blue Fairy originates, found itself focused keenly on feelings of motherhood. This is not, you must understand, restricted to those feelings of giving birth --- though perhaps some linger in that sense --- nor of having or raising children --- though The Blue Fairy is called `Ma 2.0' by The Child --- but it is a general sense, a broad definition that encompasses the feeling of love that dwell within us and how they apply to the whole of the world.
+The Blue Fairy did not look \emph{precisely} as Michelle who was Sasha did, of course, and very few of us do, except perhaps some of those in the tenth stanza. For, you see, the sixth stanza, the one from which The Blue Fairy originates, found itself focused keenly on feelings of motherhood. This is not, you must understand, restricted to those feelings of giving birth—though perhaps some linger in that sense—nor of having or raising children—though The Blue Fairy is called `Ma 2.0' by The Child—but it is a general sense, a broad definition that encompasses the feeling of love that dwell within us and how they apply to the whole of the world.
 
 For The Blue Fairy, these feelings of motherhood and motherliness and the love of feeling like a mother were directed towards the System itself, the System as a whole, the System as a marvel of a world into which we are dreamed. She is the System's mother, and it is her baby.
 
@@ -36,15 +36,15 @@ Do you see, now? Lagrange is her child, and she is its mother.
 
 For some years, for some handful of decades, she worked as a systech, as one of those who work in service of our world, finding those who have crashed and unwinding their core dumps, finding those who are struggling and helping to bring them to safety to comfort to happiness to the present moment. She stepped from sim to sim, wonder at the world filling her eyes and her mind, and she found the ways in which it could be better, could be so much better, and she brought those to the attention of those outside our world, those phys-side techs working jobs so similar to her own.
 
-One day, however many years ago, definitely more than one hundred but certainly less than two, She grew weary of this last aspect, for when it comes to any relationship between two countries --- and do not forget, dear readers, we \emph{long} ago seceded! Seceded from the Sino-Russian Bloc and the Western Federation and the rest of the physical world --- there was more bureaucracy than there was forward movement, and The Blue Fairy's baby was wrapped up in tape red and yellow.
+One day, however many years ago, definitely more than one hundred but certainly less than two, She grew weary of this last aspect, for when it comes to any relationship between two countries—and do not forget, dear readers, we \emph{long} ago seceded! Seceded from the Sino-Russian Bloc and the Western Federation and the rest of the physical world—there was more bureaucracy than there was forward movement, and The Blue Fairy's baby was wrapped up in tape red and yellow.
 
-And so, she forked. She promised herself a two-week vacation while a fork took her place, time off to wander sims and drink mochas and fall in love with the world again. Two weeks simply became years, is all, definitely more than one hundred but certainly less than two, and her fork --- now with a name of her own --- continued on in her stead, and they loved each other for what each had done --- The Blue Fairy loved her fork for carrying on in the work, and her fork loved The Blue Fairy for finding ways to love the world.
+And so, she forked. She promised herself a two-week vacation while a fork took her place, time off to wander sims and drink mochas and fall in love with the world again. Two weeks simply became years, is all, definitely more than one hundred but certainly less than two, and her fork—now with a name of her own—continued on in her stead, and they loved each other for what each had done—The Blue Fairy loved her fork for carrying on in the work, and her fork loved The Blue Fairy for finding ways to love the world.
 
 They loved each other, and then, as has been the theme throughout, the world coiled around and ate itself and a score and a handful of billions of our two-and-change trillion souls did not return, and among them was The Blue Fairy's fork. They loved each other right up until the end, and then The Blue Fairy loved her lost fork alone.
 
 And so here she was, no longer just a cocladist of mine, just a woman who wandered sims and drank mochas and loved the world, but once more a systech, once more a fairy, once more The Blue Fairy.
 
-And so here she was, \emph{here,} Standing before my door, my second visitor in a week, bowing to me and greeting me with such kindness as I have ever seen from her, whenever we have had cause to meet --- not infrequently, for she was also fond of my beloved up-tree.
+And so here she was, \emph{here,} Standing before my door, my second visitor in a week, bowing to me and greeting me with such kindness as I have ever seen from her, whenever we have had cause to meet—not infrequently, for she was also fond of my beloved up-tree.
 
 ``Tell me, Dry Grass, how you have been,'' I said once we were settled around the table in my house, that dining table which so easily expanded to fit all who would join and yet now was small and intimate.
 
@@ -68,11 +68,11 @@ Eventually, she replied: ``That is actually part of why I came here, Rye.''
 
 ``I came to speak with you about End Of Endings.''
 
-I sat up straighter. My friends, you will surely understand when I say that The Woman had been on my mind much in the intervening days, in that week between when I last saw her and this lovely afternoon with The Blue Fairy. Her loveliness shined bright in my thoughts, and I still felt blessed --- still \emph{feel} blessed! --- by each and every one of her smiles and quiet laughs. ``Yes, I have spoken with her recently. Warmth and I have both, I mean.''
+I sat up straighter. My friends, you will surely understand when I say that The Woman had been on my mind much in the intervening days, in that week between when I last saw her and this lovely afternoon with The Blue Fairy. Her loveliness shined bright in my thoughts, and I still felt blessed—still \emph{feel} blessed!—by each and every one of her smiles and quiet laughs. ``Yes, I have spoken with her recently. Warmth and I have both, I mean.''
 
-``Yes, she mentioned such to me. She mentioned you two, Motes, Slow Hours, Beholden, No Hesitation, Ever Dream, Rejoice, Farai --- a woman with whom she has at times dated --- and a few incidental friends she has made in the last month or so. I have been meeting up with each of them to get a better sense of what is happening. You are the last on my list.''
+``Yes, she mentioned such to me. She mentioned you two, Motes, Slow Hours, Beholden, No Hesitation, Ever Dream, Rejoice, Farai—a woman with whom she has at times dated—and a few incidental friends she has made in the last month or so. I have been meeting up with each of them to get a better sense of what is happening. You are the last on my list.''
 
-I thought this through --- and even thinking through it now, I wonder at it. The Blue Fairy gave me her reason --- ``I am asking you last of all because I think your experience with stories may help me make better sense of everything,'' she said when I asked why me --- and yet even now I linger on this thought that The Woman wove between us all --- between all of those that The Blue Fairy mentioned --- a gossamer web of connections. She was the strands --- perhaps she still remains those strands! --- and along those spider-silk-thin lines flow connections built on the blessings she bestowed upon us all. We do not feel stuck, I do not think. We are not bugs in someone absent spider's web. But what are we? Are we the nodes? Are we the sticky radial lines capturing ideas of her, or are we the unsticky spiral that allows us to pick apart our understanding?
+I thought this through—and even thinking through it now, I wonder at it. The Blue Fairy gave me her reason—``I am asking you last of all because I think your experience with stories may help me make better sense of everything,'' she said when I asked why me—and yet even now I linger on this thought that The Woman wove between us all—between all of those that The Blue Fairy mentioned—a gossamer web of connections. She was the strands—perhaps she still remains those strands!—and along those spider-silk-thin lines flow connections built on the blessings she bestowed upon us all. We do not feel stuck, I do not think. We are not bugs in someone absent spider's web. But what are we? Are we the nodes? Are we the sticky radial lines capturing ideas of her, or are we the unsticky spiral that allows us to pick apart our understanding?
 
 I spoke then at length with The Blue Fairy, hearing all that she had to say, all that I have told you, dear readers, already, and so much more. So, \emph{so} much more! For The Woman had sat with The Blue Fairy for nearly ten hours, expressing all of this and slowly making for her an argument.
 
@@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ She shook her head, chuckling. ``Oh, not at all. I am quite back-and-forth on th
 
 ``I have heard of those, yes. I have visited Nanbrethil.''
 
-``Of course you have,'' she said, smirking. ``But no, she said that she had already read up on some such groups and did not think that this is what she was after. She was after specifically `unbecoming', and this, she believed, was not the same as the thing that these groups were after. She said,''They are after an experience, and I do not fault them for that, but I am after an existence. They wish to do, I wish to be.'' When I suggested that perhaps there might be others who are interested in that, she cut me off --- very politely, of course! --- and said that that may well be, but that she came to me specifically because of our connection.''
+``Of course you have,'' she said, smirking. ``But no, she said that she had already read up on some such groups and did not think that this is what she was after. She was after specifically `unbecoming', and this, she believed, was not the same as the thing that these groups were after. She said,''They are after an experience, and I do not fault them for that, but I am after an existence. They wish to do, I wish to be.'' When I suggested that perhaps there might be others who are interested in that, she cut me off—very politely, of course!—and said that that may well be, but that she came to me specifically because of our connection.''
 
 ``Connection?''
 
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ Now \emph{this} was a thought, dear readers. This was a thought that danced up a
 
 Some of you, perhaps some of my newer uploads, or my littler readers, or maybe some of those who have lived for centuries, might wonder at this. They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is asking to be absolved of all those except the barest responsibilities of living.'' They might wonder: ``Rye, it seems to me like The Woman is abdicating on life in a way that she can deny is suicide.'' Perhaps they might wonder: ``Rye, The Woman has chosen for herself a next step, a beautiful exploration.'' And all of them might wonder: ``Rye, why is it that you are being asked this in particular? Why is Dry Grass not asking for your opinion on whether The Woman should or should not do this thing?''
 
-And I think that, to these musings, I might reply: ``My friends, my lovely friends, a beautiful consequence of cladistics is that this is simply not my role. Yes, I had feelings on the thought of The Woman existing within perpetual stillness --- of course I did! How then would I be blessed once more by her smile? --- and I did indeed tell those to The Blue Fairy, as you shall see, but that is the easy part. The hard part and the valuable thing that I might have to offer is that aspect that I have focused my life around, which is the telling of stories. There are others who might offer predictions for the future, those such as Slow Hours who live their life in prophecies, but it is my life to write the stories of the now, of the present, of the lives we are living and breathing pinned at the forefront of time's inevitable arrow. The Blue Fairy came to me with all of this research that I might have done myself when it comes to writing a story and asked me to build up a sense of The Woman's life that we may better understand.''
+And I think that, to these musings, I might reply: ``My friends, my lovely friends, a beautiful consequence of cladistics is that this is simply not my role. Yes, I had feelings on the thought of The Woman existing within perpetual stillness—of course I did! How then would I be blessed once more by her smile?—and I did indeed tell those to The Blue Fairy, as you shall see, but that is the easy part. The hard part and the valuable thing that I might have to offer is that aspect that I have focused my life around, which is the telling of stories. There are others who might offer predictions for the future, those such as Slow Hours who live their life in prophecies, but it is my life to write the stories of the now, of the present, of the lives we are living and breathing pinned at the forefront of time's inevitable arrow. The Blue Fairy came to me with all of this research that I might have done myself when it comes to writing a story and asked me to build up a sense of The Woman's life that we may better understand.''
 
 And so, I agreed, and The Blue Fairy and I agreed that I would sleep on it for one night, and then talked of other things for a few minutes longer before she quit to merge back down, while I bathed in this research already done, and told within myself a story.
 
@@ -134,17 +134,17 @@ And so, I agreed, and The Blue Fairy and I agreed that I would sleep on it for o
 
 She frowned, lingering in silence, and then nodded. ``And I worry that that, too, will be uncomfortable for us. We will see her still among us, but will we see her happy? If she is miserable, I do not think I would like that, either.''
 
-``Yes. When we spoke yesterday, I was quite against the idea. I know that, if she does continue living, if she does not quit, she can always come back to us, but it still came with a sense of wanting to do everything I could to prevent that.'' I sighed --- I remember that well, I sighed as though I was breathing out my complicated feelings in a way that speaking them would not quite do justice --- and continued. ``And yet now, having done as you suggested. I feel perhaps more the opposite. If she is, as she has suggested via her various conversations, as Rejoice has suggested, suffering, then who are we to suggest she linger there? Even if it is not a kind of suffering that we do not understand, it would be rather cruel of us, would it not? And yet is life not hard? And yet decisions ought to be respected, yes?'' I laughed and waggled my paw back and forth. ``This is difficult, and that, in and of itself, is a good story.''
+``Yes. When we spoke yesterday, I was quite against the idea. I know that, if she does continue living, if she does not quit, she can always come back to us, but it still came with a sense of wanting to do everything I could to prevent that.'' I sighed—I remember that well, I sighed as though I was breathing out my complicated feelings in a way that speaking them would not quite do justice—and continued. ``And yet now, having done as you suggested. I feel perhaps more the opposite. If she is, as she has suggested via her various conversations, as Rejoice has suggested, suffering, then who are we to suggest she linger there? Even if it is not a kind of suffering that we do not understand, it would be rather cruel of us, would it not? And yet is life not hard? And yet decisions ought to be respected, yes?'' I laughed and waggled my paw back and forth. ``This is difficult, and that, in and of itself, is a good story.''
 
 The Blue Fairy groaned and covered her face in her hands. ``Fuck. Rye, why is this so hard? Why did she ask me?''
 
 ``Because you are a good person. She respects you, yes? And you are a cocladist. You \emph{are} her, in a way,'' I said, squeezing her upper arm kindly. ``She is looking to someone she respects and someone she \emph{is} to either give her blessings by helping, or to talk her out of it. The decision is not whether or not she should, but whether or not we should. It is not a judgment on her, if it is a judgment at all, but it is a judgment on us.''
 
-I, dear readers, dear, \emph{dear} friends, I am trying to believe this. I am trying to live into this. I am trying to feel that I have been judged for making that decision, the decision that I did, the decision to let go --- for I am sure that you see now just where this is going; have I not written so much in the past tense? --- and been judged worthy. I hope that, if God exists, that They will smile and brush my mane out of my eyes and rest their paw --- for am I not made in their image? Am I not \emph{b'tzelem Elohim?} --- and say to me, ``It is okay, Rye. To let go is difficult, but it is okay. Sometimes one must let go.''
+I, dear readers, dear, \emph{dear} friends, I am trying to believe this. I am trying to live into this. I am trying to feel that I have been judged for making that decision, the decision that I did, the decision to let go—for I am sure that you see now just where this is going; have I not written so much in the past tense?—and been judged worthy. I hope that, if God exists, that They will smile and brush my mane out of my eyes and rest their paw—for am I not made in their image? Am I not \emph{b'tzelem Elohim?}—and say to me, ``It is okay, Rye. To let go is difficult, but it is okay. Sometimes one must let go.''
 
 But here is the point where my mind was made up, and I will admit to being somewhat ashamed that it was something so simple as this, but I am a simple skunk. One might call me a one-dimensional person and not be wrong. This is the point in the story where I made that decision.
 
-``I do not think we would ever know, is all. You are right in that she has said that this is not a death, but we would not ever know. The reason she came to me is not necessarily to help her turn into a tree --- though I will also help her with that --- but to modify her record in the perisystem clade listing to be grayed out.''
+``I do not think we would ever know, is all. You are right in that she has said that this is not a death, but we would not ever know. The reason she came to me is not necessarily to help her turn into a tree—though I will also help her with that—but to modify her record in the perisystem clade listing to be grayed out.''
 
 I sat up straighter, hearing this! How intriguing! ``As in when one has locked down their visibility?''
 
@@ -172,9 +172,9 @@ I struggled for a minute, and it was not for want of words, for I knew the words
 
 Her shoulders slumped, and she looked at me with tired eyes, searching eyes. ``What is your reason for her request of an exception, then?''
 
-``She is keeping her last bit of agency for herself,'' I said --- slowly, for I was not so rehearsed with these words, and I have a habit of rehearsing much of what I say. ``She is saying,''This final decision is mine. You may decide whether or not to help me, but if you do, I will make the final decision.'' She tells the end of her story alone, and we will have to tell ours for ourselves.''
+``She is keeping her last bit of agency for herself,'' I said—slowly, for I was not so rehearsed with these words, and I have a habit of rehearsing much of what I say. ``She is saying,''This final decision is mine. You may decide whether or not to help me, but if you do, I will make the final decision.'' She tells the end of her story alone, and we will have to tell ours for ourselves.''
 
-We spent some minutes then in silence --- a comfortable silence, friends; I did not feel like we were waiting for the other to speak --- simply drinking our mochas and looking out the window together.
+We spent some minutes then in silence—a comfortable silence, friends; I did not feel like we were waiting for the other to speak—simply drinking our mochas and looking out the window together.
 
 At last, The Blue Fairy smiled to me. ``Alright. I will do as she has asked. It kills me, Rye. It hurts, but I will do as she has asked.''
 
@@ -186,7 +186,7 @@ My friends, my beautiful beloved readers, I am lost. I am all but lost. I have e
 
 \emph{``It is done.''}
 
-The Blue Fairy met The Woman at the foot of the steps of the house, that Gothic house on the field of grass and dandelions and perhaps clover. She stood, this wonderful and sad and amazing woman at the base of the steps of the house and looked up to the door as The Woman stepped forth. With each step, The Woman changed. Every time her foot or paw hit the ground, she became a new thing. She was now The Woman who was The Human and she was now The Woman who was The Panther and she was now The Woman who was The Skunk, and always --- \emph{always} always always in all ways always --- she was smiling and her smile was a blessing upon the whole of the world. Upon the house, upon the field of grass and dandelions and perhaps clover, upon The Blue Fairy upon, when she turned around, the remainder of her stanza who all stepped out onto the porch to watch her go.
+The Blue Fairy met The Woman at the foot of the steps of the house, that Gothic house on the field of grass and dandelions and perhaps clover. She stood, this wonderful and sad and amazing woman at the base of the steps of the house and looked up to the door as The Woman stepped forth. With each step, The Woman changed. Every time her foot or paw hit the ground, she became a new thing. She was now The Woman who was The Human and she was now The Woman who was The Panther and she was now The Woman who was The Skunk, and always—\emph{always} always always in all ways always—she was smiling and her smile was a blessing upon the whole of the world. Upon the house, upon the field of grass and dandelions and perhaps clover, upon The Blue Fairy upon, when she turned around, the remainder of her stanza who all stepped out onto the porch to watch her go.
 
 There, The Blue Fairy bowed. She bowed and held out her hand and let The Woman rest her hand her paw her paw her hand her paw her paw her hand within it to let herself be guided down to the field like some princess greeted by some royal courtier or perhaps a prince from a far away kingdom. There, The Blue Fairy basked in this blessing of a smile from The Woman, her cocladist from far, far across the clade, and led her gently from the field and to the city.
 
@@ -200,21 +200,21 @@ There was no door.
 
 There was no door as they stepped through to the city and landed in the alleyway in which The Woman usually arrived. They, then, were briefly alone. They were alone in the cool shade of the buildings and the crispness of the air and the staticky sound of the fallen leaves skittering around their feet and feet and paws and paws and feet and paws and feet and paws and paws and--
 
-They walked lightly and in silence as they stepped along the sidewalk and boarded the trolley to ride three stops, three stops, three stops to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved, and there was no one there --- not a request but a felicity a chance a happenstance that befell them, that they stand there at the entrance to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved alone and surrounded by the quiet sounds of the breeze that wafted between the buildings and past doors and against skin against fur against fur against skin against skin against skin against fur against skin against--
+They walked lightly and in silence as they stepped along the sidewalk and boarded the trolley to ride three stops, three stops, three stops to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved, and there was no one there—not a request but a felicity a chance a happenstance that befell them, that they stand there at the entrance to the coffee shop that The Woman and Her Friend always loved alone and surrounded by the quiet sounds of the breeze that wafted between the buildings and past doors and against skin against fur against fur against skin against skin against skin against fur against skin against--
 
 The Woman and The Blue Fairy stood before the coffeeshop on the sidewalk where there was a new thing, where there was a square cut into the paving stones on the sidewalk two meters on a side and a grate of steel or iron set into it with a sunburst pattern and, in the center, a circle of good, clean soil.
 
 There, The Woman turned a slow circle and smiled one final blessing on the world and faced at last The Blue Fairy, who would be the last person to be so blessed, and The Blue Fairy guided The Woman The Skunk The Panther The Woman The Woman The Woman The Woman down to her knees and knelt with her and reached up and brushed her hair her mane her forehead her hair her mane her forehead, and leaned in to place a gentle kiss atop her head, and then The Woman nodded, and then The Blue Fairy stood and, crying, signaled to the System The Poet The Dreamer our superlative friend that all was as it should be and that all should proceed as it ought and then, there, at last, finally, without further action, she watched.
 
-The Woman, as she dreamed, as I have always dreamed since and dreamed before and perhaps all of us dream at some point or another, dug her fingers down into the soil. Down and down and down she pushed, and as she did, she felt her fingers lengthen, stretching and twisting, seeking nutrients and water, seeking final --- final! --- purchase. They twisted and stretched down as roots and spiraling up her arms was a texture like bark and the bones of her neck and back elongated and her eyes sought \emph{HaShem} or The Dreamer or some greater void and her hair greened to that of leaves and drank thirstily of the sunlight.
+The Woman, as she dreamed, as I have always dreamed since and dreamed before and perhaps all of us dream at some point or another, dug her fingers down into the soil. Down and down and down she pushed, and as she did, she felt her fingers lengthen, stretching and twisting, seeking nutrients and water, seeking final—final!—purchase. They twisted and stretched down as roots and spiraling up her arms was a texture like bark and the bones of her neck and back elongated and her eyes sought \emph{HaShem} or The Dreamer or some greater void and her hair greened to that of leaves and drank thirstily of the sunlight.
 
 She dreamed of words like leaves and sentences like branches and stories like trunks, standing solid, with premises like roots dug into logic like earth and drinking of emotions like water. There was the tree, yes, for there was the green of the words and the brown of the story and the deep darkness of logic and emotion.
 
 And above was the sun which was also The Dreamer who dreams us all.
 
-Finally --- finally! --- with one orgasmic flush of joy, The Woman became The Tree, and there was a joy everlasting in such stillness.
+Finally—finally!—with one orgasmic flush of joy, The Woman became The Tree, and there was a joy everlasting in such stillness.
 
-There, The Blue Fairy stood for for an hour or more, simply crying, now standing before the tree, now sitting at its base, now pacing a long circle around it, and always she cried, and she watered the thirsty roots of The Tree which once was The Woman with her tears and the passers-by looked on with curiosity or studiously ignored her or perhaps offered words of condolences, but all --- all all all all \emph{all} --- looked on with wonder at this brand new thing, this new occurrence, this new beauty of a tree, a catalpa that would one day bloom white flowers and leave behind forgotten pods of seeds that rattled joyously against the ground.
+There, The Blue Fairy stood for for an hour or more, simply crying, now standing before the tree, now sitting at its base, now pacing a long circle around it, and always she cried, and she watered the thirsty roots of The Tree which once was The Woman with her tears and the passers-by looked on with curiosity or studiously ignored her or perhaps offered words of condolences, but all—all all all all \emph{all}—looked on with wonder at this brand new thing, this new occurrence, this new beauty of a tree, a catalpa that would one day bloom white flowers and leave behind forgotten pods of seeds that rattled joyously against the ground.
 
 And then, when her tears were gone and the roots of the tree had slaked their thirst, The Blue Fairy sent us all a simple message, three simple words, one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one by one she told us:
 
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like so many leaves and the white p
 
 And The Woman? This is what makes me wonder and makes me tremble: what of her? Is she alive still? Or did she quit and are we left not with a tree that is her but simply a tree? Simply that which drinks thirstily from this dream of a ground. Is that her or is it a dream of dumb matter? If she is still there, if she is still alive, if she is still that tree, then is she still at last? Is she merely herself at last? Has she landed at last upon the ground and sat up, dazed, and looked about her new life and said, ``Oh! Oh, I do believe this is some plentiful enough for me''?
 
-Because if that is so, what of us? My little readers may be rubbing the tears from their eyes or tilting their heads in confusion as I wonder at them: what of us? If that really \emph{is} her, if she really \emph{is} that tree, and if she really \emph{is} at last at rest, then what does that mean for me, who cries ink down into her fur --- a skunk! Is it really any wonder that black fur suits me so? What does that mean for my clade? For Her Friend, who struggles and strives to reclaim that which has failed and turn it into some bijou and yet who, when ey falls, feels that all the work ey has done is not just for naught, but has hurt those who ey sought to help?
+Because if that is so, what of us? My little readers may be rubbing the tears from their eyes or tilting their heads in confusion as I wonder at them: what of us? If that really \emph{is} her, if she really \emph{is} that tree, and if she really \emph{is} at last at rest, then what does that mean for me, who cries ink down into her fur—a skunk! Is it really any wonder that black fur suits me so? What does that mean for my clade? For Her Friend, who struggles and strives to reclaim that which has failed and turn it into some bijou and yet who, when ey falls, feels that all the work ey has done is not just for naught, but has hurt those who ey sought to help?
 
 My own Friend, who will most certainly read this and reach out to me to see if I am okay, she has said that she wonders at times whether we are all doomed to die. She was with me, with all of us there on the field, as I watched my root instance look up to the sky, breathe in a million billion trillion years and then quit, and so now she wonders at times whether we are all doomed to do as she did, to look up to the sky, breathe in every year of our lives and the lives of all of our instances, and quit. If that is all that lays before us, what does that mean for us? If all that lies before every Odist and every hidden, forbidden self that we have spun out into the world is some forever death, then what does that mean for this time-bound now?