Edits, finished majority of Idumea

idumea/content/001.tex

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ Once upon a time there was--
 
 ``A king?'' my little readers will immediately say.
 
-No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a woman. She was not a fine woman, not a prize to adorn your arm or to set beside you at the head of a grand table, but a simple woman --- the kind we pass on the street and imagine some plain home life for. She has a house, one might think. There are floors and walls and windows, there are tables and chairs and sofas and beds. There is a shower and a claw-footed bathtub. There is a creaky step --- the eighth --- that she always swears she will fix.
+No, children, you are mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a woman. She was not a fine woman, not a prize to adorn your arm or to set beside you at the head of a grand table, but a simple woman—the kind we pass on the street and imagine some plain home life for. She has a house, one might think. There are floors and walls and windows, there are tables and chairs and sofas and beds. There is a shower and a claw-footed bathtub. There is a creaky step—the eighth—that she always swears she will fix.
 
 We must imagine such a woman happy. We must imagine that she has friends and that she goes and drinks okay wine or maybe strange cocktails with them at the most absurd bars. We must imagine that she comes home, wobbling slightly with each step, with some other simple woman on her arm. We must imagine sharing their kisses, being happy together.
 
@@ -36,7 +36,7 @@ She campaigned for herself and for the others as damaged as her, but I think thi
 
 She campaigned after uploading for individual rights for uploaded minds, before they were even cladists, before forking and sensorium messages and all of the other benefits that the System has to offer.
 
-She was whole because she maintained --- even while overflowing, I think! --- so many deeply held convictions that those around her need not suffer, even if she herself did. Especially, she would say, because she herself did.
+She was whole because she maintained—even while overflowing, I think!—so many deeply held convictions that those around her need not suffer, even if she herself did. Especially, she would say, because she herself did.
 
 I think that she would say, however, that she was \emph{too} whole. I think she would say that she was \emph{too} full, too much, too alive. I think she would say that almost three hundred years of a life that was lived as hers was, with her mind turned in on itself, was too much life. I think she would laugh that hoarse, dry laugh that always sounded like tears were on the way, and say that thirty years was probably too much for her.
 
@@ -68,7 +68,7 @@ Her Friend was a good person who always treated The Woman well. Ey knew just how
 
 \secdiv
 
-Every few years, there would be a gathering on her birthday --- their birthday, for Her Friend was also of the Ode clade, also of Michelle Hadje/Sasha --- and they would sit somewhere, whether it was out on the porch of the home The Woman shared with the rest of the tenth stanza, or out on the dandelion-speckled lawn, or, once the door had been built into the house, on rickety chairs outside a cafe over identical coffees.
+Every few years, there would be a gathering on her birthday—their birthday, for Her Friend was also of the Ode clade, also of Michelle Hadje/Sasha—and they would sit somewhere, whether it was out on the porch of the home The Woman shared with the rest of the tenth stanza, or out on the dandelion-speckled lawn, or, once the door had been built into the house, on rickety chairs outside a cafe over identical coffees.
 
 Every time they would meet up thus, The Woman and Her Friend would take a few minutes to themselves to have the same conversation:
 
@@ -86,7 +86,7 @@ And then Her Friend would ask The Woman if ey could hug her, and she would usual
 
 And after that, they would go to the rest of the party.
 
-I think you would like to see these parties, friends. I think that they would not be quite as you would expect, of course. They are not the kinds of birthday parties that you or I might have. Where we might have cakes and singing and the blowing out of candles, they would gather together over simple foods --- so many from the tenth stanza had such sensitive tastes, and it was so easy to make sure that everyone could eat everything! --- and often they would simply sit silent. They would sit there, quiet, but present in each other's company.
+I think you would like to see these parties, friends. I think that they would not be quite as you would expect, of course. They are not the kinds of birthday parties that you or I might have. Where we might have cakes and singing and the blowing out of candles, they would gather together over simple foods—so many from the tenth stanza had such sensitive tastes, and it was so easy to make sure that everyone could eat everything!—and often they would simply sit silent. They would sit there, quiet, but present in each other's company.
 
 They would not seem to be parties like you and I have because this was not all that different from what might happen once or twice a month at the house in which the tenth stanza all lived. While each lived their own lives, occasionally, their schedules would coincide and they would all sit down together at the giant oak table together and eat, mostly in silence.
 
@@ -100,7 +100,7 @@ But Should We Forget was no longer alive, not since the world had turned in on i
 
 \secdiv
 
-When Michelle/Sasha had quit, there on a field so similar to the one that she lived on, The Woman breathed out a sigh of relief, because she knew --- though I do not think she know how --- that Michelle/Sasha had found her own relief in those last moments. She had looked up to the sky, up to the Poet, up to the Dreamer who dreamed the world in which they lived, and in those moments she knew relief. She knew relief and she knew joy and she knew so, so much peace.
+When Michelle/Sasha had quit, there on a field so similar to the one that she lived on, The Woman breathed out a sigh of relief, because she knew—though I do not think she know how—that Michelle/Sasha had found her own relief in those last moments. She had looked up to the sky, up to the Poet, up to the Dreamer who dreamed the world in which they lived, and in those moments she knew relief. She knew relief and she knew joy and she knew so, so much peace.
 
 Peace! That was one of the things that The Woman craved. She wanted nothing more than to know a little bit of peace.
 

idumea/content/002.tex

@@ -10,9 +10,9 @@ She stood before the mirror and preened for a moment, adjusting the way her shir
 
 The trip to the city was as it ever was. She said to herself a little prayer and opened the door to her closet. Taking a deep breath, she stepped through, and as she did so, she brushed her fingertips against the jamb as ever, and today it felt right enough that she stepped lively out onto the city streets, out where the leaves skittered anxiously around her footpaws in the faint February breeze.
 
-Stuffing her paws into her pockets, she made her way down the street, where her entrance was located, to the main drag. The city was on the small end --- more large town than full on city --- and so it was still the type of place to have a main drag, a street built for cars that it does not actually have, with wide sidewalks paved in brick and a trolley that ran down the middle.
+Stuffing her paws into her pockets, she made her way down the street, where her entrance was located, to the main drag. The city was on the small end—more large town than full on city—and so it was still the type of place to have a main drag, a street built for cars that it does not actually have, with wide sidewalks paved in brick and a trolley that ran down the middle.
 
-The Woman waited for the next trolley car to come and stepped aboard, tucking her tail down and around her leg as she held onto one of the railings --- she never sat, and never could tell you why --- to ride it for three stops. This was part of the ritual. Even when the car was busy and she was not feeling so good, there was a part of her that was happy that she got to stand on this trolley and hold onto this railing and feel this rattle-buzz of the wheels rolling along the track through her feet or paws. It was not even particularly pleasant for her, I think, but it \emph{was} fulfilling.
+The Woman waited for the next trolley car to come and stepped aboard, tucking her tail down and around her leg as she held onto one of the railings—she never sat, and never could tell you why—to ride it for three stops. This was part of the ritual. Even when the car was busy and she was not feeling so good, there was a part of her that was happy that she got to stand on this trolley and hold onto this railing and feel this rattle-buzz of the wheels rolling along the track through her feet or paws. It was not even particularly pleasant for her, I think, but it \emph{was} fulfilling.
 
 She made it her three stops and stepped easily from the trolley to find herself before her usual coffee shop. There was so much comfort in routine sometimes. Not all routines are rituals, after all, sometimes there was just a coffee shop that you really like because it makes good mochas and always gives you extra whipped cream without being asked.
 
@@ -22,7 +22,7 @@ Once The Woman had her mocha with extra whip, once she had one of her usual tabl
 
 \secdiv
 
-The Woman loved a good mocha --- even I love a good mocha! --- and so she was plenty happy to go to the coffee shop every now and then to pick one up, to sit by the window and watch and listen to the world go by, but this was not why she is here today. This was her errand.
+The Woman loved a good mocha—even I love a good mocha!—and so she was plenty happy to go to the coffee shop every now and then to pick one up, to sit by the window and watch and listen to the world go by, but this was not why she is here today. This was her errand.
 
 That day, The Woman was here because Her Friend had asked to meet up.
 
@@ -32,7 +32,7 @@ Her Friend was always so stable, always so ready to speak and so ready to listen
 
 That had been in the context of learning more about The Woman and her stanza, though. It had been in the context of trying to understand what made the tenth stanza the tenth stanza. There had been an offer of help, but a very gentle one. The Woman had been the one to accept that offer, but more than that, Her Friend really did just want to learn, rather than teach, to listen rather than talk.
 
-Her Friend really did just want a friend, too, for the seventh stanza were all friends with each other, she was promised, and yet they had their own struggles. In Dreams was, she was ever promised, eager to help, eager to teach and to learn and to listen and to talk. There was advice to be given and the knowledge of psychology gleaned over however many hundreds of years now on offer --- was it really nearly 300? There was--
+Her Friend really did just want a friend, too, for the seventh stanza were all friends with each other, she was promised, and yet they had their own struggles. In Dreams was, she was ever promised, eager to help, eager to teach and to learn and to listen and to talk. There was advice to be given and the knowledge of psychology gleaned over however many hundreds of years now on offer—was it really nearly 300? There was--
 
 ``End Of Endings?''
 
@@ -78,7 +78,7 @@ It had not been all of them for sixty years, though. Not since Death Itself had
 
 Fifty-eight years since the last meal they had all shared together.
 
-Even so, The Woman --- her and her whole stanza --- insisted for years that it was all of them who ate together, when the remainder of the tenth ate together. \emph{All} of them, all together. They insisted on that, friends, just as they insisted on leaving two empty chairs at the table, two plates of food set before them.
+Even so, The Woman—her and her whole stanza—insisted for years that it was all of them who ate together, when the remainder of the tenth ate together. \emph{All} of them, all together. They insisted on that, friends, just as they insisted on leaving two empty chairs at the table, two plates of food set before them.
 
 With a deliberate motion of sharp-clawed paws, The Woman drew a definitive line across the table, defining an arc around her. With this, she blocked the topic off, reflected the thoughts of loss and trauma away from herself, out somewhere else. It was a practiced motion, smooth and careful, and one that Her Friend knew well.
 
@@ -86,15 +86,15 @@ Ey nodded, understanding, and continued. ``The reasons we might not eat with eac
 
 ``Is that what happened this time?''
 
-Her Friend hesitated. ``Yes,'' ey said carefully. ``I said something to In Dreams, I said that I was feeling unwell, that my stress had been high and that I was worried I might be overflowing --- or at least on the brink of such --- but also that I was feeling particularly rough about the Attack. I was feeling grief and loss.''
+Her Friend hesitated. ``Yes,'' ey said carefully. ``I said something to In Dreams, I said that I was feeling unwell, that my stress had been high and that I was worried I might be overflowing—or at least on the brink of such—but also that I was feeling particularly rough about the Attack. I was feeling grief and loss.''
 
 The Woman's breath caught in her throat.
 
-When I tell you that breath is important even sys-side, you must understand all of the different roles that it plays. We are built to breathe, you and I, and so is everyone else. We can turn that off, sure, but the vast majority of cladists find such uncomfortable. Not Breathing still feels like holding one's breath, yes? Even without the rising CO2 levels in our blood --- blood that we must only imagine that we have --- it is uncomfortable to feel like one is holding one's breath for too long.
+When I tell you that breath is important even sys-side, you must understand all of the different roles that it plays. We are built to breathe, you and I, and so is everyone else. We can turn that off, sure, but the vast majority of cladists find such uncomfortable. Not Breathing still feels like holding one's breath, yes? Even without the rising CO2 levels in our blood—blood that we must only imagine that we have—it is uncomfortable to feel like one is holding one's breath for too long.
 
 We use breath for speaking, and even though I am not speaking to you right now, I am still breathing. I still feel the warmth of my breath against my paw as it brushes across the page with each line of text. We use breath for gasping, for sighing, for even snoring!
 
-So when I tell you that The Woman's breath caught in her throat, you must imagine the way your breath might catch in your own throat when suddenly you hear something that causes a rising tide of emotions that takes precedence even over that, even over breathing. You must picture the way that you feel when, if you were to breathe, you fear there might be a whine of fear or a moan of terror --- or even pleasure, because we are no less susceptible to that.
+So when I tell you that The Woman's breath caught in her throat, you must imagine the way your breath might catch in your own throat when suddenly you hear something that causes a rising tide of emotions that takes precedence even over that, even over breathing. You must picture the way that you feel when, if you were to breathe, you fear there might be a whine of fear or a moan of terror—or even pleasure, because we are no less susceptible to that.
 
 And here, now, The Woman was feeling most of all grief. She feared that, were she to let her breath out, it would be that whine of fear, that moan of terror, a wave of tears.
 
@@ -114,11 +114,11 @@ She bowed. ``I would appreciate that, yes.''
 
 ``Is that what you wound up doing?''
 
-Ey shook eir head. ``I did not need that, my dear. I did not need to be told to go to therapy. I did not want to schedule an appointment.'' Ey finally took a sip of eir mocha, but this seemed to be less about the coffee than an opportunity to gather eir wits. ``I just wanted a friend, honestly. I just wanted a hug --- no, I understand, perhaps not your thing, but I must be earnest, yes? --- but instead, I got told to find a way to \emph{fix} this. Fix grief. Fix a very real pain.''
+Ey shook eir head. ``I did not need that, my dear. I did not need to be told to go to therapy. I did not want to schedule an appointment.'' Ey finally took a sip of eir mocha, but this seemed to be less about the coffee than an opportunity to gather eir wits. ``I just wanted a friend, honestly. I just wanted a hug—no, I understand, perhaps not your thing, but I must be earnest, yes?—but instead, I got told to find a way to \emph{fix} this. Fix grief. Fix a very real pain.''
 
 The Woman's features softened and, steeling herself for the touch, she reached across the table to pat the back of Her Friend's paw. ``I understand, No Hesitation. Would that I could offer more. I am happy to be a friend, though; I have no interest in telling you to go to therapy.''
 
-``Of course,'' ey said, smiling once more. ``I trust you of all people in that. I know that you have mentioned --- however kindly --- in the past that you have worried that I am simply providing you with therapy on the sly, but I trust that you know that is not the nature of our friendship.''
+``Of course,'' ey said, smiling once more. ``I trust you of all people in that. I know that you have mentioned—however kindly—in the past that you have worried that I am simply providing you with therapy on the sly, but I trust that you know that is not the nature of our friendship.''
 
 She nodded.
 
@@ -148,7 +148,7 @@ After a long few seconds, Her Friend tilted eir head. ``Yes?''
 
 Her Friend laughed, shaking eir head and leaning back with mocha in hand. ``This is what I needed, my dear. I needed to speak with a friend. I needed chat about memories and watching the way you smile when you talk even these sad things, not sitting on some therapist's couch for the third time in as many weeks.''
 
-The Woman preened. This, you see, is more than just a brushing out of imperfections, but a shift in attitude. When The Woman preened --- when her whole clade preened, even! --- she would sit up a little straighter with a subtle shimmy, lift her snout, close her eyes, bristle her whiskers, and smile a smile that was just south of smug. It is \emph{very} cute, reader, I can assure you of that.
+The Woman preened. This, you see, is more than just a brushing out of imperfections, but a shift in attitude. When The Woman preened—when her whole clade preened, even!—she would sit up a little straighter with a subtle shimmy, lift her snout, close her eyes, bristle her whiskers, and smile a smile that was just south of smug. It is \emph{very} cute, reader, I can assure you of that.
 
 They fell then into comfortable chatter over just the small things: the coffee, the weather, the chairs and how they were \emph{almost} comfortable, but not quite. They fell into warmth and companionship, and all the while, the woman set that fleeting thought she had had just off to the side, where she could keep track of it without it distracting.
 

idumea/content/003.tex

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ The Woman rode the high of lovely friendship for days after that coffee date. Fo
 
 Whenever The Woman felt this way, she would wander around the house and clean. She would take on extra cooking duties and make extra desserts for her cocladists and friends. She would stay in one form for far longer than was her usual, and remained now a panther. She would go for walks around the field, treating the house itself as a signpost at the center of widening circles. She would imagine that those circles might some day spread out across the entire world, never mind the varied infinities housed within the field itself. It was a thing to which she could give herself as she asked her high-minded questions: am I a falcon, a storm, or a great song?
 
-These words of Rilke's would dance unblushing through her mind, linking arms on one side with the words of Dickinson which ever twined around those of her clade --- \emph{If I should die, And you should live, And time should gurgle on, And morn should beam, And noon should burn, As it has usual done\ldots{}} --- and on the other with the lingering lines of the Ode that made up the names of her clade. ``I remember the rattle of dry grass,'' she would explain to the bees as they buzzed in friendship around her ankles. ``I remember the names of all things and forget them only when I wake.''
+These words of Rilke's would dance unblushing through her mind, linking arms on one side with the words of Dickinson which ever twined around those of her clade—\emph{If I should die, And you should live, And time should gurgle on, And morn should beam, And noon should burn, As it has usual done\ldots{}}—and on the other with the lingering lines of the Ode that made up the names of her clade. ``I remember the rattle of dry grass,'' she would explain to the bees as they buzzed in friendship around her ankles. ``I remember the names of all things and forget them only when I wake.''
 
 And so she would cook her meals and walk in widening circles around this primordial tower that was her home, perhaps circling around God, though she did not care one way or the other if there was that of God in everything.
 
@@ -10,9 +10,9 @@ These were her joys to go along with the needs of ritual, of brushing her finger
 
 I have never been quite so fond of walking, myself, kind readers. There is meditation in it, I am told. I am told there is the simple pleasure of the one-foot-in-front-of-the-other-ness of it. But friends, I am tired most of the time. I am old and I am tired and my pleasure lies in stillness and quiet. I love my mochas and I love sitting down before the page with pen in paw to put to paper, and I love bathing in story.
 
-I say so often that stepping away from such a task is still writing. When I sit on the patio in front of our little bundle of townhouses and look out at the shared lawn, or when I step --- \emph{stepped,} for it is no longer here --- out to the shortgrass prairie of my cocladist, to sit beside a cairn of stones or share a meal, that is still writing! Your narrator has written these words, this story, a hundred, a thousand times within her head. That is my joy, and graphomania my compulsion.
+I say so often that stepping away from such a task is still writing. When I sit on the patio in front of our little bundle of townhouses and look out at the shared lawn, or when I step—\emph{stepped,} for it is no longer here—out to the shortgrass prairie of my cocladist, to sit beside a cairn of stones or share a meal, that is still writing! Your narrator has written these words, this story, a hundred, a thousand times within her head. That is my joy, and graphomania my compulsion.
 
-When The Woman overflows, she becomes ever more herself. She is --- my attentive readers will remember this, of course --- she is already too much herself, too present, too whole, too present. This is the nature of overflowing, you see: we become so much ourselves that it begins to ache, to press at our chest from the inside. For your humble narrator, that graphomania strikes with such force that meaning falls away from my words only gibberish comes forth, or perhaps I will write the same phrase over and over and over, unable to sate my own compulsions.
+When The Woman overflows, she becomes ever more herself. She is—my attentive readers will remember this, of course—she is already too much herself, too present, too whole, too present. This is the nature of overflowing, you see: we become so much ourselves that it begins to ache, to press at our chest from the inside. For your humble narrator, that graphomania strikes with such force that meaning falls away from my words only gibberish comes forth, or perhaps I will write the same phrase over and over and over, unable to sate my own compulsions.
 
 My astute readers will surely have picked up by now that I am riding that edge here, in these words.
 
@@ -22,9 +22,9 @@ But, ah! This story is not about me. I am not quite overflowing yet, and The Wom
 
 The turn away from joy was slow and, at first, unnoticeable.
 
-The Woman did all that she could to hang onto joy whenever it slipped into her life. We all do, do we not? When I find a bakery that serves delectable treats, for instance, I will eat in the tiniest bites I can get away with --- nearly crumbs! --- just to let the joy of such a treat linger longer on my tongue. The woman did this with her own joy, you see: she would cook these lovely desserts for herself and her cocladists that she might store up joy in carefully sweetened and delicately decorated cupcakes or muffins or cookies or brownies. Joy, it seems, is stored in the chocolate, and so she doles that out to those who deserve joy --- and The Woman knows that even she deserves joy.
+The Woman did all that she could to hang onto joy whenever it slipped into her life. We all do, do we not? When I find a bakery that serves delectable treats, for instance, I will eat in the tiniest bites I can get away with—nearly crumbs!—just to let the joy of such a treat linger longer on my tongue. The woman did this with her own joy, you see: she would cook these lovely desserts for herself and her cocladists that she might store up joy in carefully sweetened and delicately decorated cupcakes or muffins or cookies or brownies. Joy, it seems, is stored in the chocolate, and so she doles that out to those who deserve joy—and The Woman knows that even she deserves joy.
 
-But even like me with my little tasty baked treats, The Woman's joy is parceled out bit by bit to herself and her cocladists and, just like my little plates of carrot cake --- I \emph{do} love a good carrot cake! --- there is never an infinite amount, much as she might wish, nor, it always seems, quite enough.
+But even like me with my little tasty baked treats, The Woman's joy is parceled out bit by bit to herself and her cocladists and, just like my little plates of carrot cake—I \emph{do} love a good carrot cake!—there is never an infinite amount, much as she might wish, nor, it always seems, quite enough.
 
 She hung onto joy and baked her goodies and went for her walks and awaited, with some trepidation, to the regularly scheduled therapy, because I think she knew that, being confronted with recounting emotions of the past or discussing emotions to come, her grasp on joy would be tested. Once every two weeks, unless she was overflowing, unless she was in pain, unless she simply could not bring herself to go, The Woman had an appointment for therapy, after all, and she knew there was good to be had in it, for it had proven its use time and again over the years, and yet it was a time for threshing, for harrowing. It was a time for throwing herself at the Work at one level of removing and watching the chaff fall away and the fruits of her labor lay exposed. It was a time for dragging the implements of tools dialectical and behaviors cognitive through the dirt of her to break up into clods her varied neuroses.
 
@@ -42,7 +42,7 @@ And so it was that The Woman, today a human, today, as ever, dressed plainly, ma
 
 The table and chairs sat nearly a mile out from the tenth stanza's house, sprouting senselessly from the grass as easy and carefree as yet more dandelions. A simple square table with two chairs set before adjacent sides so that she need not look her therapist in the eye, so that they might each stair out into some similar distance, so that they may feel companionship, though The Woman never could explain how that worked.
 
-And so The Woman, today a human, walked the mile to the table and sat down her glass of soy milk and began to eat her sandwich. When, at last, there were only two bites left and the glass was half empty, she sent a delicate ping to Her Therapist, who appeared beside the table, paws folded and kind smile on her face. The visage of a skunk lasted no longer than a second before, with a rapid fork, a human stood before her --- for her therapist endeavored always to mirror her species lest she influence The Woman's own, though she leaned far harder into gender-play, and one would be hard pressed to not also see her as a young man --- and bowed, then pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
+And so The Woman, today a human, walked the mile to the table and sat down her glass of soy milk and began to eat her sandwich. When, at last, there were only two bites left and the glass was half empty, she sent a delicate ping to Her Therapist, who appeared beside the table, paws folded and kind smile on her face. The visage of a skunk lasted no longer than a second before, with a rapid fork, a human stood before her—for her therapist endeavored always to mirror her species lest she influence The Woman's own, though she leaned far harder into gender-play, and one would be hard pressed to not also see her as a young man—and bowed, then pulled out the chair beside her and sat down.
 
 ``I will be finished in a moment, Ever Dream,'' The Woman said just as she did every session. ``Just a few bites left.''
 
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ And so The Woman, today a human, walked the mile to the table and sat down her g
 
 The Woman gave a hint of a bow and enjoyed the last two bites of her sandwich as well as she was able, following each with a sip of soy milk, all while Her Therapist made herself comfortable, sitting back in her chair and gazing out over the field of grass and dandelions, a half-smile on her face.
 
-When at last she dusted her hands free of imagined crumbs, The Woman sat back in her chair, her drink held in both hands --- she, like me, enjoys that she can create a drink that stays at precisely the most delicious temperature --- Her Therapist smiled and nodded. ``Tell me, my dear, how are you feeling?''
+When at last she dusted her hands free of imagined crumbs, The Woman sat back in her chair, her drink held in both hands—she, like me, enjoys that she can create a drink that stays at precisely the most delicious temperature—Her Therapist smiled and nodded. ``Tell me, my dear, how are you feeling?''
 
 ``I am feeling alright. I have been cleaning and cooking. I have been going out on walks and stepping away from the sim. I spoke with my friend for several hours some days back, and that provided me with comfort and joy.''
 
@@ -70,13 +70,13 @@ The Woman lingered again in silence, and her mind was aswirl with undefined thou
 
 And so they did. It was not an unproductive therapy session, and perhaps Her Therapist was even right. The seventh stanza was as they were, yes? They were the types to go for runs together, to eat together, to live as neighbors. The Woman did not know whether Her Therapist lived among them, but at this point, she supposed that she must, should such a prohibition be worried.
 
-And so they did! They talked of other things, and The Woman did wind up sharing more about her joy, but only in the small ways. She discussed the feeling of making treats for those around her, of storing a little bit of her joy in each --- though I believe she left out her feelings on that meting of joy being a depleting --- and the ways in which a service such as that which she provided for her own household is a goodness in its own right, is an active participation in joy.
+And so they did! They talked of other things, and The Woman did wind up sharing more about her joy, but only in the small ways. She discussed the feeling of making treats for those around her, of storing a little bit of her joy in each—though I believe she left out her feelings on that meting of joy being a depleting—and the ways in which a service such as that which she provided for her own household is a goodness in its own right, is an active participation in joy.
 
 But all throughout, laying at her feet was an ember smoldering, a little cube with edges that could cut as quickly as they could burn, and though she was able to remain present for the remainder of her appointment, was able to remain human, was able to smile and bow to Her Therapist, The Woman was never wholly there, as all throughout, her gaze kept dropping to where at her feet lay an ember smoldering.
 
 After therapy, after Her Therapist had left and the chairs had been set beneath the table once more, after a long moment spent standing in the grass with her head hung low, The Woman waved away her empty glass and trudged back to the house.
 
-There was a sense of falling-short within her, a sense of not meeting expectations. Perhaps it was a sense of shame that she had been so keen to hide this idea that she had happened upon, to keep the idea of the end of joy to herself. Perhaps it was because she had so easily let herself be talked out of sharing earnestly that which she would most liked to have discussed. Perhaps it was because --- and here I am using words she herself would use --- it was because she was a coward. Perhaps, when confronted with something that she believed to be worth talking about, to have such stopped before she could do so took the wind out of her sails, and she was too cowardly to do anything but let that happen. So many perhapses.
+There was a sense of falling-short within her, a sense of not meeting expectations. Perhaps it was a sense of shame that she had been so keen to hide this idea that she had happened upon, to keep the idea of the end of joy to herself. Perhaps it was because she had so easily let herself be talked out of sharing earnestly that which she would most liked to have discussed. Perhaps it was because—and here I am using words she herself would use—it was because she was a coward. Perhaps, when confronted with something that she believed to be worth talking about, to have such stopped before she could do so took the wind out of her sails, and she was too cowardly to do anything but let that happen. So many perhapses.
 
 It was with these thoughts and these feelings filling her mind to overfull that The Woman walked back to the house, back up the stairs to the porch, back through the door with a brush of the fingers, back up the staircase, back to her room where she stripped and climbed back into bed.
 
@@ -84,11 +84,11 @@ Perhaps she slept, perhaps she dreamed.
 
 \secdiv
 
-The Woman is a professional in napping in a way that I am not. Perhaps it is the felinity in her, or perhaps it is that she is not so easily claimed by such compulsions as I have --- graphomania! Hah! --- which lead to such fervent activity. Were I a smarter skunk, I might say to myself: ``Rye, my dear, perhaps you can write your novels when you are caught in such throes, and spend the months between practicing the fine art of napping!'' But I am not a smart skunk. I am a simple beast who is single minded. I am an animal who does one thing and perhaps does it well. I do not know! I am perhaps too simple to disambiguate being doing a thing well and doing a lot of a thing.
+The Woman is a professional in napping in a way that I am not. Perhaps it is the felinity in her, or perhaps it is that she is not so easily claimed by such compulsions as I have—graphomania! Hah!—which lead to such fervent activity. Were I a smarter skunk, I might say to myself: ``Rye, my dear, perhaps you can write your novels when you are caught in such throes, and spend the months between practicing the fine art of napping!'' But I am not a smart skunk. I am a simple beast who is single minded. I am an animal who does one thing and perhaps does it well. I do not know! I am perhaps too simple to disambiguate being doing a thing well and doing a lot of a thing.
 
 Ah, but perhaps this is why I interpret The Woman at being a professional napper.
 
-Either way, when she returned home and lay down, she immediately fell into a deep, deep slumber. It was a sleep of no dreams, nor perhaps even rest, but served well as a way to disconnect from contexts innumerable, to step away from the world unpleasant. She slept and slept and slept --- and yet, she slept for only twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later, she opened her eyes and looked up to the ceiling, and spent another ten minutes picking out familiar patterns in the drywall texture beneath the paint. They were her familiar constellations. There! The fennec. There! The open hand. There! There! There! The swan and the cat and the light-footed opossum dancing around the maypole.
+Either way, when she returned home and lay down, she immediately fell into a deep, deep slumber. It was a sleep of no dreams, nor perhaps even rest, but served well as a way to disconnect from contexts innumerable, to step away from the world unpleasant. She slept and slept and slept—and yet, she slept for only twenty minutes. Twenty minutes later, she opened her eyes and looked up to the ceiling, and spent another ten minutes picking out familiar patterns in the drywall texture beneath the paint. They were her familiar constellations. There! The fennec. There! The open hand. There! There! There! The swan and the cat and the light-footed opossum dancing around the maypole.
 
 And then, at last, she stood up, and as her feet touched the ground she was, yes, whisked away into felinity, and so it was The Woman who was a cat who padded back downstairs, dressed now in billowy slacks and a flowing blouse. She dressed this way because she felt unstable, and knew that chances were better than not that she would wind up a skunk by that evening.
 
@@ -96,13 +96,13 @@ The living room was empty, but sitting on a stool in a kitchen with a thoughtful
 
 I do mean that, friends. There is no thought behind this constant changing. When I experienced that, so many years ago, nearly three centuries ago, it was never a thing I could control, not well. I could swallow down a form for a while. I could gulp dryly and linger for a while in humanity, only for a cough or hiccup to come along and send little cookie ears to sprouting, send a white-striped-black muzzle stretching in front of my face.
 
-And always when this happened, the slightest touch would lead to bile rising in my throat. It would feel like sunburn. It would feel like some awful beast letting its bulk settle against me, reminding me of its presence --- a threat --- with slow breaths.
+And always when this happened, the slightest touch would lead to bile rising in my throat. It would feel like sunburn. It would feel like some awful beast letting its bulk settle against me, reminding me of its presence—a threat—with slow breaths.
 
 I do not know if you have ever touched a skunk, dear readers, but they are not silky soft. Their fur is \emph{soft}, yes, but in the plush, cushy way that a dog's might be, or perhaps a short-haired cat. We are truly lovely to pet, I can assure you of that! Why, I will pet my tail for hours as I sit and think and write in my head. In fact, I am doing that right this very minute!
 
 Skunks, I mean to say, are still lovely to pet. We can push our snouts up into your hands and tilt our heads to ensure you scratch in just the right spot behind one ear or another. More, we deserve that. All creatures deserve that which they cherish, and we cherish touch.
 
-We all cherish touch, and in those moments when we were ghosting back and forth, when touch led to vertigo, that which we cherish was taken from us, and for some of us, for The Woman's cocladist, this was still true. It was not perhaps always true --- perhaps there were stretches when she was able to settle into one form and exist in comfort and get gentle, doting pets from The Woman or some other cocladist or some perhaps lover, and perhaps she may yet still.
+We all cherish touch, and in those moments when we were ghosting back and forth, when touch led to vertigo, that which we cherish was taken from us, and for some of us, for The Woman's cocladist, this was still true. It was not perhaps always true—perhaps there were stretches when she was able to settle into one form and exist in comfort and get gentle, doting pets from The Woman or some other cocladist or some perhaps lover, and perhaps she may yet still.
 
 But for so much of her life, this lovely touch, this cherished thing, was out of reach for Her Cocladist, and so she sat on the stool before the stove while a pot bubbled lazily away.
 
@@ -110,7 +110,7 @@ But for so much of her life, this lovely touch, this cherished thing, was out of
 
 Tired eyes swung around to meet her, and an equally tired smile graced both human face and skunk muzzle. ``Ah, End Of Endings, my dear, my dear,'' Her cocladist said twice over. ``Have you been well? Have you had a good nap? Did you have a productive therapy session?''
 
-The Woman smiled as well --- though her smile was not quite so tired, you understand; she just had her nap --- and willed a stool into being some few feet away from Her Cocladist. ``I have been well, yes, and my nap was as lovely as always. As for therapy, well\ldots{}'' She trailed off, shrugged.
+The Woman smiled as well—though her smile was not quite so tired, you understand; she just had her nap—and willed a stool into being some few feet away from Her Cocladist. ``I have been well, yes, and my nap was as lovely as always. As for therapy, well\ldots{}'' She trailed off, shrugged.
 
 Her Cocladist nodded. ``I understand. I ought to perhaps consider picking such things back up once more. There are many therapists, yes? Not just within our own clade, yes? Perhaps I will seek one of them out some day when I am not so tired.''
 

idumea/content/004.tex

@@ -8,7 +8,7 @@ She knew the helplessness of having her agency ripped from her. She knew the fee
 
 She knew the feeling of splitting herself into ten unequal parts so that she might at last rest. She knew that her lot in life then became to process what she had become, for that was the role \emph{she} remembered of the tenth stanza, not simply to linger in suffering.
 
-She lingered on these thoughts in her unjoy and pondered the meaning, the actions implied, and, with as firm a resolve as a woman who is too much herself could muster, decided that she would \emph{not} lean into this idea of perpetuity as Her Cocladist dwelt within. She may have a lot in life for a time --- for a year, for a decade, for a century --- but not for the entirety of her existence.
+She lingered on these thoughts in her unjoy and pondered the meaning, the actions implied, and, with as firm a resolve as a woman who is too much herself could muster, decided that she would \emph{not} lean into this idea of perpetuity as Her Cocladist dwelt within. She may have a lot in life for a time—for a year, for a decade, for a century—but not for the entirety of her existence.
 
 It was within this lingering that she reached out to Her Friend: \emph{``No Hesitation, would you like to meet for coffee? I have something I would like to speak with you about.''}
 
@@ -20,13 +20,13 @@ A laugh, and then, \emph{``I can be. I can send a fork. Same place?''}
 
 \emph{``Yes, please.''}
 
-Today, for the first time in she did not know how many years, The Woman passed through her secret door onto the street with a brush of her fingers on jamb, and then walked to the coffee shop. Walked! She skipped the trolley! She let go of a ritual, gently set it down on the corner of the street where usually the trolley made its stop, and stuffed her paws in her pockets --- for today was a day where she was apparently to be a skunk --- and walked briskly to the coffee shop. Yes, the trolley passed her, yes she could have arrived much sooner, but there were the cobblestones beneath her feet-paws and there were the fallen leaves skittering anxiously about her and there was a gentle breeze tugging plaintively at her skirt and her shirt and her mane and her whiskers.
+Today, for the first time in she did not know how many years, The Woman passed through her secret door onto the street with a brush of her fingers on jamb, and then walked to the coffee shop. Walked! She skipped the trolley! She let go of a ritual, gently set it down on the corner of the street where usually the trolley made its stop, and stuffed her paws in her pockets—for today was a day where she was apparently to be a skunk—and walked briskly to the coffee shop. Yes, the trolley passed her, yes she could have arrived much sooner, but there were the cobblestones beneath her feet-paws and there were the fallen leaves skittering anxiously about her and there was a gentle breeze tugging plaintively at her skirt and her shirt and her mane and her whiskers.
 
 The Woman instructed herself to take joy in these things; or, if not joy, at least pleasure. She tried to feel the seams of cobblestones beneath her unclad feet for a block. She counted leaves for a block. She imagined the wind as gentle paws ensuring that she knew the bounds of her body for the last block. As she opened the door to the coffee shop, she considered her various success and failures in the exercise. The cobblestones were perhaps too cold, but the sensation more pleasing than she had imagined. The leaves made her anxious in turn, but she imagined them having errands to run, purpose before them. The wind proved to her just how thin her clothing was, and just how thin the fur beneath that was on her chest and belly, but it did indeed remind her of her bounds.
 
 As her fingers brushed over the frame of the door and it shut behind her, she looked over to the bar to find Her Friend ordering the usual two mochas, tail looking quite frazzled.
 
-I do not remember if I told you, dear readers, but The Woman's friend was \emph{also} a skunk. Ey, along with ey stanza, had leaned firmly into that remembered identity. For, you see, we were furries before we uploaded, and we remain always furries. Even those who present as humans --- plain and boring! Plain and lovely! --- still have that identity within them; metafurry, we have called it. Before we uploaded, before we arrived sys-side, Michelle Hadje spent all the time we could online, on the 'net, where she presented herself as Sasha, a skunk who dressed herself in a linen tunic and Thai fisherman's trousers. Prior to that, she had been a panther, too, a feline creature of dark pelt and flowing dresses never was brave enough to wear as Michelle.
+I do not remember if I told you, dear readers, but The Woman's friend was \emph{also} a skunk. Ey, along with ey stanza, had leaned firmly into that remembered identity. For, you see, we were furries before we uploaded, and we remain always furries. Even those who present as humans—plain and boring! Plain and lovely!—still have that identity within them; metafurry, we have called it. Before we uploaded, before we arrived sys-side, Michelle Hadje spent all the time we could online, on the 'net, where she presented herself as Sasha, a skunk who dressed herself in a linen tunic and Thai fisherman's trousers. Prior to that, she had been a panther, too, a feline creature of dark pelt and flowing dresses never was brave enough to wear as Michelle.
 
 This is the reason why The Woman was at times a skunk and at times a panther and at times a human, and why Her Friend and I are skunks. We remember being a human and then going online to share in our zoomorphic joys with those around us.
 
@@ -80,13 +80,13 @@ They decided on a list of five things that she should try.
 
 Why five, you ask? Well, I honestly do not know! Perhaps because of the five fingers we have on each paw. Perhaps it is because we have two arms, two legs, and a head protruding from our trunk. Or perhaps it has to do with the stars. Starfish? Little wandering doodles to replace the tittles above our 'i's and jots above our 'j's? Each an iota, a mote, a symbol to our future selves, a note for later. Asterisms and asterisks.
 
-Ah, but I digress. The Woman and her friend chose a list of five things that she would try --- should, you see, is a value judgment --- in order to seek joy in small ways or in small places. The Woman knew that it would be hard. She knew that she would have to bundle up all of her energy and all of her patience with herself and all of her drive and use that to let her last through these explorations of joy.
+Ah, but I digress. The Woman and her friend chose a list of five things that she would try—should, you see, is a value judgment—in order to seek joy in small ways or in small places. The Woman knew that it would be hard. She knew that she would have to bundle up all of her energy and all of her patience with herself and all of her drive and use that to let her last through these explorations of joy.
 
 You see, the first of these five was easy enough to do by herself. She decided first to try new foods. She decided that she would try all \emph{kinds} of foods! She rooted around through the exchange to see what things she had never tried, whether because she was not brave enough or because it sounded like it would taste too strong or because she remembered not liking it back when she was Michelle, back before she had uploaded.
 
 The whole of the clade is, in so many different ways, focused on hedonism. Such is the joy of maintaining a hyperfixation of sorts. That the tenth stanza seemed to have, each at their own point in time, let that hyperfixation on processing shift into a sort of stasis was an accident. None of them are so sad, of course, that they cannot still feel joy in their lives, as we have well seen. The Woman has shown us, yes, and even Her Cocladist, who held so poor a view of her lot in life had joys, for it was her who most often cooked to the peculiar tastes of her stanza.
 
-And The Woman had her own particularities when it came to food. When she cut the crusts off her sandwiches, it was a way to ensure that each bite contained precisely what she wanted in the ratio of bread to filling. After all, one cannot always spread the peanut butter up to the edge of the sandwich! If you do, your fingers will wind up sticky with peanut butter and the oil it stains your fur with will leave behind a lasting scent --- ask me how I know! --- but if you do not, then you wind up with a whole mouthful of little else but bread. It is a balancing act, you see, and The Woman has found that if she spreads the peanut butter just so, then cuts the crusts off, she winds up with more perfect bites than not.
+And The Woman had her own particularities when it came to food. When she cut the crusts off her sandwiches, it was a way to ensure that each bite contained precisely what she wanted in the ratio of bread to filling. After all, one cannot always spread the peanut butter up to the edge of the sandwich! If you do, your fingers will wind up sticky with peanut butter and the oil it stains your fur with will leave behind a lasting scent—ask me how I know!—but if you do not, then you wind up with a whole mouthful of little else but bread. It is a balancing act, you see, and The Woman has found that if she spreads the peanut butter just so, then cuts the crusts off, she winds up with more perfect bites than not.
 
 Particularities and peculiarities! The Woman has as many as you or I, dear reader, and perhaps more, and so her first task was to seek that which her particularities and peculiarities had covered up. Was there a thing that she had missed? Was there a food that she had only ever tried bad approximations of and actually earnestly liked?
 
@@ -96,11 +96,11 @@ Yes, because, although her spice tolerance was quite low, her flavor tolerance w
 
 The Woman fell in love immediately, and although the tom kha gai that followed was too spicy for her, she plowed through that as well, and set aside the sense of fullness as she worked next on mok pa, a dish of fish served steamed in banana leaves, and finished with a delightful plate of mango and sweet sticky rice, all drizzled with sweetened condensed milk. The fish was lovely, yes, and the dessert delicious, though it stuck in her teeth.
 
-And no, because with each success shining as bright as that crunchy and flavorful tam mak hoong, there were dozens of nights of upset stomachs and burning taste buds. Pineapple, she found, was the fruit that ate you back. Chilies, she found, burned as hot as ever, and there were no ways in which she could comfortably consume them without being left in tears --- she was left sobbing, my dears! On one memorable occasion, she was left sobbing, even after she forked with a clean mouth, even then, the remembered pain left her curled in a ball in the back room of the restaurant while the kindly owner doted on her with offerings of ice cream and soft pets and gentle, cooed reassurances.
+And no, because with each success shining as bright as that crunchy and flavorful tam mak hoong, there were dozens of nights of upset stomachs and burning taste buds. Pineapple, she found, was the fruit that ate you back. Chilies, she found, burned as hot as ever, and there were no ways in which she could comfortably consume them without being left in tears—she was left sobbing, my dears! On one memorable occasion, she was left sobbing, even after she forked with a clean mouth, even then, the remembered pain left her curled in a ball in the back room of the restaurant while the kindly owner doted on her with offerings of ice cream and soft pets and gentle, cooed reassurances.
 
 No, because her limits were reinforced. For every victory, there was a reminder that she was unwhole. My friends, I think that \emph{everyone} is unwhole. I know that I am. I know that I write and write and write, and that is lovely, yes, but I also know that I can be a prickly little terror when caught up in my emotions. I know that I spend my time at my books, at my desk, and, though I try to be a comfortable and comforting presence within my stanza, though I try to dote on my up-tree, I am never able to give quite as much as I would like. I think everyone is unwhole, and I think as well that, to us, our unwhole-ness is more evident, more dire than it is to those around us. You and I, friends, we see The Woman coming across a boundary in her tastes and nod and think to ourselves, ``This is no moral failing! The Woman has done no wrong. She should feel no shame.'' But to her, it felt like a failure to reach joy.
 
-She, too, understands dialectics, do not get me wrong. She, too, knows that these reassurances of boundaries also come with the discoveries that she made, all of the green papaya salads and savory Artemisian treats that Warmth In Fire and its ilk had set on the market that she fell in love with. But always before her was the goal of joy, and while she would count her successes, she would also count her failures --- no, no, do not contradict her, she saw them as failures and there is now no changing of her mind, not these many years later, not as she is now --- and cluck her tongue and shake her head and go home and lay down in her bed and take one of those naps that she was so good at.
+She, too, understands dialectics, do not get me wrong. She, too, knows that these reassurances of boundaries also come with the discoveries that she made, all of the green papaya salads and savory Artemisian treats that Warmth In Fire and its ilk had set on the market that she fell in love with. But always before her was the goal of joy, and while she would count her successes, she would also count her failures—no, no, do not contradict her, she saw them as failures and there is now no changing of her mind, not these many years later, not as she is now—and cluck her tongue and shake her head and go home and lay down in her bed and take one of those naps that she was so good at.
 
 There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with food was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.
 
@@ -126,7 +126,7 @@ The answer to this, at least from your humble narrator's limited point of view,
 
 And so it was that The Woman began simply, waiting until she was quite firmly a skunk before going to visit this contact Her Friend had given her.
 
-The Aesthetician who greeted her at the door looked to be more than a hundred years old --- more than a thousand! --- and yet they moved with a sprightliness that surprised The Woman. They all but pranced around her as they guided her to a comfortably padded table, something that could just as easily be molded down into a seat or some more complicated contraption.
+The Aesthetician who greeted her at the door looked to be more than a hundred years old—more than a thousand!—and yet they moved with a sprightliness that surprised The Woman. They all but pranced around her as they guided her to a comfortably padded table, something that could just as easily be molded down into a seat or some more complicated contraption.
 
 ``A skunk! An Odist!'' they chirped. ``You were sent by No Hesitation?''
 
@@ -134,15 +134,15 @@ The Woman tamped down the burgeoning sense of overstimulation and bowed. ``Yes.
 
 ``Lovely lovely lovely. Please, please come in and lay down. I do love grooming you and yours.''
 
-And so The Woman went inside and lay down and let The Aesthetician work through her mane and over her tail and through all the little nooks and crannies around her neck and limbs. All the while, they chatted quietly --- for an aesthetician such as this reads their clients well and knew how to modulate their attitude that they not overwhelm someone such as The Woman. The brushing was calm and peaceful and felt lovely and delightful in all those ways that she appreciated when she was able to do it herself, and yet it came with a sense of companionship and camaraderie that left her feeling fulfilled and, yes, joyful. Joyful! The Woman and The Aesthetician talked and talked, and The Woman spoke more freely to her than she ever did to Her Therapist and, without being able to explain just how, she knew that the words she spoke would be kept in as close a confidence.
+And so The Woman went inside and lay down and let The Aesthetician work through her mane and over her tail and through all the little nooks and crannies around her neck and limbs. All the while, they chatted quietly—for an aesthetician such as this reads their clients well and knew how to modulate their attitude that they not overwhelm someone such as The Woman. The brushing was calm and peaceful and felt lovely and delightful in all those ways that she appreciated when she was able to do it herself, and yet it came with a sense of companionship and camaraderie that left her feeling fulfilled and, yes, joyful. Joyful! The Woman and The Aesthetician talked and talked, and The Woman spoke more freely to her than she ever did to Her Therapist and, without being able to explain just how, she knew that the words she spoke would be kept in as close a confidence.
 
 The Woman left refreshed, renewed, reinvigorated, and with this eye she set to looking into the escalation that she promised Her Friend.
 
-We have seen such success already, have we not? We have seen the ways in which The Woman --- she who does not have many friends --- enjoys the touch of hugs or a paw rested atop hers. It is a sometimes food, yes? But then, it is for all of us. I do not always want to be hugged or touched --- I do not now, here on the edge of overflow --- and there are forms of touch I do not like at all! The woman here is considering intimacy, yes? Sensuality and sexuality? Those are not things that I do not like. I like \emph{that} they exist, I am glad that they do, and I even like writing about them --- see, here! I am even about to do so! --- but they are things that I hold at a distance from myself.
+We have seen such success already, have we not? We have seen the ways in which The Woman—she who does not have many friends—enjoys the touch of hugs or a paw rested atop hers. It is a sometimes food, yes? But then, it is for all of us. I do not always want to be hugged or touched—I do not now, here on the edge of overflow—and there are forms of touch I do not like at all! The woman here is considering intimacy, yes? Sensuality and sexuality? Those are not things that I do not like. I like \emph{that} they exist, I am glad that they do, and I even like writing about them—see, here! I am even about to do so!—but they are things that I hold at a distance from myself.
 
 Ah, but my words are wandering. This touch, even the grooming, is a sometimes food for The Woman, and yet she had held herself at such a distance from such for who knows what reason. I do not think she knew, herself, my friends, for she is as we all are. She is a woman who craves touch and deserves touch and does not, on an intellectual level, wish that she were not touched. It is emotional, perhaps, or psychic, or spiritual, or on some other level than the intellectual desire to touch and be touched, or the physical need for fulfillment.
 
-And so it was that The Woman began her slow climb up the ladder of escalation. She met once more with Her Friend and asked, kindly, perhaps a bit nervously, for a hug and for the chance to hold hands and paws --- for she was a human that day, and Her Friend a skunk as ever --- and well it took something of a force of will to let such touch linger, it was a pleasant sensation and a pleasant conversation that followed, an exploration --- between friends, for Her Friend was always careful to specifically \emph{not} be The Woman's therapist --- of meanings and boundaries.
+And so it was that The Woman began her slow climb up the ladder of escalation. She met once more with Her Friend and asked, kindly, perhaps a bit nervously, for a hug and for the chance to hold hands and paws—for she was a human that day, and Her Friend a skunk as ever—and well it took something of a force of will to let such touch linger, it was a pleasant sensation and a pleasant conversation that followed, an exploration—between friends, for Her Friend was always careful to specifically \emph{not} be The Woman's therapist—of meanings and boundaries.
 
 And so it was that The Woman sought out those who she knew, those who might have some affection for her beyond simple conversational friendship, those who had been sensual of old, partners and almost-partners from centuries ago who remained still on the System. She thought back through the years and years and years, and Her Lover was the one who leapt most readily to mind.
 
@@ -156,15 +156,15 @@ There was a long moment silence on the other end of the connection, though the s
 
 If my more recently uploaded friends feel some sense of curiosity about how it is that someone with whom one has let contact language for decades might still feel fondness after so long, or how one might not forget, you must remember that those who live sys-side remain functionally immortal. If one leans into such a fact, then decades spent away may as well be a blink of an eye, yes? If one leans into the everlasting memory with which we are blessed or cursed or which is simply bestowed upon us without further thought, then a past lover away from whom one has simply drifted amicably is just as easily recalled.
 
-We are very old, you see. Why, at this point, I am 323 years old! And The Woman is of the same clade, so the same is naturally true of her --- if she lives still, that is. To us, we remember being mortal as only some distant thing from so long ago. We have our identity as those who may live life slowly. Things may still come at us quickly, yes, but we can deal with them in parallel, can we not? I could get a note from my dear up-tree stating that it is lonely or bored or simply hungry and wants someone to eat with, and so I may continue writing while joining em in this simple pleasure. I did that just earlier today, when she mentioned wanting to eat something good, some comforting food she learned from eir own friend, so that good memories may also be cherished. When I did join it for a simple meal of \emph{ciorbă de praz} and \emph{ardei umpluți} --- for you see, its friend was Romanian, and taught em so many dishes that she now loves --- I sat and listened and remembered and talked and ate and perhaps also fretted over stepping away from work, but I allowed myself to take some slowness, too. Even I am allowed such things, yes? Even the terminally busy may let one self stay busy while the other comforts and is comforted by those they are close to.
+We are very old, you see. Why, at this point, I am 323 years old! And The Woman is of the same clade, so the same is naturally true of her—if she lives still, that is. To us, we remember being mortal as only some distant thing from so long ago. We have our identity as those who may live life slowly. Things may still come at us quickly, yes, but we can deal with them in parallel, can we not? I could get a note from my dear up-tree stating that it is lonely or bored or simply hungry and wants someone to eat with, and so I may continue writing while joining em in this simple pleasure. I did that just earlier today, when she mentioned wanting to eat something good, some comforting food she learned from eir own friend, so that good memories may also be cherished. When I did join it for a simple meal of \emph{ciorbă de praz} and \emph{ardei umpluți}—for you see, its friend was Romanian, and taught em so many dishes that she now loves—I sat and listened and remembered and talked and ate and perhaps also fretted over stepping away from work, but I allowed myself to take some slowness, too. Even I am allowed such things, yes? Even the terminally busy may let one self stay busy while the other comforts and is comforted by those they are close to.
 
-Ah, dear readers, I am sorry that I cannot keep my thoughts from wandering an letting my pen trail after them like an eager puppy --- yes, just like The Woman's rituals --- and that such interrupts the story I am trying to tell!
+Ah, dear readers, I am sorry that I cannot keep my thoughts from wandering an letting my pen trail after them like an eager puppy—yes, just like The Woman's rituals—and that such interrupts the story I am trying to tell!
 
-All of this to say that The Woman and Her Lover spent some years together back in the first century of the System, back after secession but before she had fallen into her gentle stasis, before the goal of processing trauma was subsumed by the trauma itself. They had met --- and you will not believe this, friends! --- they had met at the very same cafe where The Woman and Her Friend met only days before. They had stumbled across each other in the most romantic way possible: by ordering the same coffees at the counter. They both asked for the same mocha with extra whipped cream, gave each other a strange look, and then fell into laughter.
+All of this to say that The Woman and Her Lover spent some years together back in the first century of the System, back after secession but before she had fallen into her gentle stasis, before the goal of processing trauma was subsumed by the trauma itself. They had met—and you will not believe this, friends!—they had met at the very same cafe where The Woman and Her Friend met only days before. They had stumbled across each other in the most romantic way possible: by ordering the same coffees at the counter. They both asked for the same mocha with extra whipped cream, gave each other a strange look, and then fell into laughter.
 
-As is the case with so many cladists --- yes, perhaps especially us --- they orbited around each other eccentrically, coming now closer together, drifting now further apart. There would be a chaotic few weeks or months or years when they would dance or walk the field or sit and drink mochas or cook for each other or share a bed, and then, with a fond exchange of kisses, they would part ways with a promise to see each other again soon, for their lives were long and the System was wide.
+As is the case with so many cladists—yes, perhaps especially us—they orbited around each other eccentrically, coming now closer together, drifting now further apart. There would be a chaotic few weeks or months or years when they would dance or walk the field or sit and drink mochas or cook for each other or share a bed, and then, with a fond exchange of kisses, they would part ways with a promise to see each other again soon, for their lives were long and the System was wide.
 
-Unlike so many other cladists, however, The Woman is too much herself. She is too human and she is full to overflowing, and she seemed ever to become more and more herself, to overflow in ways subtle and dramatic. For, you see, The Woman had simply been human --- a furry, to be sure! She always maintained that identity --- for decades after forking and had focused on that goal of processing, but as she had to expend more and more energy to keep her thoughts well-ordered, she started to lose control of her form and her rituals began to overwhelm the order in her life. Her Lover helped how she could, loved her when she was a skunk or a panther as much as when she was a human, would never stand in the way of her rituals, but the more control she spent, the more energy she was without, the more time she spent trying to remain a realistic amount of herself, the harder it was for her to take in love from the outside.
+Unlike so many other cladists, however, The Woman is too much herself. She is too human and she is full to overflowing, and she seemed ever to become more and more herself, to overflow in ways subtle and dramatic. For, you see, The Woman had simply been human—a furry, to be sure! She always maintained that identity—for decades after forking and had focused on that goal of processing, but as she had to expend more and more energy to keep her thoughts well-ordered, she started to lose control of her form and her rituals began to overwhelm the order in her life. Her Lover helped how she could, loved her when she was a skunk or a panther as much as when she was a human, would never stand in the way of her rituals, but the more control she spent, the more energy she was without, the more time she spent trying to remain a realistic amount of herself, the harder it was for her to take in love from the outside.
 
 And so it was that, over the years, The Woman and Her Lover swung close together less and less often and for shorter and shorter intervals, and when The Woman requested time away, time to herself, Her Lover would kiss her on the cheek and smile and promise to see her again soon, and the smiles were more often sad, but The Woman held onto that promise, setting it up on her dresser or perhaps a high shelf where she might observe its austere grace along with that of all of the other promises she had been given over the years, for her life was long and the System was wide.
 
@@ -172,7 +172,7 @@ My gentle readers, I would love to tell you that they met up at that selfsame ca
 
 A train! There are many things on Lagrange, this shared dream in which we live, and many things which have been perfected all the way down to their imperfections. When you collect so many minds all in one place and tell them to live their best and to live it forever, why, they will perfect precisely the things they love most and, my friends, I am sure I do not need to tell you that some people love trains.
 
-As was their wont in decades passed, The Woman met Her Lover on board rather than on the platform. It was their habit for Her Lover to step aboard the train one stop after The Woman did, and for them to both hunt for a seat --- no matter how empty the train was; for even if it was totally empty, the \emph{perfect} seat is of the utmost importance --- and to meet in the aisle. You see, when your relationship starts with a chance meeting, sometimes it feels nice to seek out those chance meetings again, yes? What better way to do so than on so linear a structure as a train? It certainly reduces the possibilities of near misses!
+As was their wont in decades passed, The Woman met Her Lover on board rather than on the platform. It was their habit for Her Lover to step aboard the train one stop after The Woman did, and for them to both hunt for a seat—no matter how empty the train was; for even if it was totally empty, the \emph{perfect} seat is of the utmost importance—and to meet in the aisle. You see, when your relationship starts with a chance meeting, sometimes it feels nice to seek out those chance meetings again, yes? What better way to do so than on so linear a structure as a train? It certainly reduces the possibilities of near misses!
 
 Somewhere near the front of the train, they met, and here they felt that welcome surprise. The chance meeting may have been deliberately constructed, and yet it was not without this sense of newness. The Woman was a familiar panther that day and Her Lover a human as always, but The Woman, who had been so focused on her stasis until now, realized at once that she \emph{had} changed over the years. Slowly, to be sure, and perhaps not in the ways that she wished, but she had changed. Today, she wore a silver-gray wrap of a shirt, all shot through with purple threads, and a gray-silver wrap of Thai fisherman's pants, all shot through with threads of blue. Her fur may have been the same black, short and glossy, and she may have lingered in suffering as the tenth stanza had in her own way, but she was hardly the type to fully languish, nor wear the same thing for years or decades at a time!
 
@@ -202,7 +202,7 @@ She shook her head. ``Well, yes, but also, I have had some thoughts about joy an
 
 ``Oh!'' Her Lover sighed, slouching back in her seat with a smile on her face that was very nearly a silly grin. Not quite, but very nearly. ``It's been a \emph{long} time since someone has said something that flattering to me.''
 
-The Woman preened --- and we all know that is quite cute! --- which earned her a kiss to the cheek in return. She marveled at how easy it was to fall back into such lovely habits and, yes, there was joy to be had, there, and to that she clung tightly. It seemed not the time for her to bring up the task of finding joy specifically in touch, in sensuality and sexuality, though she knew Her Lover felt that such were joys as well. It was a matter of enjoying \emph{this} joy, first.
+The Woman preened—and we all know that is quite cute!—which earned her a kiss to the cheek in return. She marveled at how easy it was to fall back into such lovely habits and, yes, there was joy to be had, there, and to that she clung tightly. It seemed not the time for her to bring up the task of finding joy specifically in touch, in sensuality and sexuality, though she knew Her Lover felt that such were joys as well. It was a matter of enjoying \emph{this} joy, first.
 
 And enjoy she did! Friends, I have had precious few lovers in my life as I am now, but certainly none like this. I am not unhappy, of course; I like who and what I am and how I engage with the world. Still, if ever there were anything to make me jealous of particular friendship, it would be something like this. It would be the friendship that is particular to The Woman and Her Lover. There is touch that I like and touch that is distracting, but if I could hold the hand or paw of someone as tenderly as these two held hands and paws now, if I could share a moment of quiet conversation such as this, I would in a heartbeat. I am gripped by my own rituals and demands, though, and have not the strength to fight them.
 
@@ -218,17 +218,17 @@ With that, she leaned over to give The Woman another kiss to the cheek, and then
 
 They laughed together at their touches and their brazenness and their shared joy. They shared their nuzzles and their giggles and they, as the poet says, shared their oranges and gave their kisses like waves exchanging foam.
 
-My lovely readers, there is more that happened --- and I am going to tell you! I really will, because it is important to the story, of course, and because it is important to our life sys-side and to us as a clade and it was important to The Woman and Her Lover --- but, dear ones, if you would like to skip ahead, to cover your eyes and curate your experience or to simply let them have their moment together, know that our life sys-side and our clade are complicated and that The Woman and Her Lover were complicated, too, and so was the joy they found. Know that they also, as the poet says, shared their limes and gave their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
+My lovely readers, there is more that happened—and I am going to tell you! I really will, because it is important to the story, of course, and because it is important to our life sys-side and to us as a clade and it was important to The Woman and Her Lover—but, dear ones, if you would like to skip ahead, to cover your eyes and curate your experience or to simply let them have their moment together, know that our life sys-side and our clade are complicated and that The Woman and Her Lover were complicated, too, and so was the joy they found. Know that they also, as the poet says, shared their limes and gave their kisses like clouds exchanging foam.
 
 They leaned on each other as they stepped lightly from the train to the station, and, although the station was a loveliness in its own right, their conversation had spurred within them both a desire to explore and gladly, rather than their feet hitting the cement of the platform, they landed instead on the cool, hardwood floor of Her Lover's home where The Woman brushed her fingertips featherlight against the still-familiar jamb.
 
-There was no rush to their movements, for both The Woman and Her Lover had always been methodical in their sensuality. Perhaps it fit the mold of one of The Woman's rituals --- she must touch here, first, and then she would kiss there, and only then would she brush her fingers there, across the cheek --- and perhaps not --- a logical progression remains a logical progression without the hint of ritual.
+There was no rush to their movements, for both The Woman and Her Lover had always been methodical in their sensuality. Perhaps it fit the mold of one of The Woman's rituals—she must touch here, first, and then she would kiss there, and only then would she brush her fingers there, across the cheek—and perhaps not—a logical progression remains a logical progression without the hint of ritual.
 
 There was no rush to their movements, and so they sat first on the couch, sharing their kisses, refamiliarizing themselves with each other. The Woman felt within a subtle twisting, a stirring, a clockwise motion that dragged with it two colors of emotions. There was the love rekindled, there, yes, and there was along with it a growing anxiety: there was something less than worry and more than thought. In the middle, there was a spot between joy and fear, a place of too much meaning that she could not pin down. Arousal, perhaps? For there was that, there, too. That was perhaps of that clockwise turning: the slow swell of warmth low in her belly and the gentle pressure within her chest and bristle of whiskers. Excitement, maybe? Anticipation?
 
 Here was another thing for The Woman to set before herself where she might observe it, describe its shape by the way the orange and blue of love and anxiety swirled around it.
 
-But, ah! Here, too, was Her Lover. Here was a soul she treasured. Here was a body she cherished. Here was this spot --- just beneath the chin --- which, when kissed, elicited a shiver, and this spot --- at the hollow of the throat --- which, when brushed with a fingerpad, elicited something both gasp and giggle. Here was arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure. Here was a thing for her to focus on that was not the cool blue of anxiety that warred with love remembered in unequal measure.
+But, ah! Here, too, was Her Lover. Here was a soul she treasured. Here was a body she cherished. Here was this spot—just beneath the chin—which, when kissed, elicited a shiver, and this spot—at the hollow of the throat—which, when brushed with a fingerpad, elicited something both gasp and giggle. Here was arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure. Here was a thing for her to focus on that was not the cool blue of anxiety that warred with love remembered in unequal measure.
 
 There was no rush to their movements, though, and arousal and excitement and anticipation in equal measure are a joy in their own, and so with some unspoken negotiation, The Woman leaned back and Her Lover leaned forward rather than the other way around. There was some careful tail maneuvering to accomplish this, but, my friends, we are used to it. There is \emph{always} a careful maneuvering of our tails. Skunk tails, you see, are quite sizeable, and feline tails are less flexible at the base. It is a part of our lives, you see? There is still joy in having a tail, though, and with her tail out of the way, The Woman was once more able to relax, this time laid flat on her back, and Her Lover was once more able to provide that meteor shower of kisses down over the side of her neck, then over across her décolletage, and it was here where, as promised, here is where the complications arose, for it was at that moment, at the moment where Her Lover's kisses landed upon that lovely spot at the hollow of her throat that there was a bright flash amidst the blue of The Woman's anxiety and she was no longer The Woman who was a panther, but instead The Woman who was human.
 
@@ -254,10 +254,10 @@ Her Lover did so, to no effect, other than a quiet huff from The Woman. They loo
 
 And so they continued together with no rush to their movements.
 
-The Woman shifted forms several times more. There were, they found, certain milestones that led to such, rather than certain places. There was the first hand on breast --- and then she was a skunk. There was the first clutch of fingers at side --- and then she was back to human. There was the feeling of warm fingers slipping beneath a waistband --- and, yes, she was back to being a panther.
+The Woman shifted forms several times more. There were, they found, certain milestones that led to such, rather than certain places. There was the first hand on breast—and then she was a skunk. There was the first clutch of fingers at side—and then she was back to human. There was the feeling of warm fingers slipping beneath a waistband—and, yes, she was back to being a panther.
 
-Throughout it all, all those kisses --- whether or not The Woman was able to return them, for giving kisses with a muzzle is not a thing she was able to do --- and those squeezes and strokes and the gentle way Her Lover cupped her palm over The Woman's mons, throughout all those shifts, The Woman kept before her that ineffable point. Throughout all of the warmth of love and those stinging-cold flashes of anxiety and they way they swirled clockwise, she peered closer that she might scry some meaning out of this kernel of what was most certainly not joy. Even as the warm wave of climax pushed through her, rushing out from that spot low in her belly, even as she clutched at Her Lover's shoulders, fingertips and clawtips both tugging at skin, even as her cries smoothed out into whine-tinged breaths, she tried to name the unnamable.
+Throughout it all, all those kisses—whether or not The Woman was able to return them, for giving kisses with a muzzle is not a thing she was able to do—and those squeezes and strokes and the gentle way Her Lover cupped her palm over The Woman's mons, throughout all those shifts, The Woman kept before her that ineffable point. Throughout all of the warmth of love and those stinging-cold flashes of anxiety and they way they swirled clockwise, she peered closer that she might scry some meaning out of this kernel of what was most certainly not joy. Even as the warm wave of climax pushed through her, rushing out from that spot low in her belly, even as she clutched at Her Lover's shoulders, fingertips and clawtips both tugging at skin, even as her cries smoothed out into whine-tinged breaths, she tried to name the unnamable.
 
-They lay together for hours after, talking and touching. They moved to the bed and The Woman who was a skunk or a human or a panther brought such pleasure as she had been given to Her Lover, and at last they slept, and the undefinable remained undefined. There was joy in that touch, in that remembered love, and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her --- and she would let her --- and that, too was a joy. And still, there between joy and fear\ldots{}
+They lay together for hours after, talking and touching. They moved to the bed and The Woman who was a skunk or a human or a panther brought such pleasure as she had been given to Her Lover, and at last they slept, and the undefinable remained undefined. There was joy in that touch, in that remembered love, and she knew that Her Lover would be by her side for some time to come if she let her—and she would let her—and that, too was a joy. And still, there between joy and fear\ldots{}
 
 There was joy, yes, but it was not a complete joy. Her hedonism with touch and sensuality and sexuality was a lovely hedonism and she cherished it, but it was not the hedonism she needed for this task.

idumea/content/005.tex

@@ -1,16 +1,16 @@
 Some of my readers may be wondering why it is that I know so much about The Woman.
 
-``How does she know all of this?'' some might be wondering. ``Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?'' Others might be wondering --- and rightly so! --- ``How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman's innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.''
+``How does she know all of this?'' some might be wondering. ``Does she really know all these things that The Woman did? Does she know who the kindly shop owner is? The one who pet on The Woman as she sobbed from too spicy a chili?'' Others might be wondering—and rightly so!—``How much of this is actually real? Surely she does not know The Woman's innermost thoughts! All this talk of ideas in shapes being set before her is quite silly.''
 
-My answer is that tired phrase: ``It is complicated.'' Of course I do not know her innermost thoughts. I think it is a me thing to take abstract ideas and pretend they look like pretty baubles or hot coals or little statuettes to be placed upon a dresser. I cannot read minds, and I do not have any memories from The Woman. I do not even know quite what she is anymore! I would not know if she quit, since I am not down-tree from her --- her down-tree instance is dead now, these last six decades, remember --- and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can. No, I do not know anything so intimate.
+My answer is that tired phrase: ``It is complicated.'' Of course I do not know her innermost thoughts. I think it is a me thing to take abstract ideas and pretend they look like pretty baubles or hot coals or little statuettes to be placed upon a dresser. I cannot read minds, and I do not have any memories from The Woman. I do not even know quite what she is anymore! I would not know if she quit, since I am not down-tree from her—her down-tree instance is dead now, these last six decades, remember—and I do not believe she merged cross-tree with anyone except perhaps Ashes Denote That Fire Was, who is building in themself a gestalt of the clade as best they can. No, I do not know anything so intimate.
 
 What I do have, though, is a story. I have the story I learned from The Woman's Friend and Therapist and Cocladist and Lover, the one I learned from The Blue Fairy. I have all of that story that I learned, and I have that story that I lived.
 
 \secdiv
 
-One day --- I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold --- one day, The Woman came to me.
+One day—I remember it being quite a warm one, though every sim has different weather, and we as a clade are not all that keen on cold—one day, The Woman came to me.
 
-``Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars,'' she said as she stood before my door, looking much the same as I do --- though it bears repeating that she was \emph{quite} stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am \emph{not;} she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! ``I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?''
+``Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars,'' she said as she stood before my door, looking much the same as I do—though it bears repeating that she was \emph{quite} stylish, and I promise you, friends, I am \emph{not;} she wore a simple outfit of shifting colors that caught the eye without dazzling, one that made her look supremely comfortable as herself, and me? I wore a t-shirt and pajama pants! ``I was pointed your way by Praiseworthy. Do you have a moment to speak?''
 
 Readers, I do not think I need to tell you that I was caught off-guard by this! I had never met The Woman before, though I had certainly seen her once or twice. There were functions, yes? And perhaps she came to one of my readings or two, and certainly she was there, that day on the field as we watched Michelle who was also Sasha give herself up to the world and become one with the heart that perhaps beats at some imagined center of the System. The most recent time I had seen her, though, was in some unreadable and thus unwritable mood as some few dozen of us gathered on the first of what some are now calling \emph{HaShichzur,} the day that Lagrange was restored after the Century Attack.
 
@@ -24,7 +24,7 @@ And now here she was, standing in the little courtyard created by the set of tow
 
 My place is clean and minimal. It is not clean because I am necessarily a clean person, nor is it minimal because I have any particular attachments to minimalism or its trappings. Friends, you have surely gathered by now that I am quite a bit more focused on writing than I am on most anything else. My home contains a simple kitchen and a simple dining table. There is a den in which there is a couch and a coffee table. There are two bedrooms, one of which contains a bed and the other of which is empty. The only room that is of any interest is perhaps my office, but even that is probably too minimal for most people's tastes! I have a desk. I have paper and pens and a keyboard on which I can type when that is the mood.
 
-That is not to say that it is a boring place --- at least, I do not think so! I have some paintings on the wall, some landscapes interrupted by hyper-black squares painted by The Child. There are several little decorations scattered around, as well; little objects that The Oneirotect has made in its explorations in oneirotecture and oneiro-impressionism. The most meaningful of these sits on my writing desk, and takes the form of a wireframe polyhedral fox about the size of my paw. While it is silver in color, it does not cast any shadows on itself and has constant luminosity, and so it looks like a two-dimensional shape that changes as your perspective does.
+That is not to say that it is a boring place—at least, I do not think so! I have some paintings on the wall, some landscapes interrupted by hyper-black squares painted by The Child. There are several little decorations scattered around, as well; little objects that The Oneirotect has made in its explorations in oneirotecture and oneiro-impressionism. The most meaningful of these sits on my writing desk, and takes the form of a wireframe polyhedral fox about the size of my paw. While it is silver in color, it does not cast any shadows on itself and has constant luminosity, and so it looks like a two-dimensional shape that changes as your perspective does.
 
 Ah, I am digressing again. My thoughts and words wander.
 
@@ -40,13 +40,13 @@ While I fetched us both such a glass, I said, ``What is it that brings you here?
 
 ``Oh, very much so. I remember being her, yes, but that was nigh on three centuries ago, and I do not quite understand who she has become, myself.'' I handed over the glass of water and gestured toward the couch, where we sat on either end, half-facing each other.
 
-``She was still pleasant to be around, at least,'' The Woman said. ``She said that I should seek you out, along with Time Is A Finger Pointing At Itself, Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress, and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps. You are the last on my list.''
+``She was still pleasant to be around, at least,'' The Woman said. ``She said that I should seek you out, along with Where It Watches The Slow Hours Progress and Beholden To The Heat Of The Lamps. You are the last on my list.''
 
 ``That is curious. What was the reasoning for those names?''
 
 ``A writer, a poet, and a musician. I have been having some thoughts on joy that I would like to explore with each of you.''
 
-She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food --- and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is \emph{incredibly} delicious --- and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things, and the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and spiritual fulfilment yet to go.
+She told me her story, much as I have written it to you, readers. She spoke of the ways of seeking out joy, of diving into the pleasures of food—and I can tell you, friends, she is absolutely correct about tam mak hoong; it is \emph{incredibly} delicious—and the pleasures of touch and sensuality and sexuality. She told me of how much joy she had found in such things, and the rekindled relationship with Her Lover, and she also told me of how these joys were lovely, but not the joys that she was seeking, and that she had three more items on her list of five. She had entertainment, creativity, and spiritual fulfilment yet to go.
 
 ``So, your goal with visiting is to read?''
 
@@ -66,7 +66,7 @@ We sat in silence, then, while I processed this. My friends, you may perhaps hav
 
 ``Thank you, my dear,'' I said at last, bowing.
 
-She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
+She smiled—another blessing!—and nodded to me.
 
 ``Tell me about your reading, then.''
 
@@ -76,43 +76,23 @@ She smiled --- another blessing! --- and nodded to me.
 
 ``We sat in the solarium and spoke about what reading \emph{is.} She spoke of taking a story or a poem and wrapping oneself up in it. She gave me an example. She recited a poem:
 
-\begin{verse}
-``Too many suits move in too many lines.\\
-They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed,\\
-hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta.\\
-Fingers ferry food — fish, perhaps — finding\\
-slack-jawed mouths already open,\\
-squawking at wayward children\\
-or bemoaning The Market,\\
-whatever that may be.
+\{\{\% verse \%\}\} ``Too many suits move in too many lines. They circle banquet tables, hawk-eyed, hunting crudites, canapés, bruschetta. Fingers ferry food—fish, perhaps—finding slack-jawed mouths already open, squawking at wayward children or bemoaning The Market, whatever that may be.
 
-``At some point, who cares how long ago,\\
-death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again.\\
-Who knows how well they knew him,\\
-their backs turned, studiously\\
-deciding that he is no longer of them?
+``At some point, who cares how long ago, death surfaced, claimed one, submerged again. Who knows how well they knew him, their backs turned, studiously deciding that he is no longer of them?
 
 ``One could never guess.
 
-``We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps,\\
-that the room is tastefully furnished,\\
-the casket silver, the bar, open,\\
-quite good, and none of them are drunk yet,\\
-or at least none look it.
+``We can say his suit was very fine, perhaps, that the room is tastefully furnished, the casket silver, the bar, open, quite good, and none of them are drunk yet, or at least none look it.
 
-``\,``Good man, good man,'' they mutter,\\
-doing all they can to convince each other\\
-through well-rehearsed performances,\\
-that this must be the case.
+````Good man, good man,'' they mutter, doing all they can to convince each other through well-rehearsed performances, that this must be the case.
 
-``The silently bereaved already sit graveside.''
-\end{verse}
+``The silently bereaved already sit graveside.'' \{\{\% /verse \%\}\}
 
 I turned those words over and over in my head for a minute, since The Woman had seemed quite comfortable sitting in silence with me. She used that time to drink her water while I played back the words again and again, looking down at my paws, and then returned my gaze to hers. ``There is a difference between the performance of grief and grieving, is there not?''
 
 ``It is as you say. There is performed grief and performative grief. We of the tenth stanza were quite sad when Lagrange came back with us but not Should We Forget. We received condolences from many, some flowers and many kind words. Ever Dream came over and spoke with me about grief as we sat out on the field, where she said,''It is quite sad, is it not? To lose someone you have known for so long is quite sad.'' I agreed, and then drew a line around the topic.'' She performed such a motion now, describing an arc before her with one of her well kept claws, before dismissing it with a wave. ``This was grief performed.''
 
-I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something --- flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
+I nodded, and in my heart, I think I knew what was coming next, for I found my muscles bunching up as in in preparation for something—flight, perhaps? I do not know, my friends.
 
 ``And Warmth In Fire came over, too, so that it could sit at our table and weep rather than eat. Ey wept, and then asked to retreat, and we guided her up to Should We Forget's room so that they could lay in her bed for a while in silence. When it came back downstairs, ey thanked us kindly and left, and when we went back upstairs to look, there was a flower wrought out of some subtly glowing metal left on Should We Forget's pillow. It lays there still.''
 
@@ -126,7 +106,7 @@ So it is perhaps no surprise that I cried then, and that, for the third time, Th
 
 When I was once more able to speak, after I had taken a moment to clean up, I asked, ``You went into this experience with Slow Hours to explore joy, yes? What did you find, in the end?''
 
-``I did not read only this one poem. I read several more with her that day, and took home several books to read in such a way. Slow Hours talked me through the joy of stories --- even the small ones --- and left me with some assignments.
+``I did not read only this one poem. I read several more with her that day, and took home several books to read in such a way. Slow Hours talked me through the joy of stories—even the small ones—and left me with some assignments.
 
 ``I did not like all of the books, but Slow Hours instructed me to read them anyway, unless they started to make me truly bored. None did, however, so I finished every book I took with me.
 
@@ -158,7 +138,7 @@ When, now for the second time, I was able to sit up straight again, able breath
 
 The Woman's simple question left me all the room in the world to admit that I did not know. I think that until she asked it, I was not quite sure why, myself. I \emph{had} needed to hear those things but, yes: why? I do not think I would have been able to tell her as part of my statement, but that syllable forced my thoughts into order in a way that they are not as I write this, six years later.
 
-``Because I have not internalized the immediacy of the attack,'' I said. ``I did not know Should We Forget. I never met No Longer Myself. I met and spoke with Beckoning and Muse, yes, but only once. You telling me these things --- me hearing them --- was enough to make me realize that I have not truly grieved them, not properly. Your story of Warmth grieving helped me understand em better, and your story of Beholden's music and how she told you not to listen to it for her assignments made me realize that I, too, am only just starting to process the loss.''
+``Because I have not internalized the immediacy of the attack,'' I said. ``I did not know Should We Forget. I never met No Longer Myself. I met and spoke with Beckoning and Muse, yes, but only once. You telling me these things—me hearing them—was enough to make me realize that I have not truly grieved them, not properly. Your story of Warmth grieving helped me understand em better, and your story of Beholden's music and how she told you not to listen to it for her assignments made me realize that I, too, am only just starting to process the loss.''
 
 ``I understand. I was forced to confront the immediacy of Should We Forget no longer being with us from the very first day, and I am used to thinking of my stanza in terms of loss. We lost Death Itself and I Do Not Know, yes? We knew loss in a way more immediate within the clade except perhaps by those of the second stanza, who lost their first line, too, yes?''
 
@@ -196,7 +176,7 @@ I nodded. ``A story is a good place to start, yes. You really have made so littl
 
 Ah! This was it! My friends, this was the point when I realized just what it was that made each of The Woman's smiles feel like blessings and what made it feel like she bore some power within her that I could not quite understand. It was her \emph{stillness.} My astute readers will remember that she had a thought, some few thousand words ago: perhaps this unbecoming that her mind circled around was simply the utmost in stillness.
 
-Now, your narrator did not know this at the time --- I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story --- but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
+Now, your narrator did not know this at the time—I do not even know now that this was the thought she had that day, but I am a storyteller, and so that is part of her story—but at the time, it was a revelation. Stillness and stillness and stillness. What a dream to have! Would that I could find such, yes? Even now, even as I write this, I feel that the lucidity in my words is due only to my recounting of a conversation I actually had, words anchored to moments in time that I pull out one right after the other and lay in a pretty row.
 
 At the time, however, I said, ``Have you found stillness in your endeavors so far? Was there stillness in active reading and active listening?''
 
@@ -228,7 +208,7 @@ I laughed, nodding.
 
 ``I will say that she is no less flighty or energetic when she chooses to live at older ages. When she is, say, twenty five, there is still no stopping her.''
 
-``So I am told. However, she is also a very good girl, is she not? Beholden saw the state that I was in --- for when Motes started zipping around the house, I started shifting between forms --- and suggested that she go and paint. She said quite simply''Okay!'' and ran off to the next room where she simply sat on a stool and began painting.''
+``So I am told. However, she is also a very good girl, is she not? Beholden saw the state that I was in—for when Motes started zipping around the house, I started shifting between forms—and suggested that she go and paint. She said quite simply''Okay!'' and ran off to the next room where she simply sat on a stool and began painting.''
 
 I nodded up to the wall beside the couch, upon which a painting sat. The Woman smiled and nodded.
 
@@ -262,9 +242,9 @@ She laughed. ``Neither had I. We hiked there once and it seems to have left litt
 
 The woman laughed.
 
-``So it is much like she paints the rest of the scene, yes? Except that it is not, because she is not adding to the picture, she is taking away from it. I have tried to look at this painting from every angle, yes? I have looked up close and far away. I have touched it and smelled it and --- yes, I will admit --- tasted it, and it is in all ways just paint on canvas. But it is not on \emph{top} of \emph{anything,} it is \emph{through everything,} I would say. I do not know how else to explain it. With all the calmness in the universe, she excised a part of the world from existence.'' I looked up to the painting again. ``I feel that, were I able to visit Dear's prairie again, that very chunk of it would be missing. I fear it would be some sort of black hole hungrily gobbling up all of Lagrange from the inside. In my dreams, that is what the Century Attack looks like. In my dreams, we are all pulled through a null rectangle like that, and when the world is pulled back out, those like Should We Forget and No Longer Myself and Beckoning and Muse are left within.''
+``So it is much like she paints the rest of the scene, yes? Except that it is not, because she is not adding to the picture, she is taking away from it. I have tried to look at this painting from every angle, yes? I have looked up close and far away. I have touched it and smelled it and—yes, I will admit—tasted it, and it is in all ways just paint on canvas. But it is not on \emph{top} of \emph{anything,} it is \emph{through everything,} I would say. I do not know how else to explain it. With all the calmness in the universe, she excised a part of the world from existence.'' I looked up to the painting again. ``I feel that, were I able to visit Dear's prairie again, that very chunk of it would be missing. I fear it would be some sort of black hole hungrily gobbling up all of Lagrange from the inside. In my dreams, that is what the Century Attack looks like. In my dreams, we are all pulled through a null rectangle like that, and when the world is pulled back out, those like Should We Forget and No Longer Myself and Beckoning and Muse are left within.''
 
-We sat in silence --- silences can be so comfortable sometimes! --- while I looked up at the painting and The Woman looked out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. It must have been two or three minutes of just long, comfortable silence, of just a woman who was also a cat and a woman who was also a skunk, two women who were in some roundabout way the same, sitting together.
+We sat in silence—silences can be so comfortable sometimes!—while I looked up at the painting and The Woman looked out the sliding glass door that led out to my little patio. It must have been two or three minutes of just long, comfortable silence, of just a woman who was also a cat and a woman who was also a skunk, two women who were in some roundabout way the same, sitting together.
 
 ``How large do you suppose it would be?'' The Woman said, startling me out of my reverie.
 

idumea/content/006.tex

@@ -14,7 +14,7 @@ The Woman, you see, had picked up on furry as a subculture, for when you are a c
 
 The Woman's superlative friend followed with her and then soon surpassed her. Ey picked not feline, but fennec fox, with ears too big and a brush of a tail and a short but pointy snout.
 
-The Woman and her superlative friend moved together as one. They were the same person twice over, they would say. Michelle who was Sasha --- a name chosen for who knows what reason --- and RJ who was AwDae --- a name that was a corruption of eir name --- a name I feel no shame now in sharing. They were the pair who loved each other in their own way and who surrounded themselves with others. They were the pair who found each other and, when the world deemed them in some way unworthy of consideration, got lost together, for they fell among a crowd of politically active friends, as they were active themselves, and how inconvenient! Inconvenient people should be set aside, some bureaucrat thought. They should be put up high on a shelf in some forgotten storage. And so they were.
+The Woman and her superlative friend moved together as one. They were the same person twice over, they would say. Michelle who was Sasha—a name chosen for who knows what reason—and RJ who was AwDae—a name that was a corruption of eir name—a name I feel no shame now in sharing. They were the pair who loved each other in their own way and who surrounded themselves with others. They were the pair who found each other and, when the world deemed them in some way unworthy of consideration, got lost together, for they fell among a crowd of politically active friends, as they were active themselves, and how inconvenient! Inconvenient people should be set aside, some bureaucrat thought. They should be put up high on a shelf in some forgotten storage. And so they were.
 
 The Woman and her superlative friend, when next they clicked their implants into place and delved into the familiar second home that was the 'net, they were shunted away into dreams and left there to wilt, to languish, to desiccate and wither and be blown away by who cared what wind. They were both torn asunder in some ineffable way. For Michelle who was Sasha, those two identities were carved apart, though only halfway, and, when her superlative friend, her beloved RJ, gave of emself to create the world that was Lagrange, a System for those minds who chose to upload, she dove in as soon as she could afford.
 
@@ -26,11 +26,11 @@ But I digress.
 
 \secdiv
 
-The Woman wandered far from home. She picked a direction --- east, if the entrance to that Gothic house on the field was due north --- and began to walk. She walked for an hour. Then she walked for two, for four, for eight. She walked until the sun set and then she lay down in the grass and looked up to the stars and remembered all of these things and wept and smiled and laughed and sobbed.
+The Woman wandered far from home. She picked a direction—east, if the entrance to that Gothic house on the field was due north—and began to walk. She walked for an hour. Then she walked for two, for four, for eight. She walked until the sun set and then she lay down in the grass and looked up to the stars and remembered all of these things and wept and smiled and laughed and sobbed.
 
 She remembered these things, and I remember these things, just as I, in dreams, remember the sands beneath my feet and the rattle of dry grass in the wind and the names of all things and forget them only when I wake. She wandered the field and lay down and looked at the stars and bathed in memories and I pace the empty rooms of my home, listening to nothing, looking at nothing, clenching and unclenching my fists as I struggle not to reach for my pen, my paper, and instead write in my head.
 
-Why do we so often do this? Why are there times when, overflowing or not, we wrap ourselves up in our memories like the most comforting blanket in the world, and yet still cry? Why do we cry after loved ones? Why do we cry after ourselves? Why do we look up to the stars --- stars we made! --- and cry so bitterly? Why do the tears leave tracks in the fur on our cheeks or down over the skin of our faces? Why do birds, as the poet says, suddenly appear every time we feel such nearness as is left of our superlative friend?
+Why do we so often do this? Why are there times when, overflowing or not, we wrap ourselves up in our memories like the most comforting blanket in the world, and yet still cry? Why do we cry after loved ones? Why do we cry after ourselves? Why do we look up to the stars—stars we made!—and cry so bitterly? Why do the tears leave tracks in the fur on our cheeks or down over the skin of our faces? Why do birds, as the poet says, suddenly appear every time we feel such nearness as is left of our superlative friend?
 
 The Woman lay in the grass of the field and dug her fingers down into the soil between the blades, clutching perhaps a dandelion.
 
@@ -68,9 +68,9 @@ What is one to do when faced with the enormity of love? What subtle powers does
 
 The Woman and I and all of our kin have not always had the best of luck with love, nor with standing up for ourselves. When I say that we have more traumas than simply getting lost, our unluck in love accounts for some sizeable portion of this.
 
-We struggled with the role that our bodies played, yes? For Michelle who was Sasha was short --- as we are --- and she was fat --- as many of us remain --- and she was so-called blessed with breasts to match. So-called by those who wished to in some way claim ownership of them. When she pursued a reduction, her back thanked her and those who bestowed such praise wondered why why why we would withhold that goodness from them.
+We struggled with the role that our bodies played, yes? For Michelle who was Sasha was short—as we are—and she was fat—as many of us remain—and she was so-called blessed with breasts to match. So-called by those who wished to in some way claim ownership of them. When she pursued a reduction, her back thanked her and those who bestowed such praise wondered why why why we would withhold that goodness from them.
 
-And yet even that did not stop such attention, for we were, it seems, worth a certain set of things to others --- to those beyond our friends and our superlative friend with whom we remain in love --- and so why would they hunt for aught else?
+And yet even that did not stop such attention, for we were, it seems, worth a certain set of things to others—to those beyond our friends and our superlative friend with whom we remain in love—and so why would they hunt for aught else?
 
 We are skunks for a reason. We bear these aposematic stripes for a reason.
 

idumea/content/007.tex

@@ -1,11 +1,8 @@
-\hypertarget{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}{%
-\subsection{\texorpdfstring{End Of Endings --- 2403×Rye --- 2409}{End Of Endings --- 2403 × Rye --- 2409}}\label{end-of-endings-2403-rye-2409}}
-
 When at last The Woman returned home, left my home and returned to her own, walked out into the field for a day and then lay down, her mind was aswirl with possibilities and all the various endlessnesses thereof. She felt full. She felt \emph{overfull.} She felt as though she had had poured into her several depths, oceans of possibilities and each as deep or deeper than the last. She was vast. She was limitless. She was these things, and yet she was infinitely smaller than the limitless endlessness of the void which still lay within and without.
 
 She returned home after that talk with me and my beloved up-tree, with your humble narrator and The Oneirotect, and she went for a walk and she did that which she is good at: she napped. There, out on the grass, there, she napped.
 
-My dear, dear friends, the longer I go on, the more I pace around through quiet rooms the more these words swirl around me in some quiet maelstrom, the more I wish that I could do the same. Sleep brings no relief. Within my dreams there are yet more words. The boundary between waking and sleeping is so faint, now --- I write even in my sleep! My dreams are of The Woman! My dreams are of me sitting at my desk with my pen in my paw and paper before me, of ink on page and words flowing after like an eager puppy! --- the boundary is so faint now that I have more than once awoken from uneasy sleep to found that I had indeed at some point sat down at my desk and written word after word after word, after word and word and word. I have found pages of endlessly repeating phrases. I have found scribbles that are doubtless words and yet which I cannot decipher, and I cannot remember my dreams well enough to say what they may have been.
+My dear, dear friends, the longer I go on, the more I pace around through quiet rooms the more these words swirl around me in some quiet maelstrom, the more I wish that I could do the same. Sleep brings no relief. Within my dreams there are yet more words. The boundary between waking and sleeping is so faint, now—I write even in my sleep! My dreams are of The Woman! My dreams are of me sitting at my desk with my pen in my paw and paper before me, of ink on page and words flowing after like an eager puppy!—the boundary is so faint now that I have more than once awoken from uneasy sleep to found that I had indeed at some point sat down at my desk and written word after word after word, after word and word and word. I have found pages of endlessly repeating phrases. I have found scribbles that are doubtless words and yet which I cannot decipher, and I cannot remember my dreams well enough to say what they may have been.
 
 Did The Woman dream, we may wonder? Did she lay down and sleep after that conversation and look up to the constellations in the texture of the ceiling, close her eyes, and then let play within her head some scene, some dream within a dream within a dream within a dream, some stream of meaning that the subconscious mind as dreamed by the dreamer of the world?
 
@@ -27,29 +24,29 @@ Here is my supposition:
 
 The Woman went walking. In her dream, she went walking, though it was not out on her field, the one we have seen so often. No, instead she went walking out her bedroom and through her secret door, out through the door and onto the street of the city that had become so familiar to her over the years, that city with the brick pavers and the fallen leaves which skittered so anxiously around her feet. She went walking in her dream and made her way through the unnervingly empty city streets, walking and walking and walking. She passed the trolley stops. She passed the coffee shops. She passed, perhaps, the setting sun.
 
-And at some final point --- final! --- she came across a square set within the cement of the sidewalk perhaps two meters on a side where the concrete gave way to a metal grate in the form of a sunburst, and in the middle there was a circle of soil, good and clean.
+And at some final point—final!—she came across a square set within the cement of the sidewalk perhaps two meters on a side where the concrete gave way to a metal grate in the form of a sunburst, and in the middle there was a circle of soil, good and clean.
 
-There, within her dream within a dream within a dream, she smiled. She smiled and she sank slowly to her knees in that ritual circle described in steel and 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.
+There, within her dream within a dream within a dream, she smiled. She smiled and she sank slowly to her knees in that ritual circle described in steel and 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.
 
-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.
 
 This is my supposition because this is my dream. This is a world I have seen and a world I have dreamed and it is a world that I have found a way still to love, even after it turned in on itself and ate so many of its own, even as The Dreamer who dreams us all stumbled skinned eir palms and elbows on the brick pavers of this land. Since I have become myself, since your humble narrator was first called Dear The Wheat And Rye Under The Stars, that has been my dream. I have dreamed hundreds of times over the centuries that I have lived that I, too, fell to my knees and dug my fingers into the soil and became, in some pleasure-bound process, something still and sky-reaching, something earth-eating and water-drinking.
 
 This is my supposition for The Woman and her dream after she came home from my house, because I think within her all along was that stillness, that sky-reachingness and earth-eatingness and water-drinkingness.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
-The longer we live --- and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old! --- the more evident it becomes to us that there is fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward --- weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith --- and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.
+The longer we live—and, my dear readers, I will remind you that I am now 323 years old!—the more evident it becomes to us that there is fractally cyclical nature to life: the years spiral up and the months spiral around and the days spiral forward—weeks are a construct borne out of our inherited faith—and so we live within a fractally cyclical tangle of time.
 
 I know this. You know this, I am sure, on however instinctual a level, for you are clever and bright and you see the world with fresher eyes than I have. You are cleverer and brighter and fresher than your humble narrator who paces the empty rooms of her house and fills them with the quiet muttering of the mad.
 
-The Woman knew this as well. When she woke from her nap --- for my astute readers remember that that is how this rambling chapter began! --- she could now --- in a way she could not before --- feel and perhaps even see these spirals. She could see the way that her 317 years had spiraled up around her. She could see the way that time bound her, tied her up in coils and coils and coils and coils and coils. She could see these coils --- however metaphorically --- as they twine around her legs and torso. She can feel these coils --- however metaphorically --- slowing her down, holding her arms to her side and limiting her reach. They --- these coils and coils and coils --- obscure her.
+The Woman knew this as well. When she woke from her nap—for my astute readers remember that that is how this rambling chapter began!—she could now—in a way she could not before—feel and perhaps even see these spirals. She could see the way that her 317 years had spiraled up around her. She could see the way that time bound her, tied her up in coils and coils and coils and coils and coils. She could see these coils—however metaphorically—as they twine around her legs and torso. She can feel these coils—however metaphorically—slowing her down, holding her arms to her side and limiting her reach. They—these coils and coils and coils—obscure her.
 
 Ah, my friends, I am struggling. I can feel and see these coils and coils and coils and coils and coils, yes, and am obscured.
 
 I am going to lay down, and perhaps I will dream.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 I have slept now. I took a cue from The Woman and took a nap, and while it did not come quite so easily to me as it ever did to her, it still offered some respite.
 
@@ -57,7 +54,7 @@ I dreamed, though! I dreamed of words like leaves and sentences like branches an
 
 And above was the sun which was also The Dreamer who dreams us all.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 When at last The Woman returned home, she performed a new ritual. She performed a ritual of mourning.
 
@@ -91,15 +88,15 @@ Her Cocladist, halfway through setting her book aside, froze, and a wash of skun
 
 The Woman stood still in the doorway. ``Because I am sad, and because I miss her.''
 
-``Alright,'' Her Cocladist said and finished the act of setting her book down, tented over the open page --- no, do not get angry at her; sys-side, there are no broken bindings. ``Do not sit on her bed.''
+``Alright,'' Her Cocladist said and finished the act of setting her book down, tented over the open page—no, do not get angry at her; sys-side, there are no broken bindings. ``Do not sit on her bed.''
 
 The Woman bowed once more and stepped at last over the threshold, shutting the door behind her.
 
-Along the other wall --- that wall that had been hidden to the woman --- was a simple bed, a single bed, a single-size mattress, and a wall painted in a feathery ombré from golden orange to purple-black. The covers were rumpled, clearly slept in. Clearly slept in and also clearly frozen in time, for the bed had not been touched since Death Itself had quit fifty seven years before. The Woman would not sit on it, even had Her Cocladist not warned her, for such was simply the way of things. The same was true of I Do Not Know's bed, and the only person who had laid in Should We Forget's bed was The Oneirotect who deserved such an expression of grief.
+Along the other wall—that wall that had been hidden to the woman—was a simple bed, a single bed, a single-size mattress, and a wall painted in a feathery ombré from golden orange to purple-black. The covers were rumpled, clearly slept in. Clearly slept in and also clearly frozen in time, for the bed had not been touched since Death Itself had quit fifty seven years before. The Woman would not sit on it, even had Her Cocladist not warned her, for such was simply the way of things. The same was true of I Do Not Know's bed, and the only person who had laid in Should We Forget's bed was The Oneirotect who deserved such an expression of grief.
 
 The Woman had her own ritual of grief to perform, though, and this did not call for touching the bed.
 
-Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags --- when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport --- where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
+Instead, she sat down near the end of it, across the room from Her Cocladist, for both beds had at their feet matching beanbags—when you have a tail that flickers into being at moments not under your control, you are limited in your seating, you see, to the types of seats that can accommodate such caudal majesty that skunks sport—where once Her Cocladist and Should We Forget would sit at times and talk and share in kindnesses such as touch when their forms permitted.
 
 There, The Woman remained still.
 
@@ -109,13 +106,13 @@ She had within her an idea that there was stillness to be had in mourning.
 
 She had within her an idea that there was joy to be had in stillness.
 
-The Woman wondered whether or not there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha --- this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I --- and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for such is the nature of an inherited faith.
+The Woman wondered whether or not there was stillness in prayer. While Michelle who was Sasha inherited the faith of her parents and grandparents before them of Judaism, she herself did not inherit much of such from Michelle who was Sasha—this was the realm of the third stanza, of Oh But To Whom and Rav From Whence and What Right Have I—and yet the kernel of such lives within us all for such is the nature of an inherited faith.
 
-And yet regardless of her faith, there are, I am told, four kinds of prayer: words of thanksgiving, words of supplication, words of wonder, and the silence of meditation. I think, though, and perhaps you may think as well, that there are words of woe, of distress, of pain and fear and of the yearning for something --- \emph{anything} --- when our \emph{HaShem} does not feel near.
+And yet regardless of her faith, there are, I am told, four kinds of prayer: words of thanksgiving, words of supplication, words of wonder, and the silence of meditation. I think, though, and perhaps you may think as well, that there are words of woe, of distress, of pain and fear and of the yearning for something—\emph{anything}—when our \emph{HaShem} does not feel near.
 
 I think The Woman, as she sat across from Her Cocladist and watched how she looked now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur, leaned hardest on the last. One might think that she would in her seeking of stillness lean harder on the silence of meditation but I also think that it hurts too much to witness some pains. The Woman was kind. She was empathetic. She could sit there in pain with Her Cocladist and pray: how long, \emph{Adonai,} will You forget me always? How long hide Your face from me? How long shall I cast about for counsel, sorrow in my heart all day? Regard, answer me, \emph{HaShem,} my God. Light up my eyes, lest I sleep with death. My heart exults in Your rescue my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart exults in You my heart.
 
-Perhaps this is how she prayed, perhaps this is how I pray. Perhaps I cast about for something --- \emph{anything} --- to anchor me to \emph{this} world, to \emph{this} reality, to \emph{this} life and call out: why am I forgotten? Perhaps I do my best to trust. Perhaps I do my best to cause my heart to exult in some god in whom I am not sure I believe that I may be regarded, that I may be answered.
+Perhaps this is how she prayed, perhaps this is how I pray. Perhaps I cast about for something—\emph{anything}—to anchor me to \emph{this} world, to \emph{this} reality, to \emph{this} life and call out: why am I forgotten? Perhaps I do my best to trust. Perhaps I do my best to cause my heart to exult in some god in whom I am not sure I believe that I may be regarded, that I may be answered.
 
 Perhaps that is not how she prayed. Perhaps she rested her cheek on her fist and looked as well out the window and cried, or perhaps not, but still she sat in silence. Perhaps she leaned not on psalms of anguish but on the silence of meditation
 
@@ -123,15 +120,15 @@ Perhaps she did not pray at all. I do not rightly know, and can only surmise.
 
 Perhaps she, like me, like Job, struggles with maintaining a faith disinterested in reward or punishment or relief from sorrow. Perhaps she, like me, wishes she could in the hope that such disinterested faith might still provide a soothing balm against pain. Perhaps she, like me, struggles not to fall into the cynicism of Qohelet, the gather of the assembled who mused aloud: I set my heart to know wisdom and to know revelry and folly, for this, too, is herding the wind. Who mused aloud: what gain is there for man in all his toil that he toils under the sun? Who mused aloud: everything was from the dust, and everything goes back to the dust.
 
-Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor the stillness of mourning, nor the stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.
+Perhaps she spoke to The Dreamer who dreams us all, perhaps not, but either way, she did not find joy in the keenness of sorrow, nor spirituality in the stillness of mourning, nor aught else but pain the stasis of Her Cocladist, looking now out the window, unseeing, silent tears coursing down her cheeks and leaving tracks on cheeks or marks in fur.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 The Woman wanted to unbecome.
 
 We know this, you and I. We know this because that is the story that I have been telling this whole time, is it not? I have written thousands of words, now, about how she was seeking joy. I wrote of her eating wonderful things, of having sex with her lover and holding hands with her friend, of reading and listening to music, of the conversation she had about creation with me and my beloved up-tree, The Oneirotect, of the mournful prayer she shared with Her Cocladist. I wrote about all of her successes and how each was tainted by an incompleteness, a failure to find the joy she sought, but I have made it so tenuous as to why these two ideas of joy and unbecoming are connected.
 
-The Woman was too much herself, and becoming ever more so. With each day, each hour, each minute and second, she was becoming ever more herself. She did not just become older --- though, dear ones, you remember, of course, that we are \emph{very} old --- though she also became that --- but she became yet more The Woman than she had been before. My clever readers will remember when I said: I think she would say that she was \emph{too} full, too much, too alive. Those readers will remember when I said: she is too much herself, too human, too embodied within her vessel as it spirals out of control, too stuck in her mind as it twists in on itself. And, yes, those same readers will remember when I said: It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?
+The Woman was too much herself, and becoming ever more so. With each day, each hour, each minute and second, she was becoming ever more herself. She did not just become older—though, dear ones, you remember, of course, that we are \emph{very} old—though she also became that—but she became yet more The Woman than she had been before. My clever readers will remember when I said: I think she would say that she was \emph{too} full, too much, too alive. Those readers will remember when I said: she is too much herself, too human, too embodied within her vessel as it spirals out of control, too stuck in her mind as it twists in on itself. And, yes, those same readers will remember when I said: It is hard to experience peace, hard to experience joy when one is too much oneself, is it not?
 
 Do you see now the connection?
 
@@ -145,17 +142,17 @@ Oh, it is not so bad as it was at first. Even now, I am finding that I am no lon
 
 Well.
 
-There is a burning within me, and perhaps it is the burning edge of a knife held to my throat, in order to put all of these words somewhere. Their flow has been unstoppered, and I am helpless before it. They rush at me and all I can do is turn away from the wind and let this flow rush down my arm and out my paw and onto the page --- though, my friends, I have now injured my paw too much for this to be literal; there is blood in my fur and under my claws and there are holes in my pads where I punctured them and I still have not had the focus to fork such away and so I write now solely within my head as I pace the quiet rooms of my home.
+There is a burning within me, and perhaps it is the burning edge of a knife held to my throat, in order to put all of these words somewhere. Their flow has been unstoppered, and I am helpless before it. They rush at me and all I can do is turn away from the wind and let this flow rush down my arm and out my paw and onto the page—though, my friends, I have now injured my paw too much for this to be literal; there is blood in my fur and under my claws and there are holes in my pads where I punctured them and I still have not had the focus to fork such away and so I write now solely within my head as I pace the quiet rooms of my home.
 
 There is a burning, and there is helplessness, but there is no longer \emph{haste,} I mean to say, and I do not think The Woman felt haste. She, like me, felt \emph{compulsion.}
 
 She was compelled to seek a way to unbecome and make room for joy.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 \label{thedog1}
 
-The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes --- did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human! --- and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice --- that was the thought she held onto --- that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
+The Woman sat down on the floor by The Dog. She knew he was a cladist, for cladists come in many shapes---did she not also appear as a skunk? And a panther? And now, here, she was a human!---and so hoped he might have insight into unbecoming. This, after all, was the purpose of her visit to Le Rêve, the neighborhood of the fifth stanza, that of The Poet and The Musician and My Friend, and also The Child. It was The Child who was her goal, you see. She wished to speak with those who had changed, who had pushed themselves into new molds, who had become something new, that they might no longer be what had once drove them. Stillness lay in choice---that was the thought she held onto---that is the thought that I wish I could believe; would that I could choose to be still! Would that I could choose silence and images instead of yet more words.
 
 The Dog had attached himself to Au Lieu Du Rêve, to the theatre troupe and to the fifth stanza, to His Skunks, some time ago. He spent many lazy days among them, many evenings dozing by the kettlecorn stand in the theater lobby in the hopes of someone dropping their snacks, many frantic minutes carrying The Child's latest core dump to the resident systech after she yet again in a bout of play had crashed.
 
@@ -175,7 +172,7 @@ The Woman made a bag of kettlecorn and held out a piece to The Dog. He accepted,
 
 The Dog did not answer, but sniffed in the direction of the corn.
 
-The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. \emph{``I remember,''} The Dog said. \emph{``The tall one wanted to eat and chase and fetch and be. He wanted to not worry, to not tire himself out chasing making the world better. But he couldn't just become me, become us --- The Job is important.''}
+The Woman gave The Dog another piece, for this was, evidently, the deal. \emph{``I remember,''} The Dog said. \emph{``The tall one wanted to eat and chase and fetch and be. He wanted to not worry, to not tire himself out chasing making the world better. But he couldn't just become me, become us---The Job is important.''}
 
 The Dog waited for another bribe before continuing, for this was, evidently, the deal. \emph{``He practiced becoming the pack, becoming like me. I remember many forks of his. Some that didn't let go enough, some that let go too much. But he wanted to make me, make the pack. He kept wanting, kept trying, and now I am.''}
 
@@ -197,13 +194,13 @@ The Woman reached out to pet The Dog. It relaxed into the pressure.
 
 The Dog froze in a swelling of alarm. His fears came from the same simplicity as his joys. While he was wont to let the possibility of casting off his humanity sneak up on him slowly, he still felt fear, like His Elder did, at such a blunt statement of the idea. \emph{``Don't want! Who will watch Motes?''}
 
-The Woman gently soothed The Dog, letting the interaction fade away behind a stream of pets and scratches in just the right spot (for The Dog knew how to direct people to it) and more treats. We are creatures of pleasure all, you see. The Woman and I, yes --- for do we not both like being brushed? --- but also the rest of our clade and so many others besides. What pleasure there is in rending the mind from the body and letting it live as it will! What pleasure! What pleasure there is in choosing a form one inhabits entirely! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! The Dog was pleased that The Woman had not been told by Its Skunks not to feed it too much kettlecorn, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.
+The Woman gently soothed The Dog, letting the interaction fade away behind a stream of pets and scratches in just the right spot (for The Dog knew how to direct people to it) and more treats. We are creatures of pleasure all, you see. The Woman and I, yes---for do we not both like being brushed?---but also the rest of our clade and so many others besides. What pleasure there is in rending the mind from the body and letting it live as it will! What pleasure! What pleasure there is in choosing a form one inhabits entirely! What pleasure there is in living for decades and centuries! The Dog was pleased that The Woman had not been told by Its Skunks not to feed it too much kettlecorn, or that, if she had, she was ignoring them.
 
 Once The Dog had come down from being ambushed by the thought of abandoning those principles he had carried into his state, he realized what The Woman had wanted. \emph{``Can show you pack-friends who go chase rabbits all the time. But no words because they don't want. And can't say how. Don't want to know.''}
 
-``Good dog. Thank you,'' The Woman said. ``Good dog.''
+``Good dog. Thank you,'' The Woman said, and pet the dog some more. ``Good dog. Good dog.''
 
-The Dog lit up. It was a good dog!
+The Dog lit up. It \emph{was} a good dog!
 
 The Woman saw this and had a thought. ``Are you happy?'' she asked, handing over one more kernel. ``Are you at peace?''
 
@@ -215,9 +212,23 @@ The Woman could tell this was all the answer she would get for now. A ball appea
 
 The Woman threw. The Dog fetched, and in that moment, in that place, there was peace.
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+The Woman wanted to unbecome.
+
+I am doing my best to tell you, dear readers, this story from front to back like any good fairy tale. I am, of course, failing at times to do so like any good author must. Our lives are full of doublings-back and loop-the-loops even when we are bound by time's oh-so-strict arrow, yes? For our lives are circuitous and the progression of the world, as we know, spirals and coils around us.
+
+And so it is that I must once more step back from my notes—and here you must imagine me the type to have notes—and trace my finger up along the timeline of what I have so far told you so that we may sit together and consider why it is that stillness, for The Woman, has so much to do with unbecoming.
+
+We must first of all unlearn the idea that unbecoming is an active process. There may be agency involved—in fact, I think The Woman would insist that there \emph{must} be agency involved, though I think she might hesitate if you were to ask whose agency—but that does not mean that this is a process of undoing-of-self. It is not, as The Woman stated so explicitly, dying, of course, but neither is it coming apart.
+
+The agency, then, comes mostly in the act of choice. I mentioned above or perhaps some pages back that The Woman held onto the thought that stillness lay in choice. I said this because we are so beholden to what we were and what we have become and what we fear we may yet be that we so often lack choice. Perhaps this is an issue faced by all of humanity, but for me and for The Woman and for my beloved up-tree and for all of our clade, it is of the utmost importance, for we are so often and in so many subtle ways unable to make choices ourselves. Oh, I can choose what to wear, perhaps, or what pen to pick up, or when to schedule one of those lovely picnic lunches that the ninth stanza so enjoys, with Praise's music and Warmth's food and Praiseworthy's inscrutable expressions and all of the varied ways in which we love each other.
+
+There is agency, yes, and there is choice and there is a movement toward, but there is also passivity, a moving into passivity, an acceptance of passivity. The Woman, this beautiful woman whose smiles are blessings and whose life is a story—this story! Dear readers, this story!—wished to be still. She wanted her unbecoming to be a stillness of her form, perhaps, and her thoughts, to be sure, but also of her very self. She wanted a self locked in joy. She wanted to be as Michelle was in that moment, that final moment, that moment when she looked up to the sun, looked up to our \emph{HaShem}, looked up to The Dreamer, and became a fount of joy, of memory, of thousands of collective years of existence compressed into one self, and she wanted to be in that moment: laid bare and elongated and eternal and forever and unceasing and forever entwined.
+
+She wanted to be defined by joy, not suffering.
+
+\secdiv
 
 \label{thedog2}
 
@@ -235,7 +246,7 @@ It explored a forest, sometimes running, sometimes sniffing thoughtfully, withou
 
 It prepared for tomorrow, if it absolutely must, by instinct and routine, or perhaps it did not.
 
-The joys and tragedies of its home drifted past its mind and into its too-perfect memory. Loves! Pleasures! Sorrows! Lives! Deaths! The laments of starving wolves outmaneuvered by deer! The blood of deer ripped to shreds by wolves! It did not determine what of what its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, paws took in was good, was evil, was just, was improper --- it beheld what was, not what ought be, and there was a peace in that.
+The joys and tragedies of its home drifted past its mind and into its too-perfect memory. Loves! Pleasures! Sorrows! Lives! Deaths! The laments of starving wolves outmaneuvered by deer! The blood of deer ripped to shreds by wolves! It did not determine what of what its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, paws took in was good, was evil, was just, was improper---it beheld what was, not what ought be, and there was a peace in that.
 
 It experienced each moment as it came and moved on, not stopping to analyze or categorize or name.
 
@@ -247,7 +258,7 @@ It had been Scout, then, when it first came to be. When Its Elder had forked too
 
 At first, it had had some occasional care for humans and the System, but it was hard to care when there were so, \emph{so} many other things: new scents! Food! Scratching an itch! All of these very important things when you are a dog, and they are important now. Here. Vestigial, inherited cares were a problem for later.
 
-Then it had met the rest of its relatives, that growing pack of Scouts who rested within the System and experienced it, but who, unlike The Rabbit-Chaser, had a purpose: to keep watch and observe, and to report unusual things, and to, when they grew bored of being a dog, merge back. It liked these new relatives well enough --- they smelled of family and were friendly --- but it had not liked what they represented. They hesitated at becoming what they were, and it had understood that it might become more like them if words and thoughts and worries were to trouble it.
+Then it had met the rest of its relatives, that growing pack of Scouts who rested within the System and experienced it, but who, unlike The Rabbit-Chaser, had a purpose: to keep watch and observe, and to report unusual things, and to, when they grew bored of being a dog, merge back. It liked these new relatives well enough---they smelled of family and were friendly---but it had not liked what they represented. They hesitated at becoming what they were, and it had understood that it might become more like them if words and thoughts and worries were to trouble it.
 
 So, it rejected them.
 
@@ -255,19 +266,19 @@ Oh, the whole of its clade were welcome to visit and play, but it had told them,
 
 The pack respected its wish. It saw them, sometimes, usually the young or the old who come to rest more thoroughly, and they played and ran and said nothing. What was there to say, after all, to this dog who surrendered thought with every step of every day?
 
-When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to Their Elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this --- nor, by now, want to \emph{not} know it, and it was happy thereby.
+When the pack spoke of it among themselves, in their fragmentary network of passed-around words and sensoria impressions, it was called Scout Chasing Rabbits, the far pole of the clade, the pure contrast to Their Elder, the other extreme. It did not know they said this. It did not want to know they said this---nor, by now, want to \emph{not} know it, and it was happy thereby.
 
 And in the bliss of not-knowing, through unwitnessed years and decades, it slept and ate and chased rabbits.
 
 The Woman could not tell which of them had it better, these two dogs, these two cladists, these two beings who had so distanced themself from what they had once been. Both seemed quite content with the path that had taken. Dogs! What wonders they are! What pleasures! What joys. They had both unbecome, or taken steps in that direction, in their own way, and had found what they wanted.
 
-The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire --- not a reshaping of the body, but a reshaping of the existence.
+The Woman realized then that, for her, the life of an animal, even one so invested in its state as The Rabbit-Chaser, was not what she sought, not quite. It did not go far enough. It was not \emph{still} enough. The her who was a beast would still have too much of her. She needed a change more integral, more whole, more entire—not a reshaping of the body, but a reshaping of the existence.
 
 So, her search continued.
 
-She met then with The Child after this diversion --- for such was her errand, yes? Her original reason for visiting the neighborhood, and she saw no reason not to continue along this path. She returned to the lobby of the theatre which served also as a community center for Au Lieu Du Rêve, the troupe in which the fifth stanza had embedded itself, long familiar despite her having never seen it, for, you see, Michelle who was Sasha was a theatrician before uploading, a teacher, a director, an actress. Theatre lobbies smell like theatre lobbies and theatre carpet underfoot feels like theatre carpet underfoot and the sound echoed precisely as she had always remembered it.
+She met then with The Child after this diversion—for such was her errand, yes? Her original reason for visiting the neighborhood, and she saw no reason not to continue along this path. She returned to the lobby of the theatre which served also as a community center for Au Lieu Du Rêve, the troupe in which the fifth stanza had embedded itself, long familiar despite her having never seen it, for, you see, Michelle who was Sasha was a theatrician before uploading, a teacher, a director, an actress. Theatre lobbies smell like theatre lobbies and theatre carpet underfoot feels like theatre carpet underfoot and the sound echoed precisely as she had always remembered it.
 
-Outside shone the sun. Outside grew the grass. Outside was the dusty gray of the asphalt street that wound around the center of this neighborhood --- a street, for occasionally The Child and her friends wanted to rollerblade on a road, wanted to play kickball or catch, wanted to holler out ``car!'' as Beholden or someone with similar interests would drive through.
+Outside shone the sun. Outside grew the grass. Outside was the dusty gray of the asphalt street that wound around the center of this neighborhood—a street, for occasionally The Child and her friends wanted to rollerblade on a road, wanted to play kickball or catch, wanted to holler out ``car!'' as The Musician or someone with similar interests would drive through.
 
 Outside played The Child.
 
@@ -277,7 +288,7 @@ The Child defined herself by play. She did not merely paint, whether the picture
 
 This is the glory of cladistics: that we may become more wholly ourselves. This is what makes us dispersionistas: that we may find joy in this. These simplified dissolution strategies that we have found have less to do with how often we fork, how crowded we may make a room with ourselves, and more to do with how much we love love love the feeling of becoming ourselves while some other us becomes someone else. The Child, The Woman, and I are all of Michelle who was Sasha, we are all some three centuries old, and yet The Child is The Child and The Woman is The Woman and your humble narrator is struggling.
 
-And so The Woman stepped outside where The Child played, turning slow pirouettes, making a clumsy dance along the sidewalk --- clumsy in that endearingly childlike way, mind! For that is her role, yes --- and at her feet blossomed colored lines in pink orange yellow green blue white chalk, describing the shape of flowering vines, leaves and flowers showing wherever her paws touched the ground. By some trickery of the sim, some trickery wrought by The Oneirotect, her beloved friend and my beloved up-tree, wherever The Child stepped, there blossomed these vines in chalk.
+And so The Woman stepped outside where The Child played, turning slow pirouettes, making a clumsy dance along the sidewalk—clumsy in that endearingly childlike way, mind! For that is her role, yes—and at her feet blossomed colored lines in pink orange yellow green blue white chalk, describing the shape of flowering vines, leaves and flowers showing wherever her paws touched the ground. By some trickery of the sim, some trickery wrought by The Oneirotect, her beloved friend and my beloved up-tree, wherever The Child stepped, there blossomed these vines in chalk.
 
 ``Hello, Motes,'' said The Woman.
 
@@ -299,7 +310,7 @@ The Woman shook her head.
 
 ``Can you imagine one?''
 
-The Woman did so. It was not so hard, she found. She thought of all of the three-leaf clovers that she had seen over the years and decades and centuries --- for some of these grew in her very field, and perhaps they flowered, there, as well, those little globes of white --- and then added a leaf until she had a four-leaf clover in her mind, and then once more added a leaf.
+The Woman did so. It was not so hard, she found. She thought of all of the three-leaf clovers that she had seen over the years and decades and centuries—for some of these grew in her very field, and perhaps they flowered, there, as well, those little globes of white—and then added a leaf until she had a four-leaf clover in her mind, and then once more added a leaf.
 
 ``Okay, I am imagining it,'' she said, watching the way The Child moved, the way that she dragged her toes in exaggerated arcs, the way that the vines followed, the way she turned in circles, the way that the vines were tied in knots. ``Have you ever seen one?''
 
@@ -315,7 +326,7 @@ The Woman did so, and was startled to find that her feet, too, described lines i
 
 And so The Woman did, wandering along a few paces behind The Child. They played together in this way, talking quietly as they went. They found that if they walked in a lazy, wavering line, it looked like someone had braided a rope out of vines of chalk. They found that if The Child orbited the Woman as she walked, the loops that she created were pleasing to behold. They found that, when The Child walked beside The Woman, when they held paws and walked and talked, a pair of parallel railroad tracks followed them, leaves scattered more sparsely on the two that trailed along after The Woman than those that followed The Child.
 
-The Woman knew that The Child did not have the answer that she sought, not really, but that was not to say that there was not joy to be found. There was joy in the walk they took. There was joy in the way that sat on the swings and swayed back and forth. There was joy in watching The Child make little bets with herself and the world --- ``I bet I can make it to the top of the jungle gym in five seconds!'' or ``I bet I can go down the slide backwards and not die!'' --- even when she lost those bets --- though she did not die that day.
+The Woman knew that The Child did not have the answer that she sought, not really, but that was not to say that there was not joy to be found. There was joy in the walk they took. There was joy in the way that sat on the swings and swayed back and forth. There was joy in watching The Child make little bets with herself and the world—``I bet I can make it to the top of the jungle gym in five seconds!'' or ``I bet I can go down the slide backwards and not die!''—even when she lost those bets—though she did not die that day.
 
 There was, last of all, joy when a piercing whistle broke the quiet of the late afternoon and Motes immediately hopped down from a balance beam and ran up to The Woman. ``That was Ma!'' This, you see, is what she called My Friend, her down-tree instance who had taken a role not dissimilar from a mother for her. ``Dinner is ready. I think Bee--'' This, you see, is what she called The Musician, her other guardian and My Friend's partner. ``--made meatloaf. Can I give you a hug?''
 
@@ -323,7 +334,7 @@ The Woman smiled, nodded, and sank to a knee so that she could give The Child a
 
 This day, you see, this day was also not without forward movement, for The Child said something while climbing a tree that caught The Woman unawares, like the surprise of finding a shiny rock on the ground or perhaps seeing a shape in the clouds. The Child, climbing up a tree with great skill, mentioned in a stream of ceaseless chatter, ``One time, Serene turned herself into a tree! She said that she wanted to see what it was like to truly live within one of her sims, you know? She made a bunch of this sim, too! She said she wanted to see what it was like to be a part of something she made. So out there, out on the field out back of the houses, she made herself into this \emph{huge} maple tree! She made it a whole six months like that, then turned back into a fox again. She said it was really boring being so still. She said coming back was like being born, though. That is neat, is it not?''
 
-\begin{center}\rule{0.5\linewidth}{0.5pt}\end{center}
+\secdiv
 
 ``I want to unbecome,'' The Woman told Her Friend.
 
@@ -343,6 +354,36 @@ The Woman nodded.
 
 Her Friend smiled, raising her paper cup in a toast and tapping it gently to The Woman's own cup. ``Congratulations, End Of Endings. I am pleased to hear that. Is there more that you can tell me?''
 
-``Of course, No Hesitation,'' The Woman said, sitting up straighter, as though by having her body more in order, her thoughts might be as well --- would that this worked, my dear friends! Would that I could be so still and keep my thoughts like ducks: all in a row. Would that my emotions all faced the same direction. Ah, but The Woman continued, ``If becoming was the act of going from stillness to movement, then unbecoming might well be the act of going from movement to stillness.''
+``Of course, No Hesitation,'' The Woman said, sitting up straighter, as though by having her body more in order, her thoughts might be as well—would that this worked, my dear friends! Would that I could be so still and keep my thoughts like ducks: all in a row. Would that my emotions all faced the same direction. Ah, but The Woman continued, ``If becoming was the act of going from stillness to movement, then unbecoming might well be the act of going from movement to stillness.''
 
 These words apparently caught Her Friend off guard, as ey, too, sat up straighter, furrowing eir brow. I am sure that you can see just how startling such an answer may be! We knew from the start, of course, that talk of unbecoming would be littered with little landmines labeled with such things as `suicide' or `self harm' or simply `the void', of course, but The Woman's words spoke of something more complicated.
+
+``What, then does that stillness look like, to you?'' Her Friend asked carefully.
+
+``There are some specifics I have yet to work out, but I can say now that it takes three forms.'' The Woman held up a paw with three of her fingers raised, and she ticked off each item as she went. ``The first form is a spiritual stillness. The second form is a mental stillness. The third form is a physical stillness.''
+
+``This sounds a little like meditation.''
+
+``There are meditative aspects about it, I would say, but I would not say that it \emph{is} meditation, for it lacks the intent.''
+
+``How does it differ, then?''
+
+``Each is an inversion of turmoil. Where there is spiritual unrest, there will be only rest. I do not pray, could not pray, and so this will be an act of becoming okay with that. I can feel RJ in the world, but in that I do not sense any sort of spiritual connection, and so I will become okay with that.
+
+``Where my mind is unsettled, it will be settled. Rather than worrying about my day or about some routine not coming to fruition, I will settle into calm. Instead of thinking myself in circles, I will become a singular point: still and without direction.''
+
+``And physically?'' Her Friend asked, brow still furrowed. ``Will you no longer shift forms?''
+
+The Woman smiled, giving a slight bow. ``Yes, No Hesitation. All three of these must work together, yes? If there is turmoil in my thoughts, there will be turmoil in my spirit and I will shift form. If there is turmoil in my spirit, I will think and think and think and shift form. If I become but one form, my mind and my spirit will automatically become that much calmer.''
+
+Her Friend sighed, and in that sigh was a recognition of unknowing, of ignorance. Ey knew, I think—I think because ey has told me—that ey did not truly understand what it was that The Woman was aiming at. And yet, to ask--! How to ask questions such as what ey wished? There are words and words, and words and words and words that all feel so loaded, yes? They are overburdened with meaning and meaning and meaning. They are too hot, my beloved friends, they are much too hot, and so we must pick them up with tongs and wear thick gloves and perhaps dark glasses over our eyes as the coals glow ruddy-- cherry-- orange-- white-- no, blue hot.
+
+And so there was nothing for it. ``End Of Endings,'' she said most delicately. ``I ask this as your friend, but are you safe?''
+
+The Woman, sat in silence for some time, then. They both sat in silence, yes, frozen into a comic panel, those words hanging in the air between them in some invisible speech bubble.
+
+``Yes,'' she said at last. ``Yes, I think I am. There is no death in me. I stand by my words that I do not wish to die, nor do I wish to break apart. I have an idea of what this will look like, and I have an idea of how to approach it, and now all I need is a path from here to there.''
+
+Her Friend bowed. ``I trust you, my dear. I have no other choice, of course, but I really do trust you. I love you dearly and wish nothing but the best for you.''
+
+The Woman smiled and, yes, it was a blessing.

idumea/content/008.tex

@@ -1,13 +1,250 @@
+Ah, my dear readers, my dear friends, my lovely little ones who sit cross-legged on carpet squares and the great big ones who wear their hearts on their sleeves, I am unable to not wax rhapsodic about so lovely a heart as that of The Woman, and while it may sound like I harbor some secret feelings, some hidden affection for her, and while that may indeed be true, for everyone wishes to be blessed by the kindest of smiles, I also feel that I do not have much longer to tell you this story, to finish what I have written from beginning to end, to get to the ending that doubtless you know now is coming, for I am now more words than I am person, I am more sentences than your narrator, and I am more story than I am alive.
 
-\ldots{}
+I do not have much longer in which I may be able to tell you this story before the ceaseless tangle of words drags me under. I will try. I will try. I will try and try and try, and try and try.
+
+I am very nearly there, too, to the end that you doubtless know is coming. There is only one new face to introduce, one new gently obscured name, and through her, I hope to draw strength, for you have seen already that relying on dialogue makes it easier for me to pin myself to coherency.
 
 \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.
+
+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.
+
+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--
+
+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?
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+When the System coiled around and began to eat its own tail, when it was attacked, when it was destroyed and reborn, when the fury of a few grew too strong and they wished the lives of all to be ceased, when the Century Attack hit us and so, so many were lost, The Blue Fairy said: ``I feel like my baby has stumbled. The System stumbled and fell, knocked its head, forgotten some of what it knew. I feel like our existence stumbled, as some group or another got so frustrated as to trip it up. When I dump my energy into all of this work, I am doing my best to nurse it back to health.''
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+``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.
+
+``Oh, well enough, I suppose. I think I am starting to find my away out of that phase where everything feels new about systech stuff. It was easy enough for me to jump right in at first, but so much has changed in the intervening years.''
+
+``I can imagine, yes.''
+
+``It is not all on me, at least. We are learning the ins and outs of the new tech they have given us while bringing Lagrange back up from the Century Attack. So many crashes after long-diverged forks merged cross-tree out of fun, so many instances of people accidentally messing up their new ACLs and locking themselves out of their own rooms.'' She laughed, sipped her mocha, and added, ``The world feels strange and new.''
+
+``It does, at that,'' I said, smiling. ``I do not think I am at risk of either of those, at least. I have little interest in cross-tree merging, beyond providing an instance for Ashes Denote That Fire Was.''
+
+``Same, on both counts. I believe they have picked up nearly twenty Odists now. They look\ldots well, they certainly have plenty going on, yes?''
+
+I laughed. ``Twenty of us, even if we had never forked, would be, what, six thousand years of memory? And we are not exactly known for never forking, yes? I would say that is plenty.''
+
+The Blue Fairy nodded and looked out the window for some time, simply resting her cheek on her fist and her elbow on the table, watching the way the leaves flittered and flickered in the gentle breeze of the day. There is a comfortably jittery quality to such flitting and flickering that reminds me that no one thing in the world is still, and certainly not trees.
+
+Eventually, she replied: ``That is actually part of why I came here, Rye.''
+
+``Oh?''
+
+``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.''
+
+``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 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.
+
+Her argument was thus: The Woman knew that there was suffering in her as she was. She knew that she was, in some integral way, defined by her un-joy. She knew that this suffering was bound up in her ongoing process of becoming, of this ever-increasing entropy of the self as time wrought its cruel machinations on her soul.
+
+If, then, her suffering was bound up in increasing entropy, in increasing movement, then perhaps there was joy in stillness. Perhaps that is where her un-suffering lay.
+
+Her argument was to set all movement aside and to follow a dream I have already mentioned. Her argument was that she should become an entity that was still that she may dwell within un-suffering, and that she should spend an eternity thus formed.
+
+``So, what do you think?'' The Blue Fairy asked when she presented this argument to me. ``I have my own thoughts, but before I sare them, I would like to hear from you before I share those.''
+
+``It sounds\ldots well, it sounds a little fragile, in its conception. She says that she is not interested in meditating, but she speaks of an essential emptiness, yes?''
+
+The Blue Fairy nodded. ``She is not interested in meditating, no.''
+
+``Yes. She says that she is uninterested in exploring more paths of greater action. She is not interested in hedonism, and yet her search is one of a pure joy that overrides everything else, yes?''
+
+She nodded once more. ``Right.''
+
+My friends, I will not lie, there was much frustration in me at the moment. I could feel my tail bristling out and I could feel my hackles raise and I could feel the way my ears were pinning back almost against my will. I think you may well understand, why, too, for this is what I said next: ``Okay, and she says that she has no desire to die in her, and yet she is talking about all but disappearing to the world around her, yes? That is what she is saying here! She is saying that she wants to stop being what she is and to become a tree!''
+
+The Blue Fairy only smiled tiredly to me and replied, ``It is as you say.''
+
+It took me a few seconds, yes, but I was able to draw calm from her and to settle my nerves. ``You think she should go through with this, do you not? Turn into a tree? Die, for all intents and purposes, to the world around her?''
+
+``Yes.''
+
+``Unequivocally?''
+
+She shook her head, chuckling. ``Oh, not at all. I am quite back-and-forth on this whole thing. At first, I did not agree. She asked me if I would turn her into a tree with little else in the way of explanation and I simply referred her to some groups interested in such things.''
+
+``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.''
+
+``Connection?''
+
+``I lost In The Wind, she lost Should We Forget.'' The Blue Fairy averted her gaze. ``I changed because of that loss. I got back into being a systech, yes?''
+
+I sat back in my chair, holding my mug in both paws to draw from the warmth. ``Do you think, then, that she is seeking this change because of the loss from the Century Attack? That of Should We Forget?''
+
+``That is what I came to ask you about, actually. I have visited with all of these people, heard all of what they have had to tell me about End Of Endings's last few weeks, and now I want to hear how you would write the end of this story, and how you imagine she would justify it.''
+
+Now \emph{this} was a thought, dear readers. This was a thought that danced up along my nape and left a tingle in my scalp, it is a thought that danced down along my arms and gave an inch in my paws that invited the picking up of a pen. It is a thought that has circled around my head like a halo, lighting all that I see, for some years now, for nearly six years! I thought to write this story then, and I thought to write this story after, and I thought to write this story in the intervening years, but something was not quite right, not quite right, not quite right about the time or about myself or about the world around me, and so I did not. I did not write the story perhaps because I was still living in that haste to experience all that I could before our world risked once more coiling around and eating some more billions of us and our lives were turned off like some simple light switch. I did not write the story because I was writing only the small things, that I might spend the rest of my time loving those around me, hugging my beloved up-tree, eating picnics out on the lawn with my stanza, simply \emph{living.} Ah, I am trying to--
+
+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 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.
+
+``There are two ways that I see this ending,'' I said when we met the next morning. ``The first is that you and her work together to help her accomplish her goal. She becomes still in the form of a tree parked in a field--''
+
+``She has requested that she be\ldots uh, planted, I guess, in the sidewalk in front of her favorite coffee shop.'' She smiled, sheepish, and said, ``Sorry, I did not mean to interrupt.''
+
+``No, no, that is quite alright. It is sweet, actually, that she found something meaningful like that. But yes, one ending is that she does as she says and that she finds her happiness there, but we are all left with complicated feelings. We will all have lost her, in a way, yes? For, though she has said that she is not aiming to \emph{die,} she will have \emph{effectively} died to us, yes? We will have to process her loss.
+
+``The other ending is that we help her try to find happiness that does not involve another loss within our clade. In this she may find herself confronted with frustration, not just at the denial of her request, but at the fact that, if there does remain some joy that is not stillness, she may encounter more pain in the process of getting there.''
+
+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.''
+
+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.''
+
+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 sat up straighter, hearing this! How intriguing! ``As in when one has locked down their visibility?''
+
+``Yes. She requested an exception that, whether or not she quits, her entry remain in some in-between state so that we will never know.''
+
+``Has she said why?''
+
+She snorted, raising her face from her hands. ``She said that each of us will have to make up our own reason. It was all very Odist.''
+
+``It really is,'' I said, chuckling. Readers, it is so much easier to write like this, to tell of concrete things. I am trying not to rush, as I do not have much time left, I think but--- ah, I am interrupting myself. I chuckled and said, ``It really is. Did you mention this to the others?''
+
+``I did. Reactions were mixed. Farai cried quite hard. No Hesitation was left in a whirlwind of doubts. Slow Hours agreed immediately that we grant her this change.''
+
+``That is very Slow Hours of her.''
+
+The Blue Fairy laughed. ``I suppose it is.''
+
+I struggled for a minute, and it was not for want of words, for I knew the words I needed, but it was for want of courage. I did not know how to say this to her without sounding cruel, perhaps, or uncaring, or self-centered, but I could not be anything other than honest in that moment, not for something so important as this.
+
+``I want that, too,'' I said.
+
+``Pardon?''
+
+``I want that for her. I want that she be able tell this story for herself. That is my decision.''
+
+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.''
+
+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.''
+
+\secdiv
+
+I am struggling and I am crying and I am pacing around my empty house and I am struggling and I am crying and my paws are bleeding from where my claws have pierced my pads and I am having a hard time holding myself down to one set of thoughts to one set of words to one language to the present moment to the living world and I am looking up and within and without and around and hunting for The Poet who is The Dreamer who dreams us all and I am doing my best not to step away to that sim to that coffeeshop to that tree where I may throw myself at its roots and wrap my arms around its trunk and press my cheek against its coarse bark and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and weep and--
+
+My friends, my beautiful beloved readers, I am lost. I am all but lost. I have enough in me to tell you of what happened, but only just, and then I will no longer be able to continue, for that was the last conversation we had. That is the last concrete thing that I have to write. There are no other words that I can tell you except for these:
+
+\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.
+
+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.
+
+My friends, my dear, \emph{dear} friends, there was no door for her to brush her fingers against, no imagined \emph{mezuza} that she might touch for some final blessing, and neither was there a sense of ritual nipping at her heels, following along like some eager puppy, for she knew now that she created her own blessings she created her own peace she created her own future.
+
+There was no door.
+
+There was no door.
+
+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--
+
+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.
+
+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.
+
+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:
+
+\emph{``It is done.''}
+
+We may never more be blessed.
+
+We may never more be blessed.
+
+We may never more be blessed.
+
+I may never more melt beneath her smile. What will become of me?
+
+The Child may never more play with her, wandering around the streets with lines of chalk following their feet, making little bets with themselves. What will become of her?
+
+Rejoice will never wonder whether their is aught else in life but suffering while The Woman sits nearby. What will become of her?
+
+The Oneirotect may never more share stories of Should We Forget. What will become of em?
+
+Where before The Woman and Her Lover, as the poet says, shared their oranges and limes, where they gave their kisses, where they lay on the grass and beach, now the woman lays underground and they share nothing, giving silence for silence. What will become of her?
+
+What of Her Friend? What of that beautiful soul? What of em? What of the one who goes now to the coffee shop every day and drinks her mocha by the base of the tree, em tail curled over eir paws, and speaks aloud to one who is lost to em? What will become of em?
+
+The Poet! The Musician! The aesthetician and that kindly restaurateur who petted her head while she sobbed at the remembered pain of spice and the Dreamer above! What will become of them?
+
 And all of this makes me wonder and makes me tremble.
 
 It makes me tremble and it makes my fur stand on end and my paws shake and my pen skitter anxiously across the page like those leaves that danced before the feet of The Woman I told you about so, so long ago, perhaps like those leaves that skitter within the city, that unreal city, that city full of dreams, where ghosts in broad daylight cling to passers-by.
 
-Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like snow in a dark night fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes, scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling.
+Oh! And oh! The wonder of it all! She, then, like so many leaves and the white petals of flowers and the dry brown pods of seeds fell secretly! She fell and fell and fell and we fell and fell and fell and fell and fell until falling was all we knew and within that fall we found some new kernel of truth but how hot that kernel was! It burned within our palm as we held it to our chest and for each of us it burned so, so hot and so, so differently that there she was, too much herself and here I am, too much myself, and the words come so fast and so thick that I am blinded! Ink in my eyes, scrabbling for any known thing! I press upon this and that with shaking fingertips to try and find something that is not yet more words, but that is all there is, because this is it, my friends, the kernel of truth that we found. The truth we now know is that we are falling still! We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch and be able to hold there for a little while, panting, struggling to catch our breath, until fire burns through our shoulders and we cannot hold any longer and we are forced to let go once more and fall and fall and fall just like I am falling and falling and falling and falling and falling.
 
 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''?