Finished draft, including cowriting

content/prelim/009.md

@@ -56,7 +56,7 @@ And so here she was, *here,* Standing before my door, my second visitor in a wee
 
 "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 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 eir 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."
 
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@ Eventually, she replied: "That is actually part of why I came here, Rye."
 
 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 *feel* blessed! — by each and every one of her smiles and quiet laughs. "Yes, I have spoken with her recently. Warmth and I both have, I mean."
 
-"Yes, she mentioned such to me. She mentioned you two, Motes, Slow Hours, Beholden, No Hesitation, Ever Dream, Rejoice, Farai — a woman with whom she has at times dated — and a few incidental friends she has made in the last month or so. I have been meeting up with each of them to get a better sense of what is happening. You are the last on my list."
+"Yes, she mentioned such to me. She mentioned you two, Motes, Slow Hours, Beholden, No Hesitation, Ever Dream, Rejoice, Farai — a woman she has 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. I wonder and I tremble. 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 tremble. I wonder.
 
@@ -120,7 +120,7 @@ I sat back in my chair, holding my mug in both paws to draw from the warmth. "Do
 
 "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 *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 a 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 *living.* Ah, I am trying to–
+Now *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 itch 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 a 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 *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?"
 
@@ -158,7 +158,7 @@ I sat up straighter, hearing this! How intriguing! "As in when one has locked do
 
 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?"
+"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."
 
@@ -202,7 +202,7 @@ There was no door.
 
 There was no door.
 
-There was no door, no imagined *mezuzah,* 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–
+No door, no imagined *mezuzah,* 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–
 
@@ -236,11 +236,11 @@ The Child may never more play with her, wandering around the streets with lines
 
 Her Cocladist 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?
+The Oneirotect may never more call her kitty and 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, eir tail curled over eir paws, and speaks aloud to one who is lost to em? What will become of em?
+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, eir tail curled over eir paws, and speaks aloud to one who is lost? 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?
 
@@ -248,7 +248,7 @@ 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 the souls of the lost in broad daylight cling to passers-by.
 
-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 of The Tree 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–
+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! That unfalling ones are trapped within that last falling! We fell into overflow and never really ever came back. We may slow down, we may catch a branch of The Tree 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–
 
 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 The 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 The 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"?