Kaddish

I have decided that I will work on this project I have been assigned longhand.

This is a thing that I will go through phases on, the ways in which I work. Sometimes, I will work with a pen in my paw and paper on my desk, books all scattered around. At other times, my desk will bear a great screen and I will type on a keyboard adapted to work with the digger claws I bear as a skunk, all of my research in buffers and panes scattered across the view. Rarely, I will work solely in my head, words committed directly to an exocortex, sources bubbling up through my mind from the libraries at the heart of our System like so much fizz in a drink.

These phases will last a year or ten, and then meld seamlessly into the next. That is where I am now. I am in the midst of a dovetail. I am coming off a period of working in my head, because my paw craves the weight of a pen.

This is not strictly true, I think, now that I put it to words. I do not think this change is wholly natural. The world ended for some baker's dozen months and now I am unsettled.

All of life comes in phases, overlapping and intertwined. It is a braid. It is a melody. It is a story that we tell ourselves from day to day about who we are. We are the book of life, and our stories are written by us.

It is a braid and a story and there are phases within our lives, and yet there still exists the world around us, gently impinging here, wrenching us into some new reality there.

We were wrenched. We were ripped from being and it was only through the tireless efforts of who knows how many engineers both embodied and embedded, that we were slowly mended, woven back into the fabric of life. When we crashed, all 2.3 trillion of us, we were all in the middle of something, and now we must take into account that the universe continued without us for some time. We must take into account that, no matter what our something was, it was interrupted.

I had been working on an essay at the time of the crash. It took me nearly nine months to return to the act of writing, for even though it lingered there in an exo, I could not bring myself to write it. There was too much to do, and there was too much that was fraught with life, for we all, I think, had our worries that the apocalypse was not yet finished with us.

I am now unsettled, because the world ended, and so instead of writing this report for Rav From Whence in my head, as I did for my last few papers, I will write it out by hand.

But that is not my only project, is it? There is this one, too. There is this story that I am telling myself about who I am and who I was, and that is being written close to my heart. It will live in an exo and, if I am honest with myself, likely never see the light of day. I will write it in my thoughts in those moments between, the minutes before I sleep at night and before I rise in the morning, the slow walks I might take to clear my head. I will wrangle my thoughts, lasso them together, coerce them into words and then think them directly into my memory that I may draw upon them for...whatever. I do not know what I might need these thoughts for, but I nonetheless feel compelled to note them down.

My therapist has guided me towards journaling several times over the years to greater or less effect. When last we met, she did not bring it up, and yet here I am, essentially journaling.

I wonder why? Why is it that Rav's project belongs to the ink of a pen, yet the journal I keep belongs in my thoughts? Is it that it is so much more private? Do I worry about committing these words to paper?

Perhaps it is that there is some issue of privacy. Am I worried about my words being seen or read by another?

I do not think so. With some projects, when I have worked long-hand, I have taken joy in the act of writing and then simply committed the words to memory and dismissed the written sheets themselves. It is not that the words might exist in some tangible form, but the act of writing itself.

Perhaps it is that committing words to paper would mean that I would be setting them down in some way more concrete than simply thinking of them.

In this case, it is the committing that is the important part. Am I perhaps afraid of my thoughts on the Century Attack and on this assignment from Rav? Would seeing my words, unchanging, on the page, whining of this or that, be too much akin to pinning these thoughts specifically to those grumpinesses, bitternesses?

This, I think is partially true. There is truth in the fact that, when writing by hand, part of the goal is to pin down a meaning to a word. It is to write a thing into being. That is not the case with this journal, if journal it is.

Perhaps, though, perhaps I am just embarrassed. Perhaps the feelings that drove me to start cataloguing these experiences are ones that I am merely too embarrassed to set to paper, too shy of what they might suggest. Am I really such a whiner? Do I really kvetch about every little thing?

Apparently, and that is why I think this is the most true of these reasons yet.

And besides, it is not as though I have any thought of anyone seeing the work aside from myself, and would not even if I were to write it out longhand or sit at my desk typing. To write as though that were the case would be to hem myself in, draw boundaries around these embarrassing thoughts and promise myself that they in particular will not see the light of day.

Beyond these musings, however, I have rested, now, and thought yet more on my conversation yesterday. One thing I will say that Joseph and I spoke about is the moment of the attack. After all, he mentioned that the next day was Sunday — First Day, as he called it, nerd that he is — and so it was natural to all of him to meet, then, for worship.

“I didn't notice anything had happened until nearly midnight,” he said. “I don't really do anything for New Years, after all. It's just another day for me. That's why I call it First Day rather than Sunday, right? It's the first day of the week, so why give it some special name?

“I was just scrolling through the feeds, hunting down little artsy performances that people had recorded. Some sensorium plays, some comedy sketches. Just stupid, boring, late-night, turn-the-brain-off nonsense.

“I got a ping from Delta asking where Epsilon was and why he wasn't responding. We thought he was in a cone of silence or something, blocking incoming sensorium messages, but then we got a message saying that Mu was missing, along with one of our friends. The rest of the night was spent just panicked, sitting on the edge of the couch at home, trying to get in touch with as many people as I could.”

I told him at the time that my thoughts on that night were incomplete, and so now I am working through them here, that I may put them to words. I will write them down separately in a letter to send his way, as I have at times done.

There is a part of me that wishes I had experienced in my entirety the moment the world fell apart. This part of me is the same part that dreams so often of death. It is the part that looks at finality and cannot look away. It is the part that wonders: will I cry out, in my final moments? It is the part that remembers when Michelle quit with wonder and replays that moment over and over and over again, that tries to peer through remembered tears and see the wonder and joy on her face — faces, for, by then, she was so split in twain that she was two more often than she was one — to perk remembered ears that were also numbed by the horror of those around and listen for the way she said, “Oh...oh...” and then disappeared.

There is a part of me that wishes I had seen with my own eyes and heard with my own ears the moment the world fell apart. I was there, yes, and I survived, as this work attests, but I remember that moment only from the quiet of the basement and the eyes and ears of another instance.

She, too, survived, this other What Right Have I. She survived and merged down within minutes, but me, I was in the basement in the quiet of a break in a discussion after the evening Shabbat service with Rav From Whence and Rav Sorensen, and so all of her memories are mixed up with that slow quiet in front of the synagogue. I do not have undiluted memories of the end of the world.

There is a rhythm to it all. There is a rhythm to the movement of debate, to the back-and-forth nature of arguing about the way that life flows, ought to slow. It is and ever has been a wrestling with God. With each other, yes, for there was back-and-forth, but it was ultimately a show, a performance that took the form of a debate in order to wrestle with God, with Adonai, Elohim, El-Shaddai?

That is what we are, is it not? The people of Israel? Not just that ancient state, gone these long centuries. Not the land, Eretz Yisrael, left behind on Earth. We are the people, Am Yisrael, the people of Israel who was Jacob. Jacob, who wrestles with God, yes?

I had long ago requested that these discussions — beautiful or stressful or somewhere in between — take place in one of the smaller rooms of the synagogue, that they take place among soft cushions and softer wall-hangings, take place around a circular table with no corners to fiddle with, take place with enough space that I could pace.

I needed that. It was not a want.

I needed to be seen, to be perceived as an entire being who was an integral part of our ceaseless debates, and yet as someone who did not need accommodation. I was an entire person, not most of a person for which they must find a way to fill in the rest. These were not demeaning accommodations that they needed to make for me to take part, they were a part of my participation that this might be some fuller experience, some work that still would have been complete if it had taken part in a noisy, brutalist hall or out in some park.

Could I take part in those places? Yes. Probably. Could I have provided a completed task that would stand up to the test of time? Probably. Maybe. I do not know.

But I could provide insight that I might hope would shine with the sages if they would only do this in a place where I could pace among soft things, where I could fidget and tic, where my little chirps and yelps and twitches would be at least glossed over and at best taken as a sign — a rainbow! A raven! A plague! — that the topic had veered or become mired in stress rather than remaining within the soothing track that we had laid out for ourselves.

Rav From Whence was tightly in control of herself. She was more tightly in control than anyone else I have had ever met, never mind just among the Odists.

I am sure that the True Name of yore, Rav's most beloved friend, had probably been yet more in control, and yet I had spoken with her only a handful of times while she was alive. After all, I had been no one. I am still no one.

I am that part of From Whence that needed out of the cage of control. I am the part of her that loathed the social interaction inherent in being a rabbi. I am the part of her that rankled when confronted with this desire to mask and thus appear a confident spiritual leader.

I am that part of her set free.

I am the part of her who could give up that life of leadership and sink down into the comfort of texts.

I am the part of her that splashed about in that collection of idiosyncrasies that had been bundled up in Michelle Hadje, that collection of identities and desires that reached for ever more, the bits that had been left behind that had not been crushed to a fine powder by whatever forces within the Western Federation there were that had deemed us nobodies to have been transitively lost.

“What Right Have I?”

I squeaked and jumped at the sudden intrusion of words. “Ah...yes?”

“You were chirping,” my down-tree instance said to me, smiling. “I was wondering if you had further thoughts, my dear.”

I shook my head, then bowed to From Whence. “My apologies. No, my thoughts had wandered.”

“Do you think we have had enough of this topic, then?”

I shrugged.

“A verbal response would help me better move forward one way or another.”

“Ah, sorry.” I shook my head again. “No, ah...Yes. I am sorry, Rav From Whence, Rav Sorensen. I think we have had enough of the topic.”

Both of them sighed, nodded, and reached their arms up above their heads in unison to stretch. I hid a secret smile at the synchronicity.

“Fair enough,” From Whence said, pushing her paw up through the front portion of her mane and ruffling out the already mussed white fur there. “I could do with a little bit of silence, honestly. Or fresh air. Or something. Erin?”

Rav Sorenson nodded. “Fresh air sounds good. We could start making our way up to the hilltop the long way around.”

“Not the worst idea.”

Some part of me felt stymied. We were here, though. We were talking. We were working. We were pounding our fists against divinity and begging it to provide for us some sense of greater truth. We were pushing our way through reality at a constant pace and so learning — learning or refinement or perfection or whatever it was that we were doing — ought to proceed at precisely that pace, not stopped by walking up the hill.

“What Right Have I?”

I hid away any sullenness in my posture as I bowed to the two rabbis. Some small bit of masking did at times serve the purpose of merely letting me out of yet more interaction that I did not feel equipped to handle. After all, they were tired from the service earlier, and it was New Year's Eve, yes?

“Very well,” I said, and followed them out the door of this particular meeting room.

The cool air of the night was a blessing. I had not realized just how warm the room had gotten, not until provided with contrast. We stepped out into a garden — one of my favorites within the sim and a large part of why I preferred this particular meeting room.

The cool air was a blessing, and the perpetually springtime scent of it a comfort. There was the sharp-sweet honeysuckle. There was the baked goods warmth of the day-closing dandelions. There was the floral chill of lilacs.

The cool air was a blessing and the Jonah plant — my most selfish of contributions to the sim — was in full flush. When, at times, I was feeling particularly peaky, I would sit in the shade its leaves in the heat of the day, the shadows so deep as to not even be dappled, and then, knowing, by my weight on the bench beneath it, my presence, it would shortly wither away and I would be blasted by the full force of the sun, for even if it was not directly overhead, some trick of the glass on the buildings that formed the courtyard would ensure that this one location was always subject to those rays, and thus I would be confronted with the plight of Jonah — poor, stupid Jonah — who cared more about his comfort than the fate of a city so much larger than he.

I was called away from standing still, snout pointed up in the air to take in the scents, that I might follow From Whence and Erin up the hill, this time and two or three times more. I do not know why I was surprised that I needed a break in context, nor why both of my interlocutors had recognized such before I did. Such things will never cease to surprise me, though, and I suppose one upside to this is that I will forever have reason to be thankful for.

We wove our way up to the synagogue the long way around, never once entering a building, for there was a path, if you knew it, that let you go the whole way outdoors. You would step from this courtyard to that following some colonnaded walk or exposed breezeway, climbing stairs and ramps, walking through some ivy-shaded alley where one might touch the walls of the buildings to either side with both paws outstretched.

The narrowest of these was the final path around the side of the synagogue itself, an entry to that alleyway that was hidden by some clever trick of the architecture and light. Here, one might even be tempted to turn sideways and edge, crablike, down the path, so close together were the buildings.

And at last we stood outside the front entrance, the three of us simply breathing deep of the night air — midnight not far off, now, and the sounds of bustle nearby from those preparing for the celebration. The exertion of the climb lingered with us, and to stop and stand still was a quiet comfort as the chill of the night began to fully set in.

“Do you think...ah, that is, shall I perhaps go get us some coffees? Some drinks? We can have a little bit of warmth, yes?”

Both Rav Sorenson and Rav From Whence turned their smiles upon me from where they had been before pointed up to the stars.

“That would be lovely, my dear,” From Whence said.

“Why not?” Erin's smile grew all the brighter. “Though a hot chocolate will do for me, I think.”

I nodded, bowed, and forked.

It was What Right Have I#Coffee who stepped to Infinite Café, arriving on one of the designated transportation pads, one of those rectangles tiled in a gently glowing white where all collision was turned off, and from there stepped out into the comfortably cool air of the night, warmer than that of Beth Tikvah.

This was notable in part because it was never night in Infinite Café. Or, rather, it was only night twice a year: New Year's Eve and Secession Day night — eve and night by systime, which I suppose must be UTC or some similar standard — and then only for the fireworks. When your entire world is a thin ribbon of land, a literal ring road surrounding a bright star, the meaning of 'night' shifts.

And so here they were, New Year's eve and it was well and truly night on this road that ran who knew how many kilometers long, a road lined on either side by so, so many cafés and coffee shops and delightful little stalls offering coffee and little treats. Above, no moon shone, but instead there were countless strings of fairy lights, strung with no discernible pattern, casting a warm glow on those below.

It was well and truly night, and yet it was still busy. Crowds meandered under fairy lights and a dark sky that craved the diamond scars of fireworks etched across it. It begged for the blossoming lights that were promised by the evening.

Half an hour away.

The fairy lights drew a crazed pattern above her, etching dotted lines across the black of night. #Coffee stood for some time, simply staring up to them, trying to draw constellations out of linear groupings of stars. There were more letters than there were animals, given so many straight lines, and so she spent some time trying to spell out words.

Sweet scents still rode in her nostrils and clung to her fur. The cool of the night, just shy of chilly, still filled her body. The joy of the work contrasted still beautifully with the joy of the break and the re-grounding that followed. She was in love, at that moment, with the world, and she felt as though the world was in love with her.

There was time to feel this sensation. Time to tune down her hearing to lower the noise of the crowds to something a little more tolerable, and revel in the fact that other people exist, that this world was full of joy.

Twenty minutes away.

Coffee, though. That is why What Right Have I#Coffee was here. Warm drinks to stave off the slight chill of the hilltop at Beth Tikvah.

She wandered down the path that was Infinite Café, eyes scanning the storefronts — or perhaps store-backs, as many of them were — until one caught her eye.

The Bean Cycle advertised itself with a chaotic pile of bicycles bolted to the wall. It looked like ivy of some type, or a sort of ooze that threatened to overtake the building itself. Bicycles, wheels, frames, gears and chains, all bolted to the wall or to each other, climbing up beside a door and then oozing up over the low roof.

Why not?

She stepped inside and immediately turned her hearing down further, shutting out the rattle-clatter of a smattering of cyclists riding stationary on sets of rollers before a scoreboard, the whine-howl of steam wands frothing milk, and the dull chatter of those who spoke over it. Halogen lights shone above, at once too bright and not bright enough.

It was overstimulating, and yet all the more quaint and charming for it.

Ordering the drinks — a hot chocolate and two mochas with extra whipped cream — went smoothly, and she even let herself be talked into three of “the best croissants in this sim”, because why not. She was riding along joy, now, like a train on rails, letting it carry her forward.

This — not the coffee shop, not the noise, but her night, the debate and the walk, existing in the world — was her joy. It was her calling in life to wrap herself up in the stories of old and then view the world through them like a kaleidoscope that she might then hold up a mirror to it through the lens of interpretation.

Her drinks and croissants were set into a cardboard drink caddy, and at last she was free to step back out into the night air, away from the noise of the bikes and steam wands and halogen lights.

Fifteen minutes away.

Fifteen minutes away and, of a sudden, the crowd was reduced. Many of those who had once stood before her, this instance of me, in knots and gaggles of friends were simply not there. Not all; nor, perhaps, even most. Just many sudden absences.

There was a shout that fell to a murmur, and which then rose to a quiet roar, a wash of sound that led What Right Have I#Coffee to set her tray of cups and treats on the ground beside her and cover her ears in a rush as she stood outside of a coffee shop. She hurried to turn down her hearing the down yet further and stifled a yelp, a squeak, a jerk of the head.

The words that made it through the pillowy softness of a sense running at 10% were shouts and cries of alarm. They were names hollered out, presumably those of people no longer present. They were wide-eyed growls begging to know what the fuck had just happened.

Fourteen minutes away, and What Right Have I#Coffee realized she could not take it all in. Not all of this. Not here. Tray abandoned, she quit to merge back down.

And yet I was dealing with my own worries, then, for at fifteen minutes until midnight, a din arose at the top of the hill, some fifty meters away, and it was as we were making our way toward the noise when the merge from #Coffee landed on my mind with a startling sense of urgency.

I incorporated the memories without a second thought, and then bolted towards the top of the hill, leaving Ravs From Whence and Sorenson calling after me in my wake.

The scene at the yard atop the hill was much the same as that at Infinite Café: names were called out. Disbelief and shock were expressed. Voices were tinged here with anger, there with fear.

I stood on the low rise at the edge of the yard and gaped, where I was soon joined by the other two.

I remember little else from that night. Or I remember it, but through a dream-fog of panic.

I remember how Rav From Whence sprung immediately into action — or, rather, how she was already a whirlwind of motion and emotion, there in the thick of it all, and how the instance beside me, one who had existed to track our discussion, merged down as soon as she saw what was happening, and I remember how Rav Sorenson dashed into help. The both of them had soon forked several times over and were corralling the crowd into knots of smaller groups that they might speak more easily with them, working on the level of family, perhaps, or friend-group.

I remember how I stood, once more, just as What Right Have I#Coffee had done, gawking at the pandemonium

I remember most of all, though, the first wail — the first recognition of loss and the first wail of despair and pain that rang out into the night — and the bright arc of a firework soaring into the sky, bursting, and then the sudden disappearance as the show was canceled.

I remember hearing the wail, seeing the sparks and then sudden dark, and then stepping to my room to hide under my desk, letting flow tears of confusion, frustration, and terror.