CHAPTER 2   In the Presence of the Lord

“So beautiful…” Audrey’s voice lingered, “…The Waltz of the Snowflakes...” She stood mesmerized, staring out the sloping skylight of her Old Town walk-up, wrapped in a pale-grey sweater, the raw wintry light highlighting goose bumps on her pallid slender legs.  The sky outside was white, and the furniture inside, what little there was, also white.

“Cherie.  Come back to bed--”

Audrey tilted her head slightly.  The chip on her temple sparkled like a cut aquamarine, but it was inactive, no inner glow.  Wherever her mind was, it was in Real, not in some SIM world somewhere.  She turned and studied Marc for a moment, then stepped briskly across the cold wood floor, dropped her sweater, and snuggled up to him naked, under the white down comforter.

“The Waltz of the Snowflakes?  I did not know you were into Tchaikovsky.”

“Everybody knows the Nutcracker.”

“Nutcracker!  That reminds me!  Joyeux Noël!”

“And Merry Christmas to you, too!”

“Speaking of Christmas, what time do we meet your parents?”

“10:00.”

“Not so bad, n’est-ce pas?”

“Yes, they’re elegant that way.  But they weren’t up all night.”

“Who needs sleep?” Marc tenderly kissed Audrey as he rolled her on her back.

“Don’t you ever tire?” Audrey murmured seductively as she wrapped her legs around him.

“Of you?  Jamais.”

“How do you know?” Audrey traced the tip of her finger inquisitively across Marc’s bones and hollows face.  The tide in his ocean eyes pulled her in.  “I mean,” she reached for his sandpaper cheek, “what do we really know about each other...?”

“I know we share chip preferences.  Par exemple, we both see your apartment white.”

“How do you know it isn’t white?” Audrey rolled on her back and looked at the white ceiling.

“Because that Gio Ponti vase was never made in white...”

“The vase!” she rolled back to face him, “you would notice that!”

“Maybe, but I expect to be part of your fantasy.” 

“Yes, fantasy we do well together, but what about Real?  I mean, like for instance,” she looked Marc in the eyes and touched his lip, “I don’t even know what you’re going to order for breakfast.”

“Quoi?” Marc was mystified, but that’s what he loved about Audrey, these things that came out of nowhere.  “I do not know myself what I will order...”

“...I know my mother will order mimosas all around, my father will have eggs Benedict...but you, there is so much I don’t know...”

“Because you don’t know what I want...for breakfast?”

“Something like that.  I mean, because...I don’t really know you.”

They nestled onto their sides, faces separated just enough for deep conversation.  “Does that scare you, Audrey?”

“Scare me?  Yeah, maybe.  A bit.”

He looked into her ice eyes.  “I am afraid I am going to disappoint you. I am an open book.  It is you who are the enigma.  Like just now, when you were looking out the window...you seemed so far away.”

“I was.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know...”

“Tell me.”

“It’s nothing really...”

“I want to hear.”

“I was thinking about Dano...” Audrey’s eyes lost their focus, “lying there, shot, his blood all over me...all over you.  I mean, he almost died.”  Her eyes welled up with tears.  “Dano almost died.  What if you hadn’t been there to save his life?”

“Life is like that, Cherie, there’s always another door...in this case we are lucky the right one opened and Dano survived.”

“Yes, always another door…what could have been...” Audrey perched herself on her elbow.  Her long platinum hair glowed softly, scattering magenta, cyan, lime green and lemon-yellow highlights across the white pillowcase.  “I feel so alone...everything has changed...nothing is solid anymore…it scares the hell out of me.”

Marc tenderly caressed Audrey’s cheek.  “It makes you envious of people who find security in something like God, non?”

“Yes, I suppose maybe…but then, what is God?”

“Ah, the eternal question, non?  But maybe it is a pointless question.  Maybe, as Nietzsche said, God is dead.”

“So we are all alone.”

“Yes, and there is no meaning to anything.”

“That’s depressing.”

“It is, but we can choose other ways to look at God...” he tipped his head, “I would maybe agree with John Lennon and say ‘God is a concept by which we measure our pain.’  It is, I think, how many people relate to God, and it doesn’t require God’s existence, just pain in the human condition.”

“Pain?  Maybe…I can see that…or, maybe, is God about,” Audrey searched for the word, “Truth?” 

“Oui, maybe God and Truth are the same thing.”

“Or what about infinity?  I mean, if the Universe has no beginning and no end, isn’t that God?”

“Infinity?  Peut être, maybe because it is a concept we cannot comprehend?  But this makes God a very abstract notion, non?  So, if you don’t mind a God you cannot pray to…”

“Or…peace?” Audrey sounded wistful.  “I could use some peace…in my head...in my dreams.  It was so horrible,” she shuddered, “it was so real…the blood, I couldn’t stop it…I just couldn’t stop it…it kept going round and round in my head, over and over again…I couldn’t sleep, so I got up...and then I looked out the window and I saw the snowflakes...and I don’t know why, but I was just wishing I could be out there with them…floating with them.  And then I must have gotten hypnotized or something because I started to fall into the snowflakes…it’s hard to explain but it was like I was in one of my treatments…I mean I really fell into them...I was out there with the snowflakes, floating, swirling, I was a snowflake, and they were all around me, millions and millions, all different, all the same, all of us moving together, following the air currents, like it was a dance or something.”

“Your imagination is beautiful, Audrey.  I love that about you.”

“Are we like that, one little snowflake lost in a gazillion snowflakes?”  Audrey stared off into the distance.  “Is there a purpose?”

“Oof!” Marc rolled onto his back.

“What?”

“You are a cruel woman.”

“Me?  Cruel!  Why?”

“I spend all night making the sweetest love of my life and then instead of falling asleep you have one of your attacks of existentialisme, and I’m out in the cold with a gazillion unrequited snowflakes.”

“I said no such thing!” Audrey laughed leaning into Marc, “Besides, I believe I used the pronoun ‘I’--”

“If you are a snowflake then it necessarily follows that I am a snowflake too.”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“Non, pas du tout.” He pulled her head down and grazed her lips with his. “I take you very seriously.  But you know what Camus says, ‘It is necessary to fall in love...if only to provide an alibi for all the random despair...”

“That’s not much consolation.”

“Falling in love?”

“No, the random despair bit...”

“Ah, but this is Camus.  I think there is much magic in the world.”

“Yeah…” Audrey kissed him, her lips lingering on his, “…is this magic?”

“Falling in love is the best kind of magic there is.” 

 Their eyes locked and they fell in deep into each other.  He filled her, filled her flower, and she blossomed, inviting him deeper and deeper, craving for his unyielding penetration.

    *

Damn, late!  No time for espresso, they popped a wakeUp, threw their clothes on and hustled across the Old Town Square.  They’re going to kill me!  Rush by the incomprehensible old astronomical clock scolding her as it ticked away earthly and celestial time.  Audrey cast a glance at the gothic spires of the church, and then at the Christmas tree, all lit and beautiful and stunning but no time to linger and look.  My parents are going to kill me!  Just as they were about to exit the square something lit the corner of her eye, and she turned to see what it was...a mist, a luminescent, glowing mist.  HoloVerts on Christmas day?  And right next to the Christmas tree!  Marc sensed the abrupt change in Audrey and turned to look.  The mist had quickly condensed into a shining phosphorescent cloud.  Eyes stopped and stared.  The apparition, whatever it was, was fast morphing and evolving.  It rose up above the square and darkened, becoming an inky impenetrable storm cloud, then lightning flashed, a thunderclap roared.  An angelic beam of sacred light descended from the cloud and within it a Christ figure began to materialize.  But this was no ordinary Christ.  This was hard-core Opus Dei mortification, Christ decked out in industrial strength baroque crucifixion blood, gore and glory—a harrowing gut-wrenching drama of intense pain and passion and suffering.

“STOP!” Christ bellowed, his voice reverberating across the square.  “Look at yourselves!” He screamed, pointing an accusing finger and trembling in righteous indignation.  The world stopped.  Eyes stared.  He was terrible and beautiful to behold, that perfect Catholic blend of pathos and horror.  Of redemption in physical suffering.  Of ecstasy in agony.  “Do you not see?  Do you not see that you desecrate the celebration of my birth?  Do you not see that you have cheapened it?  You worship your gifts!  You have forgotten the meaning of my birth!  You have forgotten why you celebrate it!  Look at me!”  Puncture wounds from the crown of thorns trickled blood down his haggard careworn face.  “Look at me!”  Blood from the nail perforations in his hands ran along the strained muscles of his forearms.  His pierced feet dripped red.  “LOOK AT ME!”  The gash on his rib cage bled through his white tunic.  “DO YOU SEE ME!  I suffered and bled and DIED FOR YOUR SINS!   And you celebrate my birth with MATERIAL GIFTS?  SINNERS!  Repent before darkness claims you!  REPENT!  For I am the truth and the light, and only I can free you from Satan’s shadow!  Behold!  I AM THE LIGHT!”  Christ began to glow, shinning with a light emanating deep from within, a dazzling white luminescence rapidly glowing ever brighter.  “The material world is sin and the wages of sin are death!  God will reclaim His world!  I am the light of God’s sacred truth!  I am the vengeance that will purify you!  The Apocalypse of the Singularity is upon us!  I AM THE LIGHT!!  I AM THE SINGULARITY!!”

Christ became a screaming blinding white radiance.  Those that believed stood or kneeled with heads bent in supplication and fervid eyes glazed in pious passion.  Those that didn’t shielded their eyes from the blazing intensity and wondered, open-mouthed, what the fuck?  An elderly lady dropped her shopping bags, scattering brightly wrapped presents and fell to her knees sobbing.  She pressed her hands together in prayer, her face twisted, her black shadow stark in the fiery white light.  She squinted her eyes, looked directly at Christ, and readied herself for the reproach of Divine Justice.  Instead the apparition instantly extinguished, as if the extreme surge of voltage that had given it existence had fried wires and thrown a circuit breaker.  The loud blindingly bright garish vision was gone and everyday life abruptly snapped back into existence.  People rubbed their over-exposed eyes and stared at a world that now felt strangely unreal: very grey, very quiet and very ordinary.

“Winteur, Audrey?  This way, please.”

            Marc and Audrey were shown in by the maître d’.  It was 10:20—they were more than fashionably late but (for Audrey) not seriously late.  Audrey’s parents, Marta and Karl, sat at a table set for four in the luxurious La Boheme Art Nouveau dining room.  A waiter with a silver pot was pouring them a second cup of coffee.

     “Joyeux Noël, Madame et Monsieur Winteur,” Marc said as he smiled and presented a gift-wrapped wine from his family’s vineyard. 

 “Did you hear what happened?" Audrey blurted out excitedly before her parents had a chance to thank Marc. 

“Other than you’re late?” Marta replied.

“I’m not that late, mother,” Audrey scowled, “but seriously, you’re not going to believe this.  Someone staged the second coming of Christ in the Old Town Square!  Right in front of us!”

“You need a miracle as an excuse for being late?”  Marta deadpanned.

“I hope you took the opportunity to absolve yourself of your sins,” Karl remarked with a wry smile.

“Very funny,” Audrey rolled her eyes.  She sat down, Marc adjusted her chair.  “No thanks,” she said to the waiter putting her hand over the cup.  “I’ll have a double espresso, please.”

“The Christ, it was most intense,” Marc said as he sat down and placed the napkin on his lap, “people, they were falling to their knees.”

“I’m sure they were,” Marta said, “but thank you Mark for your very kind present.”

“Yes, the gift is much appreciated,” Karl added, “but I assume this isn’t wine your Christ made from water just a few minutes ago,” he winked.

“Ah, non,” Marc feigned being affronted, “this is a very special vintage.  I assure you this wine was not made from water.”

“Oh, that’s right,” Marta said, “Audrey mentioned your family has a vineyard, don’t they?”

“Oui, it is near Mont-de-Marsan, in Aquitaine.”

“Have you heard?  I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but this is just the craziest Christmas!” remarked the head waiter moments later, pad in hand to take their order, “it seems Christ has been appearing.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” Audrey said, “I was there.”

“Oh my goodness, you were in the Old Town Square?”  The busboy brought the espresso and the head waiter gestured toward Audrey.  “I’m sure it was outrageous in Real.  But did you know this wasn’t the only place it happened?”

“Really?” Audrey resisted the temptation to check the newsfeed on the infoLayer in her mind, but it was Christmas and she didn’t want to antagonize her parents, hoping they’d like Marc.

“Well,” the head waiter lowered his voice in a conspiratorial manner, “don’t tell anyone, but we’ve been watching the news in the kitchen.  They had vids of Christ apparitions in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome, Amsterdam, and…I don’t know, all over the place.” 

“No doubt they’ll run them endlessly until the instaRatings start to fall,” Karl noted dryly.

“But why?” Marta wondered, “what’s the point?”

“Perhaps it is a hacker artPrank,” Marc suggested.

"Maybe it was that group of hackers...” Marta thought for a moment, searching for the name, “…you know, the ones that projected the Mickey Mouse ears on to Mount Rushmore?”

“That was BLANK,” Marc said.

“Yes, yes,” Marta nodded, “that’s the group I was thinking of...” Such a nice handsome young man!  I hope Audrey doesn’t push him away with her prickliness.  She turned to the head waiter.  “We’ll start with four mimosas…”

“What is it about religion that makes people suspend all rationality?” Karl speculated after the head waiter left.   Audrey braced herself for a long diatribe. “I mean, if someone had projected a giant pink panda, everyone would have taken it for what it was, a holo of a giant pink panda!  But when they project a holo of Christ, then the assumption is automatically that it is Christ, not a holo, which is simply absurd.”  Karl paused for a moment as a waiter set the mimosas around the table. “And it isn’t just that rational thought goes out the window when religion comes in.  For instance, if I said to you, Marc, that I don’t want you to marry my daughter because you are French, I would be considered a xenophobe. Or, if I forbade her from marrying a man because he was black, I would be a racist, a woman, and I would be a homophobe.  But if I were Catholic, or Muslim, or Jewish, or whatever, and I wanted my daughter to marry within my religion, then my prejudice becomes cloaked in respectability.”

“You know, I’ve always wondered why,” Marta gestured with her glass, “when the president of the North American States claimed he talks directly to God, and that God talks back and tells him what to do, people consider him a pious man.  But if this same president were to claim that he talks to a giant pink panda, to use your analogy, dear, and that this pink panda tells him what to do, he would be impeached and probably committed.”

“Don’t bet on it,” Audrey quipped, “besides, it doesn’t matter anymore because he’s about to be replaced by Mickey Mouse.”

“Disney won the election in the North American States,” Marta corrected, “not Mickey Mouse.”

Breakfast arrived, served on Wedgwood china.  They had decided on traditional sweet Christmas bread, vanočka, and eggs Benedict all around, Marta's with smoked salmon.  Marc looked to see if Audrey’s anxiety regarding his order had been eased, but she seemed to have forgotten all about it, so he said nothing.

“But regarding the equivalence of Christ and a pink panda,” Marc said as he dug into his eggs, “many would be outraged at this comparison.  People can be very touchy about their religious beliefs, non?”

“Touchy, or downright crazy?  Come to think of it, dad, how do you deal with religious nuts in your practice?”

“You know we don’t call people nuts, Audrey,” Karl cut himself a piece of vanočka, “and it is not for me to criticize the religion of my patients.  If something doesn’t interfere with one’s ability to function in the world then objectively,” Karl waved his hand, “there’s nothing wrong with it.  Personally, what bothers me about most religions is that they require you to suspend all rational thought and just believe what you are told, no matter how outlandish it is.  In my opinion, accepting anything without factual evidence, or at least rational thought, sets a very bad precedent, which can, for instance, in politics, lead to charismatic cult leaders and authoritarian regimes, which, alas,” he tapped the table, “is where we are currently headed.  But then, on the other hand, when patients come to see me, it means they need help in coping with something, and it is important for me to suspend any personal opinions when dealing with their problems.  Of course, occasionally religion can be the problem.  Anything taken to an extreme can be a problem.  When religion goes wrong it can lead to, for instance, intense, sometimes debilitating, feelings of guilt.  Or, a more extreme example, one can suffer identity dissolution under the coercive persuasion of extreme religious beliefs.  But to be fair, I do think there are good aspects to religion.  For example, rituals.  They can give life significance, and religions are a rich source of rituals.  Unfortunately, too often we lose the meaning behind them, and rituals become,” Karl shrugged, “just a choreographed series of empty gestures.”

“So try this out for a religious ritual,” Audrey reached for the butter. “There are cyber theorists who believe that by uploading the mind and merging with the net you can achieve immortality.”

“Great!” Marta raised her glass.  “It’s about time religion got an update.”

“The thing is, rumour has it that some chipHeads have actually done this,” Audrey buttered her vanočka, “uploaded all the way, losing the body, never coming back...but I don’t know...maybe it’s just BS, maybe they just deadEnded in deepFreak and fried their brain…” Audrey put the butter knife down, “but speaking of religious updates, I can’t get one thing out of my mind—do you remember this, Marc—at the very end the Christ apparition was screaming about how he was the singularity.”

“Ah, oui.”

“And you think this means,” Karl said, “that after decades of anticipation the singularity has finally arrived?”

“Well, what if uploading the mind injects consciousness into the net,” Audrey speculated, “and, you know, that’s what it took to kick all the AIs floating around in there into actual consciousness, meaning maybe the uploaded minds brought about the singularity.”

Marc smiled to himself.  His family never had conversations like this at Christmas.

“And so the uploaded minds achieved immortality because they meld and became one with a now conscious AI?” asked Karl.

 “And I suppose that’s how you’re planning your immortality,” Marta interjected sarcastically.

Audrey shot her mother a look.

“—I would like to propose a toast,” Karl raised his glass before Audrey could retaliate, “to Christmas, a ritual that despite the corporate world’s best efforts, manages to keep its meaning intact.”

“Bien dit,” Marc clinked his glass with Karl’s.  “Joyeux Noël.”

Audrey and Marta joined in.

“Merry Christmas!”