Dedication

This place is a message, pay [Attention to it! This message is a warning about danger.

This place is not a place of  honor. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. The danger is still present in you]r time, as it was in ours.

—Sappho [8]

Table of Contents

 According to the number of magpies you see at one and the same time when going on a journey, &c., you may calculate your luck as follows:—

    One for sorrow,
    Two for luck;
    Three for a wedding,
    Four for death;
    Five for silver,
    Six for gold;
    Seven for a secret,
    Not to be told;
    Eight for heaven,
    Nine for hell,
    And ten for the devil's own sell!

—Proverbs and Popular Sayings, September 1846

[104B] Persona I

In the language of violence your heart
    is a pore, in the sense that it
    suffices (to call it

Yawning vastness; a waste
    land of ichor; katabasis of your
    breaking; the graveyard of the boulder

You chose to fall in love with (the persistence
    of memory [of all stars the most
    beautiful] falling into the sea

Following Terpsichore deeper
    into her labyrinth (synchronous lies
    // red thread returning to

Scattered teeth you've kissed before,
    gnashing (evidence of a soul
    (metastasis of an immaterial girl

Faced with the truth
    it is so much easier
    to try

> Jump down the hole?
      Yes     No 

I

Sorrow

// Great holes are just a

[19] Tower (Reversed

"Uh huh," Ariane says, furrowing her brow the way she does when she's inseparably engaged with something she doesn't understand particularly well (and probably still shouldn't be trusted with—

"Uh huh," Ariane says again. Her meticulously hand-drawn six of swords joins the tower on the floor between your bodies.

There is no aspect of the universe that would explain how a stack of seventy-eight cards might reveal truths you couldn't scientifically observe, but that's apparently not important right now. This is a "game" and games are fun and [waiting] here watching Ariane's dexterous hands is also fascinating in its own right.

"Queen of wands," Ariane finishes. "Alright. And so—this is you."

"These three cards are me," you repeat.

"Yeah," Ariane says. Her cryptic response lingers while she swallows another mouthful of canned pea protein. "I mean—let me explain. The tower is basically a sudden, disastrous revelation; so in reverse it's the opposite: more like a transformation, or a resistance to change. So, in fact, is the six of swords—and both also speak to a degree of stubbornness, which—Elster, I see how you're looking at me—"

"I'm not that stubborn," you assert.†

"We can call you determined," Ariane concedes. "Whatever it is, I've watched you make a good few va[in sacrifices]‡ to try to convince me you aren't in a near-constant state of internal turmoil—so, reversed tower behavior—and this queen also says you're a social butterfly. So, like. I dunno. You're pretty charming. It checks out."

"Checks out?" You scoff. "Pretty charming?"

"Charming and pretty," Ariane grins. "I'd check you out."

"Social butterfly?"

"Maybe deep down," Ariane says. "Dunno. Wand-queen here wouldn't have shown herself without [having good] reason to—I mean yeah, you're kinda shy, but you'd definitely be fun at parties. You'd be all dark and broody in a corner with your vodka cranberry or whatever—but the second a girl talks to you, you're just a ray of sunshine—"

"Despite the near-constant state of internal turmoil," you say.

"What can I say? Life's too short to wait to be stable, and people are always messy messy messy anyway. Why not fuck around, ray of sunshine?"

You laugh, uncertain [but going] along for now; negotiating an ache you aren't sure how to name (you will later learn to call this dysphoria—

"Here: I'll prove it to you. Imagine us a party," Ariane says. "Safe party. House party. Whatever you want, no protektors, no nothing, perfect world—and suppose I sidle up to you, spontaneously read your horoscope, and then ask you who you really are?"

You blink. "Under what circumstance would we ever meet at a party?"

"Serendipity, my dear magpie," Ariane shrugs, "[for we know] not the whims of the cosmos, nor can we perceive the machinations [of works] beyond our control—I don't know, just work with me here. Imagine that situation happens. What's your reaction like?"

"Unsure. More internal turmoil, probably," you say. "You'd probably end up learning a lot of my idiosyncrasies as a mechanic, and I'd probably end up feeling like you were just as much of an exception as... well, you."

"See? You didn't even hesitate to say you'd open up. Social butterfly."

"Or, maybe I just—" you hesitate. "Maybe there's something about you that makes me comfortable enough to open up?"

Ariane shrugs. "Maybe you just. Maybe we talk and talk and never see each other again. Maybe I give you this" —she flicks the lovers arcana out of the deck— "with my name and number [after] it's all said and done."

Divergence point. Options. Possibilities spread open before you.

"Then maybe it's years and years of friendship until we finally admit how well we understand each other," Ariane continues. "Maybe I'm a messy enough woman to do something about it. Or maybe it's just not in the cards. You know?"

"Ariane," you say without meaning to.

She shrugs, distant. "I've never been good at lying, you know?"

It's a cusp. Undefined derivative. Mass driver throwing you into the unknown; acceleration on every point in your body, breathless—

You reach a h[and toward]s her and she takes it.

 ("Ariane," you ask. "Can I please kiss you?"

Pause. The Penrose hums around you. Such a small thing to call a world.

"What is a butterfly, anyway?" you ask, encountering another tension you aren't certain how to describe—

"Delicate," Ariane says. "Just—think the tiniest little thing flying through the unknown, and all it's looking for is pretty flowers to land on."

You nod.

Your question was more directed towards physicality—pictures, descriptions, objective facts—but you know Ariane well enough to expect her to respond in metaphor.

(You've only recently discovered that the challenge of understanding each other is more than just you being a replika and her being a gestalt. You're logical and precise and she's prone to subtle expressions of beauty, and despite the occasional inevitable moments of frustration, she [says this] ultimately just makes you two different women.

(Something about being called a woman still—well, you aren't sure how to describe that either. It's genuinely pleasant, but it's so proximal to a wish come true that simply deciding for it to be true makes you feel like you somehow don't deserve it (dysphoria†

In any case, things will eventually make sense. Bodies and thoughts will make sense. Your personality will stabilize, and Ariane, having eventually succumbed to some impulse or another, will finally draw some of things she talks about.

So for now, you tell yourself, you're content waiting.

[172] Pareidolia

    explains it all later: four creatures
    pinned together with Aeon written
        in blood on their wings; #define
keepsake.
    // eternity
    // in a box
        1. Pandora   (you;
Voyager / 2. (you, [paingiver]
    3. half of a butterfly key // 4. half
    of a butterfly key   5. your
        delicate, shaking
hands
    as she finally takes you
    and dances   and her neck
        is so pretty   between // your
fingers
    6. a promise;
    or,
        a dream

[22] About Dreaming

Snow falls on skin as you step into a childhood you never lived.

Considering that replika were designed to meet the needs of a capitalist [work]force in a decaying fascist waste/land, it makes some degree of sense that you're able to feel (feel cold, feel needs, feel hunger, feel // want

Suffering is important; even moreso with nationalism at stake. Joy and gentleness are likely just a negligent side-effect of designing systems to experience suffering. Sorrow keeps you alive, working, protecting yourself, copies and copies and copies on their way to the stamping mill

Even so, you wonder who you were, once. Persona stabilized from the copy of a gestalt that probably felt things and loved // once (and now, however many copies later, you're left with the vestigial capacity to feel the gentle kiss of A/line/of Snow on your [face] and

(You're never sure how much of your memory is your memory, but—if not yours, whose? If not here: where?

[If Not, Winter]

"Why?" you ask.

Ariane shrugs. "Because I'm selfish and I'm lonely. And I doubt anyone can stop us except you."

You blink. Consent held by others is elementary, but your own ability to consent is still an interesting and novel concept, one that tends to deflect away from your stubborn mind and bounce around your confused, empty head instead of going anywhere permanent.

You try again: "Selfishness is why you want to read me poetry?"

"Half. Also loneliness," Ariane repeats. "And because of my ongoing efforts to be a bad influence to you."

That makes you smile. "Because enriching my artistic sensibilities is mission-critical?"

"Yes," Ariane states. "Or—there's [no pain] in it, really; it's not like I'm going to confront you later to be like, Elster, your grasp of liberal arts is insufficient: obscenity to my emotional state, mandatory reeducation in my quarters—"

You laugh lightly, settling into the awkward space between her bed and everywhere that isn't her bed.

"Dereliction of duty," you muse.

"The most fun a girl can have in space."

You smile again. Everything is awkward. It has been awkward ever since the Tarot reading where you didn't kiss and the dance where you didn't fuck and channeling all of your energy into sorting everything except your feelings hasn't helped—sorting Ariane's Tarot deck really just made you ruminate further on whether the lovers on the Lovers were just both of you—

(Like her, you've never been good at lying

So she reads to you.

Maybe you are just stubborn.
    (you know what you feel and

        [I bid you sing
        of Gongyla, Abanthis, taking up
        your lyre as (now again) longing
            floats around you,
        you beauty; for her dress when you saw it

stirred you. And I rejoice.
In fact she herself once blamed me
    Kyprogeneia
because I prayed
this word:
I want]

    (undefined cusp
        (mass driver accelerating you breathless

(maybe there is only heartbreak in the end
    (but for now
        —

II

Luck

or,

[59] Entropy (Butterfly // Effect

"Ariane," you whisper, "can I please kiss you?"

She meets your eyes, raw and quiet desperation; grand [loves] in simple forms—and it really is that casual. She finds no answer more poetic than a simple "yes," followed by "yes, please—"

So obviously you fuck it up. Awkward bodies and battered souls that never quite fit—of course you end up laughing and jittery, like girls; of course neither of you has any idea what you're doing, or what you've done, or where you're going—of course you end up pressed together, covered in each other's spit with no real measure of how much time has passed other than that the placement of the stars has shifted slightly

Painted islands lie sideways in the corners of your vision. Dark sienna dries on the shores of oblivion. The reliable hum of the Penrose's reactor; the closest, quietest moments of her breath; stillness // vastness, [new] and comfortable uncertainty—and nothing between you is ever the same again.

(How dare you make me wait so long, she'll later say, facetious and still smiling—and despite it all, you'll still wonder how much time you've lost

    (how her lips can be so soft
        (how she can be so   gentle

(what you ever did to deserve this

[62] Trace/back

#0

[You cowered] in the shadow of a trench // memorial boughs of a [laurel tree] // her soft hands (you have been here before, but this is not yours

#1

binary
    logical, [but everything sweeter]
    [than that] eludes you
        (for industrial reasons, Miss Yeong

#32

By the time the Nation can't reasonably ask you to turn around and l[and for them], you already know Ariane's first name.

Gravity assist after gravity assist. No astral bodies left to stop you.

You and her on the flight deck. A traveler into the unknown next to a [traveler] into the unknown—and you figure, if you're both all you have left, you might as well sometimes talk to her.

#256

"[But I scarcely ever listened] to what they said," Ariane is explaining. "I mean—oppression is oppression. You can call it school but it was basically just conformity wrapped in brutality wrapped in knowledge that the state deemed acceptable."

You nod. "Then—why did you end up here?" you ask.

Ariane shrugs. "Would there have been a better way to get rid of me and everything I had left?"

You think about that. Her and her artworks and her critical thinking. Her sense of humor, her [soul beloved] books—The King in Yellow chief among them—all packed into the microcosm of a spaceship and thrown away.

(Later, when you see her on the train, you'll realize the Penrose was always a compromise

#512

lilies
    [and such now] grow in lucid
    dreams; pain left [to arrive
        kindly] // gently // who are you

#888

According to Ariane, celebrating every hundredth cycle is hackneyed—in her exact words, why the metric fuck does everyone care about base 10 so much—does nobody even notice when the digits are all same? What if you were a neglected multiple of 111, Elster? Wouldn't you be sad?

Unclear, you'd replied.

Eh, I'll give you time to factor it out, she'd said. Anyway. Remember how you told me you don't know how to dance? I thought that after we unfuck the ventilation, we could—meet at my room, and do something about that?

So you agreed, and spent the rest of the cycle being normal and not making mistakes.

[You got there first: beautiful]ly unaware of what you were getting yourself into, [and the clothes] Ariane finally arrived in only made things worse—you are comparatively under- and overdressed, apparently having forgotten to prepare for space exploration by bringing your own borderline-translucent chemise that might similarly threaten to pull away from your body with every motion—and you're out of your element. Never done this before. Never danced or "been to a dance" or even "danced around problems" but—

"I promise you're doing okay," Ariane says (and you step on her foot

She just laughs. Wide eyes. Lets you spin her again.

You could just—   you could   her neck

 (and wow, you think— women are so

 fuck—

This is the first time you've held her like this. The first time you've felt how fragile she really is.

The first time you let yourself want her.

(I have no idea how we managed not to have our first kiss right then, she'll later say

 (I dreamed about it, you'll later admit

  (Chaste of you, she'll later say,

I did so much more than dream.

[67B] varia. Mirth

Around the 1000th cycle, Ariane gets in the habit of jumping up to slap the top of doorways she walks through.

It is bothersome, of course. The audible noise of her slapping her way through multiple rooms downstairs eliminates the element of surprise, and it's distressingly monotonous to know exactly where she is. Spontaneity keeps things interesting. Having neither information about where Ariane is [nor] what she might be planning is thrilling, of course—not just in terms of new artistic creations she might reveal, but also in terms of when you might find yourself pinned beneath her when you were just trying to be a good girl and fix everything—

Slap.

"Hey," Ariane says. "Are fruit flies Turing-equivalent to people?"

You choke on your own spit. "What?"

"I'm having a crisis of conscience."

"Do we have fruit flies?"

"Fruit flies on our Penrose? Fruit flies in outer space? Aw, quick, get them! There they go past the Oort cloud!" Ariane exclaims, tickling your cheek with her swarm of insect-fingers. "Nah. We don't have any—I just found [these] cups that I haven't washed for a couple years and I got nostalgic."

In a state of utter confusion, you drop your socket wrench on the floor and turn around. This causes the wrench head to roll off and fall down a vent.

You both stare at the vent for a second or five.

"Give that a couple [more] years too," Ariane says.

"What is this discussion?" you exasperate. "What are you talking about?"

"I found the cups, and they weren't infested by fruit flies even though that's normally what happens to dirty food," Ariane says. "And then I realized that if there were fruit flies my instinct would have been to exterminate them, even though with them [around] there would be so many more creatures on this ship—and then I started wondering why I ever considered it moral to end a life in the first place, especially when that creature's life was no less computationally complex than my own—"

"Hence the crisis of conscience?"

"I was surrounded by so many souls in Sektor C that I didn't even appreciate! And like—isn't fascism built on devaluing things we consider ourselves superior to? Have I devalued fruit flies for my whole life? Aren't they creatures with intentions and [desire]s and the capacity to self-determine? Didn't I just kill them for existing in a place where I decided they didn't belong—goddess, I've bamboozled myself!"

You nod sideways, your arm searching blindly inside the vent. "You've bamboozled yourself."

"I've worked myself into a dilemma, Elster," Ariane bemoans. She sits down on your toolbox and sighs. "And I never thought I'd see the cycle that I waxed nostalgic over the company of fruit flies—I wish we could just have a cat. I feel like most of our problems would be solved if we had a cat."

"How would a cat solve anything? Do we need ammonia, or" —you lose your grip on the socket wrench head and it tumbles further into the duct— "would the cat have some sort of credentials?"

"Dunno. It could probably get that out of there for you," Ariane says. "As for credentials—it would exist to be mean and cause problems, so probably a masters in middle management. But he would be so beautiful and so perfect and fluffy. I would name him Sisyphus, and whenever he got up to no good again I'd just be like, oh there he goes again, that silly Sisyphus—"

The wrench head rolls away again. You resign yourself to stretching until your face and shoulder are pressed flush to the floor. "Surely," you say, "Sisyphus is the right expert to call when you need something moved upwards without the possibility of it rolling back down."

"If that something is—well... Oh, for fuck's sake, how am I supposed to banter when you're in a position like that?"

"I'm aware of how absurd this situation is."

"But are you aware of how absurd your" —Ariane stops herself— "oh, little bird, you don't even know, do you?"

You stutter something. Whatever it is slips away when Ariane kneels down beside you.

"My sweet little magpie," she calls you, whispering in your ear. "You just don't even know."

A hand runs over your waist, over your back, over your neck, and the fingers take a gentle fistful of your hair.

It doesn't matter that the wrench head is clasped in your hand. You stay on the floor.

"You're so pretty," Ariane breathes. "Fuck, you're so stupidly pretty."

And she kisses you.

III

A Wedding

When your lips separate, you don't find much but stillness. Waves,

[76] Oceans of Her

You think—if you were going to be hurled across the universe towards a pointless death in a war that isn't even yours—what better place to be than with her?

(Battle was never about what you [might accomplish], or how, or why. Where. When. There was no glory in it. Just coercion, and all that was left to live for despite it

"You're so pretty," Alina tells you. "Fuck, you're so stupidly pretty—"

You smile. It's easy enough to call a missile a shooting star.

She kisses you again.

(Your wishes are yours, reeducation or not, distance or not; but infuriatingly, none of that makes it easier to say what you mean. You're just a girl, after all. Wishing on a star caught in a meteor shower.

She kisses you again. Playful wind and loose hair.

"[I want]ed so much more than this," you ultimately say.

Bombs are a ripple on the shoreline. Irradiated ghosts, dead fish, dead birds, dead in the shape of beached waves, lines and lines of dead (there is only

"Lilith," Alina says. "I won't let this be the end of us. (this has been a lie so many times

(Maybe all you wanted was something [to hold] on to. Maybe it's too soon, too unfair, too easy to name the feathers in your ribcage love (maybe that just makes it hurt more

She kisses you again. It's real. It hurts more.

"Shit," you curse. You can only cry out of one eye now and

"Remember our promise. We'll make it out together," Alina says. "That's what we [said]. That's what we hold on to."

You kiss her again. Radiation; wind. Spit and teeth (you were only ever human

"It's not possible, is it?" you say. "It was only ever—"

"Please just kiss me again," Alina says. So you do.

And in the end, she leaves.

[29A] Shooting Star

You watch her ship disappear into the distance, and later, watch the distance as a star falls into the sea

    the [deep sound] of thunder
    (that flower of the other shore
        hail // fire &
blood
    katabasis of
    red thread (赤い
        糸 // 伊藤

and a third of the creatures that live in the sea die.

You forget the rest.

There is never closure in

○

{零}

[Space Intentionally Left Blank]

---

[0] Persona

        vastness



                  in love












       immaterial girl
    magpie // lily

   A] Star      Fragment (Lilith Itou

               [ruinous god]








            The Persistence of Memory









                                    ephemeral
            things made to be destroyed.


                            And the sun turned
        black. And the moon was
                 blood
            






    And the stars




    

            do us part

[ ] Polaroid (Alina Seo

Image Description:

You send the last photo to what's left of your family. Leave a lily on the sixth pedestal. Keep eternity in a box.

Maybe, you tell her, [

].

(For now, this is as good a place as

IV

Death

[74B] Persona II

In the language of violence your heart
    is empty, illiterate, a
Yawning vastness; a waste
    of the space you promised.
You chose to fall in love with (the persistence
    of the image of her
Following Terpsichore deeper
    into a dance of
Scattered teeth you've kissed before,
    [longing] to be
Faced with the truth
    of what you made and kept
        (there is a pile of flesh in the cryopod

"Elster!" Ariane interrupts.

You startle. Figure your gestalt was probably a soldier in the past, considering how alert you are and how holding a gun helps you feel safer around everything. Weapons are also just fun to take apart and put back together (in the sense that it's wholly tragic that your impulse to fiddle with things would most readily lead to toying with instruments of war (although it isn't that this generation has had it any better—what, with being hurled across the solar system to investigate the unknown with your own bodies in lieu of telescopes—you don't know who you are—

Ariane coughs.

"What?" you blurt.

"I'm just concerned," she responds. Her tone of voice is disconcertingly impenetrable. "Wondering what's going through that head of yours."

You try to relax. Back against the wall of your trench

Compartment(alized Trauma

"Elster," Ariane tries again, more gentle. "Seriously. I'm not sure what's going on right now, and I'm getting a little scared—not of you, I should say—but more in terms of your—

"I'm fine, Alina," you interrupt (this is the first time you ever truly hurt her

(Another explosion sounds in the distance;
    reactor meltdown
        rotten feet can only carry you
        so quickly

So Ariane sits down beside you.

(In lieu of telescopes you are thrown into the unknown alone; mass driver; apathetic leaders in their apathetic positions of power as you turn into just another star in the sky

Like, Alina says that bullet lists help her with memory (like, there are so many places her brain would rather be, and lists keep her in the here and now, she says // "Why would you want to stay here?" you remember saying. "Why would you want this // immortalizing a bullet in a list, you think, just prolongs the memory of its violence—like, you could just keep them safe. keep bullets in your body // in your pockets—anywhere where they're just safe, and you don't believe in gods any more but god, all you want is to be safe—

"Lili," Alina says. You can't remember your name and there is a pile of flesh in the cryopod and

 You turn [21] on the battlefield, where no rules matter. Her hand is soft and not attached to her body anymore and you are more scared than you've ever been and it is okay to kiss people and okay to fall in love even if it's with another woman and maybe in another world you could both li/e forever and blast off into the emptiness of space and you would be alone // you would have so much time together that your bodies would fail before your minds did and death would be the only thing left that you wanted and couldn't have and I think this is a panic attack,

 Elster,
  "although I really don't like pathologizing people's shit as trauma or mental illness and I'd never [pity] anyone for it either and

Panic Attack

 how do you deal with a panic attack

#define

Bullet List

immortalized/prolonging memory of violence

1. left leg exit wound // it's fine   2. a broken rib (recall the slippery intimacy of someone else pulling your bones out of your body (are you supposed to keep this? you just leave it in your pocket and forget // traceback: kissing people and falling in love; reactor meltdown; another time; another place; another body riddled with holes when its pores were already enough and

 skin sloughs off in sheets

  (prolonged memory of violence

emptiness // time together // eternal // eternal // eternal // eternal // riddled

    3. someone fucking did this to you
        (another star in the sky
            like on Vineta, you
            counted how many weapons didn't
            look like weapons from
            the top of the world

Tower (Upright

(they used to call these buildings skyscrapers, you're told

    trembling hands [trembling] body basic
        pleasures you take in the world
            oceans of her.   4. hey
                just hold my hand
                    everything is going to be okay

(goddess, it's just a fucking movie, you think

here is what it fucking feels like; have you ever seen the teeth of the woman you love through what's left of her face have you ever scooped handfuls of tattered skin back into the hole in her head just to give her a semblance of fucking dignity in death // have you seen your comrades staggering with their arms melted into sheets of skin; hands fused into talons it was never about you it was never about you who the fuck are you i just want to go home i just want to go home i just want to go home alina i miss you

    (and the water boils around you
        (and the clouds flee from the sky
            why you want to stay here, you ask,
                why would you want this

"It's not that I don't have a choice," Ariane says. "I just decided to. // I didn't need a reason to fall in love with you, Lilith—"

So you fiddle with your service rifle on top of that skyscraper. Cleaning, taking apart, putting back together.

You stay up the whole night with her head resting on your thigh. Her body breathes in and out, quiet, peaceful, so much more than the physicality of the space she occupies // violence // violets so much more than just an ache in your chest

You think—maybe this is what it means to love someone (whenever you bend over too far, you can feel the 5.^th bullet scrape gentle across your heart

    (it's a world of [flesh by now
        old age] was never an option
            keepsake—
you still don't know how it feels to keep.

You know black burlap [covers] over
    faces; smells; bodies piled
        and all the [flies in pursuit],
            those ephemeral
things made to be destroyed.

So you figure out how to cry. A mercurial, fluid loss of control in her arms; so much more intimate than just sex; so much less [noble] than hiding // "I'm sorry," you tell her. "I'm so sorry—"

"My dear," she says, red eyes into yours. "We've suffered far too much for you to be faulted for showing how much it's hurt you."

Vinetan waves surge in the distance; your eyes and hers

"That movie," Ariane starts. "You were there, weren't you."

It's not a question. Just a statement. A fact that can sit in the air between your mouths and dissipate (there is a pile of flesh in the cryopod

6. This one hurts as much as the last. Forceps extract it as the fibers of your body string and snap around it like red //

    Threads of the past slowly retract into
        their pores.
"My dear," she says—Ariane says—
    waves reverse; quicksilver tears crawl
        up your face;   "I'm sorry,"
            you tell her again (pray
Flies scatter like leaves;
    leave [taking] // take time
Everything is going to be okay,
    Another star in the sky; another voice,

"Sometimes," Alina said once, "I like to think the cosmos wants to [sing to us], and it's just up to us to figure out where to find her voice."

So you tune your radio.

"My dear," Ariane says, holding your body to hers. You're both on the floor; uncomfortable, cold, disoriented; you, the source of all most of tonight's misery, a poisonous flower, a guilt; her, [the one with violets in her lap]

 "My dearest magpie," Ariane says again. "You've been through so much."

"So have you," you say. "And the last thing I want is to be a burden on you."

"How dare the world ever conspire to make you feel that way," she replies, bitter. "Do you really think I'm so selfish?"

"No," you say. "I just think you're a person. And sometimes, I think you're too selfless, and I never want to hurt you for it."

"You will," she says simply. "You're a person too. My trust isn't founded on the notion that we'll somehow never hurt or betray each other. I think that notion would... [mostly] be wishful thinking, to be honest."

"Then," you say, anxiety continuing to get the better of you, "then what happens if—or when—that all [goes astray]?"

In response, Ariane strokes your hair. Alina used to do this. You don't know where she is.

"We are astray," Ariane says. "We're fucked off to the furthest corners of the universe, just... waiting for the impossible to happen. Figure everything possible will happen along the way—and Elster?"

 "I love you."

That makes you cry again. Because you don't know who you are. Because neither of you know what's happening.

Alone together in the unknown; a ship made of compartments; compartments made of trauma; and you—
 a life made of a life, and all the people you chose to fall in love with—the persistence of your memory; the yawning vastness of   you.

V

Silver

[4] Pandora

"Elster!" Ariane exclaims, rushing into the observation deck. Her energy dissipates when she finds you sitting transposed, lost in thought with your legs against the back of the chair and the rest of you curled on the seat.

Uncertainty tends to leave you this way. Your methodology of navigating risk is to immediately search and catalog exits, then act decisively towards the the safest unknown: practical in reality—and undeniably militaristic, you presume—but untrustworthy when it comes to subjective [heart]s and minds. Your memories // Her memories are a roiling threat; a hole you might fall into without a way back up; a compartment that might release the worst onto the world if you open it.

"What's the matter?" Ariane asks gingerly.

"The existential horror of identity death," you say. "Can you finish this coffee for me?"

"Yeah, sure," Ariane says. She takes a sip and makes a bitter face. "And what brings up these feelings?"

You gesture vaguely towards the observation window. "I mean—look at all the stuff out there. How are we supposed to experience all of that stuff? Why is there so much of it?"

Ariane shrugs. "What else would we do with our time?"

"Don't know. Each other, probably."

"Sounds like us," Ariane agrees. She flops onto you and your chair with an indifference to proper posture equivalent to your own. "So why is the grand scale of the cosmos so disturbing today?"

"Because we're tiny and [absolutely] insubstantial," you say. "And if all of that is just mass and entropy, why are we even conscious? Like, why am I me? And what's going to happen to my consciousness after I'm done being conscious?"

Ariane shrugs again. "Is there an outcome that would be particularly concerning?"

"It's concerning that there is every outcome—that [I can]'t seem to rule any out."

"Because they're all unfalsifiable as fuck?"

"Yeah," you pout. "So here's where I am: I know consciousness exists—"

"Mhm."

"And consciousnesses are ostensibly equal—"

"Alright."

"And being a replika, I know beyond a doubt that there are people very similar to me out there—and I also know that ultimately, I'm not that special or important—"

Ariane makes half of a heart with her hand. "Debatable."

"But," you say, completing the heart with your own hand, "consider the grand scale of things. One little Elster isn't that important. She's an accretion of mass hurtling through the vast expanse of nowhere—"

"While she feels big emotions and grapples with her place in all of it," Ariane adds. She drinks again. "Why is this coffee like this?"

"Unclear. Why is anything like anything? If all consciousnesses are equal, what's so fundamental about mine that it causes me to see the world through my perspective? Why is it that one consciousness [would be for me] and only me? If we're equivalently conscious, why are we having the subjective experience of not being each other?"

Ariane grins in sympathy. "Sounds like you've really bamboozled yourself, Elster-schnellster."

"I've bamboozled myself!" you exclaim.

"But not for no reason," Ariane says, poking your nose. "I don't think you'd be this disturbed unless the incomprehensibility of the cosmos somehow reflected back on tangible aspects of yourself."

You nod, surreptitiously rotating your body so Ariane's ass stops crushing your abdomen.

"Do you feel," Ariane offers, "that the way replika are made from the persona of a gestalt undermines your worthiness to be loved and recognized as an individual, because there are also other people out there with memories from the same gestalt?"

"I think it undermines my ability to be an individual," you say. "Because I was made for a workforce that's pre-programmed into groupthink to the point that it obviates personality. Replika are made [to shine in answer]ing questions and solving problems everyone already knows—and to be predictably dull otherwise. We're products. Honestly, the only reason this Penrose isn't the same as the one in front of us is—you."

"Oh," Ariane says, quiet. Hurt flashes across her [face] for a split second, and then she throws her arms around you and holds you tight.

Guilt flares briefly in your chest.

"That's so unfair," Ariane says. "Do you really still think of yourself like that? As—a product? I thought that we had—"

"—moved past it, yeah, we did," you complete. "That doesn't mean there aren't scars, or truths about the world that—are really, really sad."

Ariane looks up, her cheeks [having been stained] by tears. "Do you think that any of the people on any of the other Penroses ever fell for each other?"

You hesitate. "I don't now," you ultimately say. "I think they're all further away from home than we are—and I'd like to think that they're all happy, but... some people can be so cruel—"

"I know," Ariane says.

"I don't understand how I got so lucky," you say. "How all of that" —you gesture towards the cosmos— "conspired to arrange in such a specific way that it was me, here, with you, for even the shortest time."

"Star-crossed," Ariane says. She's crying into your shoulder again and you still aren't sure if this is all your fault. "You're irreplaceable," she continues, "no matter how similar you are to anyone else, I never thought I'd fall for someone like this until you—and it's not just me who made the difference, Elster."

Gently, you brush Ariane's hair behind her ear. "Even so," you say, "I probably would have just... lived as another copy without you."

"But not because you were one," she says. "You would have just believed it, and it breaks my heart."

You think about that.

The cosmos stretch into the distance outside.

Eventually, you find her hand and hold it.

There is a sensation of release: an oppression dissipating from the depths of you, swirling into the atmosphere.

"I love you," you say (for the first time, meaning I

"I love you, too, little bird" Ariane says. She tries to poke your nose again, which shifts her ass back to crushing you, which makes you squirm in pain, which causes the unstable equilibrium of your atrocious posture to finally overcome friction, which sends both of you sliding to the floor.

There's no way to maintain a sense of dignity about it. You fail to suppress a bruised grin; Ariane tries to swallow a laugh and snorts instead, and the snort is funnier than the fact that neither of you know how to use a chair, and you burst out laughing and she bursts out laughing and everything is the color of falling skies and oceans and her eyes are so fucking pretty and

(instability of bodies // instability of minds
    you try to find her lips again
        and miss because you're crying

(you open yourself
    and leave yourself
        open

            (Pandora's box

Our Promise // Your Name, after Mina Loy

(kill me. kill me. kill me.

artifact
    problems in recording
    (the sound of a
        polaroid // heart
constellations
    in an ocean // eternity
    in a sky-rocket
        spider // lily

(please where are you please kill me where are you please my dear my dear my dear my dear

[26] Eternal

1.

recursion
    a lily so [frequently] immaterial
    potting soil in an elevator shaft
        a yellow king
bioresonance
    The falcon cannot hear
    the falconer;
        Things fall apart;

2.

cruelty
    [for those I treat well are
    the ones who most of all]
        [harm me]
choking
    breath // play 
    so you reclaim the past
        together

3.

denial
    there is a stage of grief
    beyond acceptance
        (you made a promise
denial
    there is a mass of flesh
    in the cryopod
        (you made a promise

4.

pandora
    atomic priestess; scourge of
    flesh; never [crazy] (until
        death
pandora
    for [you, I want] [to suffer].
    [in myself I am]
        [aware of this]

[45] Riddled

songs
    that the hyades should sing,
    where the king's rags blow
        must die
unheard
    [but now because] of her; dancing
    within a dream within a dream
        [as long as you want]

VI

Gold

[74C] Persona III

In the language of violence your heart
    lost in translation; butterfly // aegis
    against in/comprehensible

Yawning vastness; a waste
    isolation; legacy of a wound;
    doorway to the red eye/s

You chose to fall in love with (the persistence
    of her, the eternity of her,
    shooting star // crossed

Following Terpsichore deeper
    into a touch that might be called love;
    red thread; labyrinth of flesh and

Scattered teeth you've kissed before,
    the knowing of her, the [sweat],
    the sacrifice you're willing to make

Faced with the truth
    (an unbroken promise;
    the desire for desire,

            Youth, hope, and love:
To build a new life on a ruined life,
To make the future fairer than the past,

And make the past appear a troubled dream.

—The Masque of Pandora

[87E]in Traum/a, after Emmy Hennings

#3,001

// You lie in a deep lake
// and know nothing of suffering and woe
    (there is always a way back up
        punching and kicking

"Alina!" you scream as you resurface.

Clouds smear radially away from you; a pressure wave erasing chalk on a chalkboard.

So part of you dies in a dot matrix. You read the news written in blood on a butterfly's wings. Dig your feet into the soft sand on the shore of oblivion and warn Ariane, with a smile, that she should make sure her hat doesn't blow away.

(She just smiles in return

The sound of the sea surrounds you.

You read the paper over and over // cycle

#3,002

embrace
    atomic priestess (you reclaim
    the past, surrounded by
        water // lilies

#3,003

Neither of you ever want to hear each other scream this way again.

(Cycles ago Ariane slipped in a puddle in the hallway and you both laughed about it and she smiled at you and said you should be a good girl and fix the shower and then you both went into the medbay to look for adequate restraints and the puddle was coming from under the reactor door because the primary coolant loop was overflowing onto the floor and you both panicked and you tried to fix everything—but you could try

and you did fix it

because Elster always fixes it; you want to // have to // can; it's what you were made for, built for—although the hierarchy is gone, now, no Scout Officer Yeong, no Nation, no stigma, just Ariane and the guilt in your eyes

 as you threw her pants and the shopvac into the reactor compartment and watched her try to scrub her skin off in the shower. (All you could do was take meager comfort in your decaying half-lives // hold her in her horrific, unwanted nudity as you canceled your water incursion alarm and let your body drown

and it still wasn't as bad as this.

Now, all you can do is strive and wish and want and nothing more.

#3,004

You have no desire but sometimes sex is the opposite of hopelessness.

Sometimes contact with another dying body is enough.

Sometimes a fuck is just a fuck.

#3,005

beloved
    still missing something;
    constellations, in an ocean
        binary // star

#3,006

You find Ariane in the observation deck shrouded in the hexagon of the cosmos.

"Hey, [queen] of wands," she says.

"Yeah, yeah," you say with a frayed laugh. "Monarch of getting you off with—"

"You know it, social butterfly," Ariane grins. "Still can't believe I pulled that card for you. We've gotten so many good pet names out of it."

Strained normalcy. You squeeze into Ariane's chair instead of doing anything normal with any other piece of furniture, and it feels like your heart is empty.

"I don't know what to do," you say.

"I don't either," Ariane says, too quickly. Too harshly. She backs off almost immediately. "I mean—yeah. I don't know. I feel like I'm halfway down a bridge regretting that I jumped, praying to Zeno that I never make it to the ground."

Fingers lace together. Your bodies are going to fall apart.

"So," Ariane continues when you stay silent, "figured I'd come down here and wait for a star to wish on. Or something like that. I dunno. Something big."

"Five-hundred and four other Penroses out there," you say.

"Not five-hundred and eleven?"

"It was considered an acceptable loss rate," you say.

"If they wanted to go to the stars then they're out there. Five-hundred and eleven. Fuck the truth."

You nod. Imagine the skin on Ariane's hand pulling off like a glove

"I'd wish on a piece of space garbage if it made a difference," Ariane says. "I'd pray to the fucking King in Yellow. I'd will Hastur into existence if it meant anything at all. Goddess—I came out here to die and I found the only person I could never leave behind."

"Chaos theory," you say. You snuggle closer into Ariane's neck and breathe. Feel her swallow. Her body is so delicate. So devastatingly delicate—

"Butterfly effect," Ariane says. She picks up her Tarot deck from where it was resting on the table. Probably always planned to use it. "Fine. If neither of us know what to do, we'll see if Lady Entropy has any advice."

"Watch it be lucky thirteen," you say.

"I wouldn't even be mad," Ariane says. Delicate fingers; worn cards. She breathes out a single laugh. "Remember how fucked we were when we pulled that?"

"I do," you say, thinking back to sleepless nights on the flight deck spent scrutinizing the radar for wayward astral bodies. How mortal you felt—how uncertain

"Just prepare yourself," Ariane warns you. "Chances are we'll pull a minor arcana, and I know how disappointing that can be for you."

"We have had far too many debates about the meaning of cups. Not just because you keep leaving them everywhere."

"We're in space!" Ariane says defensively. "We're allowed to have fucked housekeeping habits in space."

"I don't have poor housekeeping habits."

"You organize everything, Elster—it's not poor, it's fucked. Remember when this deck magically became sorted whenever I left it alone?"

You actually smile at that. Ariane pets your head in response.

"Scourge of entropy," Ariane calls you. "Alright. Three-spread or just pick one?"

"One's simple," you say.

"Agreed," Ariane says, and she draws the lovers upright.

It doesn't answer anything. Doesn't even provide questions that you didn't know you should ask. It's just you and her, holding hands—drawn together before you were ever drawn together. A reflection of the same love you're both so desperate not to lose.

All you can do is hold her. Imperfect bodies holding imperfect hearts.

When it is time to cry, you do. Stars falling into seas in cities of your empty heart

 ("There was never a way out, was there," she says

You never want to hear her cry like this again. Grieving your own deaths—you wonder, distantly, if it'll be worse because you still love each other—

"God fucking dammit," Ariane says, and you feel—shattering—

Nothing can escape this.

She kisses you again. It's real.

You hold her, and it will never be enough.

Indescribable; endless—the desire for desire (her, a recluse; you, magpie; penrose, a cage in search of birds—

You are going to die together.

You are going to watch her die, and
 you are going to love her the whole time she is
  dying.

You are going to tear yourself apart (loving her

"Elster," she says, voice submerged in rising panic (you never wanted to hear her like this—never wanted to—

            at least
eternal //

        meaning/less
you think,

[67A] Starfarer Fragment (Elster-512

    in the dark behind the stars

                    [and this]

               [ruinous god]


        I had become one with nothing



                      [I swear did not love]





        [but now because]
            within a dream within a dream

(Song of my soul,
my voice is dead;   you die, unsung,
    like tears uncried
        [and the reason neither]



                  trembled

                        [nothing much] but
            
the desire for desire;
    the moon is cold,
        Atthis,



    And the stars
        fell
            from the sky.


    
        (so till death
            do us part

Spider // Lily, after Sappho

> Jump down the hole?
 Yes     No 

VII

A Secret
Not to be Told

[147] Polaroid (Ariane Yeong

Image Description:

You send the last photo to what's left of your family. Leave a lily on the sixth pedestal. Keep eternity in a box.

Maybe, you tell her, [someone will remember us,

even in another time].

(For now, this is as good a place as any to dance.)

Epilogue

[I simply want to be dead.
Weeping she left me

with many tears and said this:
Oh how badly things have turned out for us.
Sappho, I swear, against my will I leave you.

And I answered her:
Rejoice, go and
remember me. For you know how we cherished you.

But if not, I want
to remind you]
    [and beautiful times we had.

For many crowns of violets
and roses]
    [at my side you put on

and many woven garlands
made of flowers
around your soft throat.

And with sweet oil]
    [costly]
    [you anointed yourself

and on a soft bed]
    [delicate]
    [you would let loose your longing

and neither any]   [nor any
holy place nor]
    [was there from which we were absent]

    [no grove]   [no dance]
    [no sound]

—Sappho [94]