Redshift Part 13

The Poet opens his eyes wide. Has he been drifting off into sleep? Or-has he been touched by inspiration, as he has rarely been touched in recent years? (In fact, in decades.) He smiles, thinking yes he is proud to be here, he believes his complexly rhyming, difficult poetry may be due for a revival.

Presentation of Colors. Here's a welcome quickening of spirit after the solemnity of the chaplain's prayer! Marching army and air force cadets in their smart uniforms, three young men and two young women, bear three colorful flags: the U.S. flag, the state flag, and the university's crimson and gold. The army cadets flanking the flag-bearers carry rifles on their shoulders. A display of military force, in this peaceful setting? The Educator, a pacifist, disapproves. The Scientist gazes on such primitive rituals with weary scorn. Display of arms!

Symbolizing the government's power to protect, and to destroy, human life in its keeping! A crude appeal to the crude limbic brain, yet as always, it's effective. The Poet squints and blinks and opens his faded eyes wider. Flapping flags, s.h.i.+mmering colors, what do these things mean?

In the past, such moments of public reverie provided the Poet with poetry: mysterious lines,images, rhythms came fully formed to him as if whispered into his ear. Now he listens with mounting excitement, and hears-what? ("The G.o.d of the Great Dome. Stirring, waking.") In his deep well-practiced baritone voice the Chancellor addresses the audience from the podium: "Ladies and gentlemen, will you please rise for the national anthem?" Another time the great beast of a crowd eagerly rises. More than thirty thousand individuals are led in the anthem, a singularly muscular, vulgar music (thinks the Scientist, who plays violin in a string quartet, and whose favorite music is late Beethoven) by a full-throated young black woman, one of this year's graduates of the Music School. 0 say can you see . . . bombs bursting in air. Patriotic thrill! The Educator, though a pacifist, finds herself singing with the rest. Her voice is surprisingly weak and uncertain for a woman of her size and seeming confidence, yet she's proud of her country, proud of its history; for all our moral lapses, and an occasional overzealousness in defending our boundaries (in Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century, in Vietnam in the mid-twentieth century, for instance), the United States is a great nation. . . .

("And I am an American.") The Poet is thinking: Blood leaps!-like young trout flas.h.i.+ng in the sun. ("Of what dark origins, who can prophesy?") The Poet cares nothing, truly, for what is moral, what is right, what is decent, what is good; the Poet cares only for poetry; the Poet's heart would quicken, except its beat is measured by a pacemaker st.i.tched deep in his hollow chest. This is the first poetic "gift" he's had in years, he could weep with grat.i.tude.

The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, standing beside the Mace Bearer in the pose of a healthy young warrior-son beside his mother, tall and imposing in her ceremonial attire, clenches his fists to steady his trembling. But is he nervous, or is he excited? He's proud, he thinks, of his country; of those several flapping flags; to each, he bears a certain allegiance. As a professor of North American history he would readily concede that "nations"-"political ent.i.ties"-are but ephemeral structures imposed upon a "natural" state of heterogeneous peoples, and yet-how patriotism stirs the blood, how real it is; and how rea.s.suring, this morning, to see that such impressive masculine figures as the Chancellor, the Dean of the Chapel, the Provost, the President of the Board of Trustees, and others are on the platform, praying, singing the national anthem, in the service, as he is, of the Pyramid. Even if strictly speaking Professor S____ isn't a believer, he takes solace in being amid believers. . . . The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer is particularly proud of the burly, authoritative figure of the Chancellor; though he has reason to believe that the Dean of Arts and Sciences invited him to a.s.sist the Mace Bearer, and not the Chancellor, he prefers to think that the Chancellor himself knew of young Professor S_____ 's work and singled him out for this distinction.

The national anthem is over, the young black soprano has stepped back from the microphone, the thousands of graduates and spectators in the stadium are again seated, with a collective sigh. Such yearning, suddenly! And the spring sun hidden behind a bank of clouds dull as scoured metal.

Commencement Address. Now comes the Governor to the podium amid applause to speak to the Cla.s.s of in an oiled, echoing voice.

Like his friend the Chancellor, the Governor has a large face that resembles an animated clay mask; he's bluff, ruggedly handsome, righteous. He speaks of a "spiritually renewed, resolute future" that nonetheless "strengthens our immortal ties with the past." His words are vague yet emphatic, upbeat yet charged withwarning-"Always recall: moral weakness precedes political, military, sovereign weakness."

With practiced hand gestures the Governor charges today's graduates with the mission of "synthesizing" past and future communities and "never shrinking from sacrifice of self, in the service of the community." The Poet wakes from a light doze, annoyed by this politician's rhetoric. Why has he, a major figure of the twentieth century, been invited to the University's Commencement, to endure such empty abstractions? If the Governor speaks of ideals, they are "selfless ideals"; if he speaks of paths to be taken, they are "untrod paths."

The Governor is one who leaves no cliche unturned, thinks the Poet, with a small smile.

(This is a clever thought, yes? Or has he had it before, at other awards ceremonies?) Minutes pa.s.s. Gray-streaked clouds thicken overhead. There's a veiled glance between the Chancellor and the Provost: the Governor's speech has gone beyond his allotted fifteen minutes, the more than four thousand black-gowned graduates are getting restless as young animals penned in a confined s.p.a.ce. When the Governor tells jokes ("my under graduate major here was political science with minors in Frisbee and Budweiser"), the audience groans and laughs at excessive length, with outbursts of applause. (The beaming Governor doesn't seem to catch on, this is mocking, not appreciative, laughter.) A danger sign, thinks the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, who recalls such whirlpools of adolescent-audience rebellion from his own days, not so very long ago, as an undergraduate at the University.

So it happens: at the center of the traditionally rowdiest school of graduates, the engineers, of whom ninety-nine percent are male, what looks like a naked mannequin-female?-suddenly appears, having been smuggled into the stadium beneath someone's gown. There are ripples of laughter from the other graduates as the thing is tossed boldly aloft and pa.s.sed from hand to hand like a volleyball. University marshals.

In their plain black gowns are pressed into immediate service, trying without success to seize the mannequin; such juvenile pranks are forbid-den at Commencement, of course, as students have been repeatedly warned. But the temptation to violate taboo and annoy one's elders is too strong; many graduates have been partying through the night and have been waiting for just such a moment of release. As the Governor stubbornly continues with his prepared speech, in which jokes are "ad-libbed" into the text, there are waves of t.i.ttering laughter as a second and a third mannequin appear, gaily tossed and batted about. One of these is captured by a red-faced University marshal, eliciting a mixed response of boos and cheers. The mood in the Great Dome is mischievous and childish, not mutinous. This is all good-natured-isn't it?

Then another mannequin is tossed up, naked, but seemingly male; where his genitals would have been there are swaths of red paint; on his back, flesh-colored strips of rubber have been glued which flutter like ribbons to be torn at, and torn off, by grasping male fingers. There's an intake of thousands of breaths; not much laughter; a wave of disapproval and revulsion, even from other graduates. A sense that this has gone too far, this is not funny.

What a strange, ugly custom, thinks the Educator, polis.h.i.+ng her gla.s.ses to see more clearly, if it is a custom? Are those young people drunk?

Primitives! thinks the Scientist, his deeply creased face fixed in an expression of polite disdain. In situations in which there are large ma.s.ses of individuals, especially young males poised between the play of adolescence and the responsibilities of adulthood, it's always risky to court rebellion, even if it's playful rebellion, beneath the collective gaze of elder familymembers. (Long ago, the Scientist did research in neurobiology, investigating the limbic system, the oldest part of the brain; the ancient part of the brain, you might say; his focus was a tiny structure known as the amygdala. The amygdala primes the body for action in a survival situation, but remains inoperative, as if slumbering, otherwise. In his ninth decade, the Scientist thinks wryly, his amygdala might have become a bit rusty from disuse.

A spirit of misrule! thinks the Poet, smiling. Despite his age, and the dignity of his position on the platform, the Poet feels by nature, or wants badly to feel, a tug of sympathy for those blunt-faced grinning young men. For the Governor, that a.s.s of a politician, is an oily bore. At the luncheon following Commencement, the Poet presumes that he, and the other honorary award recipients, will be called upon to speak briefly, and he will proclaim to the admiring guests-"The spirit of poetry is the spirit of youthful rebellion, the breaking of custom, and, yes, sometimes the violation of taboo."

But the offensive b.l.o.o.d.y mannequin is quickly surrendered to an indignant University marshal, who folds it up (it appears to be made of inflatable rubber) and quickly trundles it away. The other mannequins disappear beneath seats as the now frowning Governor concludes his remarks with a somber charge to the graduates to "take on the mantle of adulthood and responsibility"-"put away childish things, and give of yourself in sacrifice, where needed, in the nation's-and in the species'-service." These are rousing words, if abstract, and the audience responds with generous applause, as if to compensate for the rudeness of the engineers. The Governor, again beaming, even raises his fist aloft in victory as he steps from the podium.

("What a fool a politician is," thinks the Poet smugly. "The man has not a clue, how the wayward spirit of the G.o.d, inhabiting that crowd, could have destroyed him utterly."

Recognition of Cla.s.s Marshals and Scholars. Conferring of Ph.D. Degrees. Now follows a lengthy, disjointed Commencement custom, in which numerous graduates in billowing black gowns and mortarboards, smiling shyly, stiffly, at times radiantly as they shake hands with their respective deans, the Provost, and the Chancellor, proceed across the platform from left to right. For these scholars, Commencement is the public recognition of years of hope and industry; many of them are being honored with awards, fellows.h.i.+ps, grants to continue their research in postdoctoral programs at the University or elsewhere. Many of the scientists have received grants from private corporations to sponsor their research in biogenetics, bioengineering, bioethics. The Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist, sobered by the number of "outstanding" individuals who must pa.s.s across the stage as their names are announced, shake hands with administrators, and receive their diplomas, and descend the stage, are nonetheless impressed by this display of superior specimens of the younger generation. So many! Of so many ethnic minorities, national ident.i.ties, skin colors! The University seems to draw first-rate students from many foreign countries. And all are so hopeful, shaking hands with the Chancellor, glancing with shy smiles at the revered dignitaries on the platform. The Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist suddenly feel- it's quick as a knife blade to the heart, so swift as to be almost painless- that these young people will soon surpa.s.s them, or have already surpa.s.sed them, not defiantly, not rebelliously, but simply as a matter of course. This is their time. Our time is past. Yet, here we are! The Poet tries to fas.h.i.+on a poem out of this revelation, which strikes him as new, fresh, daunting, though (possibly!) it's a revelation he has had in the past, at such ceremonies. The Educator smiles benignly, a motherly, perhapsgrandmotherly figure in her billowing gown, for, as an educator, she ex-pects her work, her theories, her example to be surpa.s.sed by idealistic young people-of course. The Scientist is aghast, and fully awakened from his mild trance, to learn that his own area of biological research, for which he and two teammates were awarded their n.o.bel Prizes, seems to have been totally revolutionized. "Cloning"-a notion of science fiction, long ridiculed and ethically repugnant-is now a simple matter of fact: five young scientists are receiving postdoctoral grants from private corporations to continue their experiments, which seem to have resulted in the actual creation, in University laboratories, of successfully cloned creatures. ("Though not h.o.m.o sapiens" the Graduate Dean remarks, no doubt for the benefit of wealthy alumni who disapprove of such science.) There are Ph.D.'s who seem to have experimented successfully in grafting together parts of bodies from individuals of disparate species; there are Ph.D.'s who seem to have altered DNA in individuals; an arrogant-looking young astrophysicist has received a postdoctoral fellows.h.i.+p to continue his exploration into the "elasticity of time" and the possibility of "sending objects through time." There's an obese, in fact grotesquely deformed female in a motorized wheelchair whom the Graduate Dean describes (unless the Scientist mishears?) as "colony of grafted alien protoplasm." There's an entirely normal-appearing young man in black cap and gown who moves phan-tomlike across the stage, seeming to shake hands with the Graduate Dean but unable to accept his diploma; the audience erupts into applause, informed that this is a "living hologram" of the scientist himself, who is thousands of miles away. ("But his diploma is thoroughly 'real,' " the Graduate Dean says with a wink.) Most repulsive, but stirring even more applause from the audience, is a human head on a self-propelled gurney! This head is of normal size and dimensions, with a normal if somewhat coa.r.s.e female face; there's a mortarboard on the head and bright lipstick on the mouth of the face. Evidently, this is an adventurous young scientist whose experimental subject was herself!

The technical description of this "extraordinary, controversial" neurophysiological project in detaching a head from a body and equipping it with computer-driven autonomy is so abstruse, even the Scientist can't grasp it, and the Poet and the Educator are left gaping.

Other projects include minute mappings of distant galaxies, "reengineering" of repressed memory in brain tissue, computational mathematics in fetal research, "game theory" and sensory transduction, "viral economics" in west Africa, computational microbial pathogenesis!

By the time this portion of Commencement ends, with tumultuous applause and cheers, even the younger members of the Chancellor's party, like the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, are feeling dazed.

The Pyramid. The Ceremony of Renewal. Conferring of Honorary Degrees. The orchestra plays the alma mater now in a slower rhythm, eerily beautiful, nostalgic, not a brisk march but an incantatory dirge, featuring celli, oboes, and harp, as the somber Dean of the Music College leads thousands of voices in a song that thrills even the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist, who are new to this University's Commencement and unfamiliar with the song before today.

Where snowy peaks of mountains Meet the eastern sky, Proudly stands our Alma Mater On her hilltop high.Crimson our blood, Deep as the sea.

Our Alma Mater, We pledge to thee!

(The Poet s.h.i.+vers, in his light woolen gown. Abysmal rhyming, utterly simple and predictable verse, and yet-! This, too, is poetry, with a powerful effect upon these thousands of spectators.) The ceremony on the Pyramid is the climax of Commencement, and through the stadium, as well as on the platform, antic.i.p.ation has been steadily mounting. There's an electric air of unease, apprehension, excitement. The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, too, s.h.i.+vers in his gown, though not for the reason the Poet has s.h.i.+vered.

For nearly an hour he has sat beside the Mace Bearer, close by the Pyramid, the black-lacquered box on his lap, firmly in his gloved fingers. His heartbeat is quickening, there's a swirl of nausea in his bowels. No. I should not be here, this is a mistake.

Yet, here he is! Escape for him now, as for the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist, is not possible.

For the Chancellor has resumed his place at the podium to speak, in a dramatic voice, of the "oldest, most mysterious" part of Commencement; the "very core, on the Pyramid," of Commencement; a "precious fossil of an earlier time"-hundreds of thousands of years before h.o.m.o sapiens lived. "Yet our ancestors are with us; their blood beats proudly in our veins.

We wed their strength to our neuro-ingenuity. We triumph in the twenty-first century because they, our ancestors, prevailed in their centuries." There's a flurry of applause. The uplifted faces among the young graduates are rapt in expectation, their eyes widened and s.h.i.+ning.

The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer finds himself on his feet. His entire body feels numb. There's a roaring in his ears. The Mace Bearer nudges him gently, as if to wake him from a trance.

"Professor S_____ ! Just follow me." Like an obedient son the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer follows this tall, capable woman with the steely eyes who carries the University's ceremonial mace (a replica of a medieval spiked staff, approximately forty inches in length, made of heavy, gleaming bra.s.s) as he, the young professor of North American history, bears the black-lacquered box in his gloved hands; together they march to the base of the Pyramid as the Chancellor intones in his sonorous baritone, "Candidates for honorary doctorates will please rise." And so the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist self-consciously stand, adjusting their long robes, and are escorted to the base of the Pyramid by the Provost, the Dean of the Education School, and the Dean of the Graduate School respectively; in the buzzing elation of the moment it will not occur to these elders that their escorts are gripping them firmly at the elbow, and that the Mace Bearer and her able young a.s.sistant are flanking them closely. As the Chancellor reads citations for "these individuals of truly exceptional merit ..." thousands of eyes are fastened avidly upon the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist; even as there are a perceptible number of individuals, almost entirely female, who turn aside, or lower their eyes, or even hide behind their Commencement programs, unable to watch the sudden violent beauty of the ceremony of renewal.

The University orchestra is playing the alma mater more urgently now. The tempo ofCommencement is quickening, like a gigantic pulse. Only just beginning to register uncertainty, the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist are being escorted up the inlaid granite steps of the Pyramid, to the sacred apex; ascending just before them are the Mace Bearer and the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, taking the steps in measured stride. There's a collective intake of breath through the stadium. The sacred moment is approaching! A glimmer of pale sun is seen overhead, bordered by ma.s.sive clouds. The Poet stammers to the Provost, whom he had mistaken as a loyal companion through the ritual of Commencement, "W-what is happening? Why are-?" The Educator, a stout woman, is suddenly short of breath and smiles in confusion at the sea of races below, greedily watching her and the other honorees; she turns to her escort, to ask, "Excuse me? Why are we-?" when she's abruptly silenced by a tight black band wrapped around the lower part of her face, wielded by the Dean of Education and an a.s.sistant. At the same time, the Poet is gagged, flailing desperately. The Scientist, the most suspicious of the three elders, resists his captors, putting up a struggle--"How dare you! I refuse to be-!" He manages to descend several steps before he, too, is caught, silenced by a black gag and his thin arms pinioned behind him.

In the wild widened eyes of the honorees there's the single shared thought This can't be happening! Not this!

As these distinguished elders struggle for their lives at the apex of the Pyramid, the vast crowd rises to its feet like a great beast and sighs; even the rowdiest of the young graduates quiver in sudden instinctive sympathy. There's a wisdom of the Pyramid, well known to those who have attended numerous Commencements: "Life honors life"-"The heart of one calls to the heart of many."

The Chancellor continues, raising his voice in recitation of the old script: "By the power invested in me as Chancellor of this University, I hereby confer upon you the degrees of Doctor of Humane Letters, honoris causa . . ." The elders' robes have been torn open; their faces, deathly white, distended by the tightly wrapped black bands, register unspeakable terror, and incredulity. This can't be happening! Not this! Through the stadium, spectators are swaying from side to side, some of them having linked arms; it's a time when one will link arms with strangers, warmly and even pa.s.sionately; more than thirty thousand people are humming, or singing, the alma mater, as the orchestra continues to play sotto voce, with a ghostly predominance of celli, oboes, and harp. Crimson our blood, deep as the sea . . . Many in the audience are openly weeping. Even among the dignitaries on the platform there are several who wipe at their eyes, though the wonders of Commencement are not new to them.

There are some who stare upward at the ancient struggle, panting as if they themselves have been forcibly marched up the granite steps from which, for the honorees of sacrifice, there can be no escape.

(It's a theory advanced by the Dean of the Graduate School, who has a degree in clinical psychology, that to experience the ritual of Commencement is to experience, again and again, one's first Commencement, so that intervening years are obliterated-"In the ceremony of renewal, Time has ceased to exist. On the Pyramid we are all immortal, and we weep at the beauty of such knowledge.") The moment of truth is imminent. The Dean of the Chapel, an imposing manly figure in his resplendent gown and velvet cap, climbs the granite steps like one ascending a mountain. The orchestra is now playing the alma mater at double time; it's no longer a dirge but a feveredtarantella. The tight-lipped Mace Bearer makes a signal to her trembling a.s.sistant, and the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer opens the black-lacquered box and presents to the Mace Bearer the instrument of deliverance, which shebears aloft, toward the sun. This appears to be a primitive stone dagger but is in fact a sharply honed stainless steel butcher's knife with an eighteen-inch blade. The Mace Bearer holds it above her head, solemnly she "whirls" it in one direction, and then in another; this gesture is repeated twice; for every inch of the instrument of deliverance must be exposed to the sun, to absorb its blessing. The dagger is then sunk deep into the chests of the honorees; it's used to pry the rib cages open and to hack away at the flesh encasing the still-beating hearts, which emerge from the lacerated chests like panicked birds.

These, the Dean of the Chapel must seize bare-handed, according to custom, and raise skyward as high as he is capable.

Led by the Chancellor's deep baritone, the vast crowd chants: "Novus ordo seclorum."

(A lucky coincidence! A pale, fierce sun has nearly penetrated the barrier of rain clouds, and within seconds will be s.h.i.+ning freely. Though the ceremony of renewal has long been recognized as purely symbolic, and only the very old or the very young believe that it has an immediate effect upon the sun, yet it's thrilling when the sun does emerge at this dramatic moment. . . . Cries of joy are heard throughout the stadium.) The hearts, no longer beating, are placed reverently on an altar at the Pyramid's apex.

Next, the ceremony of the skin. The Mace Bearer and her a.s.sistant are charged with the difficult task of flaying the bodies; it's a task demanding as much precision as, or more precision than, removing the beating hearts. Now mere corpses, the bodies of the Poet, the Educator, and the Scientist would sink down lifeless, and fall to the base of the Pyramid, but are held erect as if living. Blood flows from their gaping chest cavities as if valves have been opened, into grooves that lead to a fan-shaped granite pool beneath the speakers' platform. By tradition, the Mace Bearer flays two of the bodies, and the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer flays the third, for the ceremony of renewal also involves, for younger partic.i.p.ants, an initiation. ("One day, you will be Mace Bearer, Professor S_____! So watch closely") Under enormous pressure, knowing that the eyes of thousands of people are fixed upon him, still more the eyes of the Chancellor and his party, the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer makes his incision at the hairline of his corpse, with the blood-smeared dagger; it's slippery in his fingers, so he must grip it tight; and delicately, very slowly peels trie skin downward. The ideal is a virtually entire, perfect skin but this ideal is rarely achieved, of course. (Tradition boasts of a time when "perfect skins" were frequently achieved, but such claims are believed to be mythic.) Both the Poet and the Educator yield lacerated skins, and the Scientist yields a curiously translucent skin, like the husk of a locust, which is light and airy and provokes from the crowd, as the skins are held aloft and made to "dance" to the tarantella music, an outburst of ecstatic cries and howls.

The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer, exhausted by his ordeal, hides his face in his hands and weeps, forgetting that his gloved hands are sticky with blood, and will leave a blood-mask on his heated face.

Conferring of Baccalaureate and a.s.sociate Degrees. Three graduates of the Cla.s.s of , two young men and one young woman, with the high est grade point averages at the University, are brought to the platform to bear aloft the skins, and to continue the "dance" while the deans of various schools present their degree candidates and confer degrees upon them. (By tradition,these young people once stripped naked and slipped into the flayed skins, to dance; but nakedness would be considered primitive today, if not repulsive, in such a circ.u.mstance. And the skins of elder honorees surely would not fit our husky, healthy youths.) One by one the University's schools are honored. One by one the deans intone, "By the authority invested in me ..." Hundreds of graduates leap to their feet as their schools are named, smiling and waving to their families in the bleachers. College of Arts and Sciences. School of Architecture. School of Education. School of Engineering and Computer Science. School of Social Work. Public Affairs. Speech and Performing Arts. Environmental Studies. Nursing. Agricultural Sciences.

Human Engineering. Hotel Management. Business Administration . . . There are prolonged cheers and applause. Balloons are tossed into the air. Champagne bottles, smuggled into the Great Dome, are now being uncorked. University marshals are less vigilant, the mood of the stadium is suffused with gaiety, release. The Chancellor concludes Commencement with a few words-"Congratulations to all, and G.o.d be with you. I now declare the University's two hundredth Commencement officially ended."

The University orchestra is again playing "Pomp and Circ.u.mstance" as the Chancellor's party descends from the platform.

(And what of the pulpy, skinned bodies of the honorees? Now mere garbage, these have been allowed to tumble behind the Pyramid into a pit, lined with plastic, and have been covered by a tarpaulin, to be disposed of by groundskeepers when the stadium is emptied. By tradition, such flayed bodies, lacking hearts, are "corrupted, contaminated" meat from which the mysterious spark of life has fled, and no one would wish to gaze upon them.) Recessional. The triumphant march out! Past elated, cheering graduates, whose ta.s.sels are now proudly displayed on the left side of their mortarboards. The pale fierce sun is still s.h.i.+ning, to a degree. It's a windy May morning, not yet noon; the sky is riddled with shreds of cloud- The Chancellor's party marches across the bright green Astro-Turf in reverse order of their rank, as they'd entered. Familiar as it is, "Pomp and Circ.u.mstance" is still thrilling, heartening. "We tried Commencement with another march," the Dean of Music observes, "and it just wasn't the same." The Mace Bearer and the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer march side by side; the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer is carrying the black-lacquered box, in which the instrument of deliverance is enclosed. (It was a thoughtful maternal gesture on the part of the Mace Bearer to wet a tissue with her tongue and dab off the blood smears on her a.s.sistant's face, before they left the platform.) In fact the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer is feeling dazed, unreal. His eyes ache as if he has been gazing too long into the sun and he feels some discomfort, a stickiness inside one of his gloves, which must have been torn in the ceremony; but his hands are steadier now, and his fingers grip the black-lacquered box tight. Marching past rows of gowned graduates he sees several former students, some of them cheering wildly; their glazed eyes pa.s.s over his face, and return, with looks of shocked recognition and admiration. ("Prof. S !" yells a burly young man. "Cool.") A number of the bolder young people have slipped past University marshals to dip their hands and faces in the pool of warm blood at the base of the platform. Some are even kneeling and lapping like puppies, muzzles glistening with blood."Am I happy? It's over, at least."

The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer stumbles midway across the field, but regains his balance quickly, before the Mace Bearer can take hold of his arm; he dreads the woman's touch and his own eager response to it.

"Professor S_____ ! Are you all right?" Certainly he's all right, the cheer ing of thousands of spectators is buoyant, like water bearing him up; he would sink, and drown, except the pa.s.sion of the crowd sustains him.

He would choke, except the crowd breathes for him. He would stumble and fall and scream, a fist jammed against his mouth, except the crowd forbids such a display of unmanly behavior. .

.. He perceives that his life has been cut in two as with an instrument of deliverance. His old, ignorant, unconscious life, and his new, transformed, conscious life. Yes, he's happy! I am among them now. I have my place now.

The Graduate Dean observes, pa.s.sing by graduates cl.u.s.tered excitedly at the foot of the platform, "So encouraging! You can forgive these kids almost anything, at Commencement."

The Chancellor observes, "It's a sight that makes me realize, we are our youth, and they are us."

Disrobing. Returned to the Triangle Lounge, the Chancellor's party is disrobing. What relief! What a glow of satisfaction, as after a winning football game. The Chancellor, the Governor, and the President of the Board of Trustees, three beaming individuals of vigorous middle age, are being interviewed by a TV broadcaster about the "special significance" of the two hundredth anniversary. Everywhere in the lounge there's an air of festivity. Flashbulbs are blinding, greetings and handshakes are exchanged. The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer enters shyly, to surrender his blood-dampened gown and torn rubber gloves, and immediately he's being congratulated on a "job well done." The Graduate Dean himself shakes his hand. The Provost! "Thank you. I-I'm grateful for your words." More photographers appear. A second TV crew, hauling equipment. Bottles of champagne are uncorked. The a.s.sistant Mace Bearer would accept a gla.s.s of champagne but doesn't trust his stomach, and his nerves.

Is he envious? Shortly after the disrobing there will be a lavish luncheon for most of the Chancellor's party at the University Club, but Professor S_____ is not invited; the a.s.sistant Mace Bearer is too minor an individual to have been included with the others.

Another year, perhaps!

He has exited the room, eager to be gone. Makes his way along a corridor like a man in a dream. Without his Commencement costume, he feels exposed as if naked to the eyes of strangers; yet, paradoxi cally, he's invisible; in ordinary clothes he's of no extraordinary importance; he hopes no former students will notice him. . . . He's pa.s.sing swarms of graduates, still in their robes, and their families and relatives, all smiles. Small children are running feverishly about. That smell! Professor S_____'s mouth waters furiously. Food is again being sold, everywhere customers are queuing up to buy.

Minutes later he's devouring a Commencement Special. Horseradish and sausage juice dribble down his hands, he's famished.Jim Kelly has done everything before me-he was born a year before me, got married before I did, and started publis.h.i.+ng before I did, after we both (along with Bruce Sterling, William Wu, P. C. Hodgell, and a bunch of others) attended the 1974 Clarion Writers Workshop at Michigan State University.

Which means I've know Jim for twenty-seven years-which is amazing, because we both still look so young.

While I wandered off into the horror field for fifteen years or so, Jim pretty much stayed in the sf field-garnering a couple of Hugos (for wonderful stories like "Think Like a Dinosaur") and pretty much staying on the path he laid out for himself so long ago.

And as I said, we still both look young.

Unique Visitors.

James Patrick Kelly.

It's strange, but when I woke up just now, I had the theme song to The Beverly Hillbillies in my head. You don't remember The Beverly Hill-billies, do you? But then you probably don't remember television. Television was the great-great-grandmother of media: a scheduled and sequential entertainment stream. You had to sit in front of the set at a certain time, and you had to watch the program straight through. The programs were too narrow-minded to branch off into other plot lines, too stupid to stop and wait if you got up to change your personality or check your portfolio. If you were lucky, you could get your business done during a commercial.

No, you don't want to know about commercials. Those were dark years.

Anyway, after all this time-has it been centuries already?-I realized mat The Beverly Hillbillies was a science fiction show. Maybe it's just that everything looks like science fiction to me, now. The hillbillies were simple folk, Jeffersonian citizen-farmers desperately scratching a nineteenth-century living from an exhausted land. Then-bing bang boom-they were thrust into the hurly-burly of the twentieth century. Swimming pools and movie stars! The show was really about the clash of world views; the Clam-petts were a hardy band of time travelers coming to grips with a bizarre future. And here's the irony: Do you know what their time machine was?

It seems that one day Jed Clampett, the alpha hillbilly, was shooting at a racc.o.o.n. Are there still racc.o.o.ns? Submit query.

Racc.o.o.n, a carnivorous North American mammal, Procyon lotor, extinct in the wild since 2250, reintroduced to the Woodrow Roosevelt Culturological Habitat in 2518.

So one day he was shooting at a racc.o.o.n, which apparently he meant to eat, times being hard and all, but he missed the mark. Instead his bullet struck the ground, where it uncovered an oil seepage. Crude oil, a naturally occurring petrochemical, which we have long since depleted.

Old Jed was instantly, fabulously rich. Yes, it was a great fortune that launched him into the future, just as all the money I made writing expert systems brought me to you.

Of course, the Beverly Hillbillies were backcountry b.u.mpkins, so it was hard to take them seriously at the time. One of them, I think it was the son-Jerome was his name-seemed to have fallen out of the stupid tree and hit every d.a.m.n branch on the way down.

You laugh. That's very polite of you. The last time, no one laughed at my jokes. I wasworried that maybe laughter had gone extinct. How many of you are out there, anyway? Submit query.

There are currently 842 unique visitors monitoring this session.

The average attention quotient is 27 percent.

Twenty-seven percent! Don't you people realize that you've got an eyewitness to history here? Ask not what your country can do for you. The Eagle has landed. Tune in, turn on, drop out! I was there-slept at the White House three times during the Mondale administration. The fall of the Berlin Wall, the Millennium Bubble-hey, who do you think steered all that venture capital toward neural scanning? I started eight companies and every one turned a profit. I'm a primary source. Twenty-seven percent? Well, take your twenty-seven percent and . . .

Oh, never mind. Let's just get on with the news. That's why I'm here, why I spent all the money. Twenty-first century time traveler on a grand tour of the future. Just pix and headlines for now.

Still the glaciers? Well, / never owned one of those foolish SUVs, and our business was writing code. The only CO2 my companies put into the atmosphere came from heavy breathing when programmers logged on to p.o.r.n sites. Although how global warming puts Lake Champlain on ice is beyond me. Oh, this is exciting. New calculations of the distribution of supersymmetric neutralinos prove that the universe is closed and will eventually recollapse in the Big Crunch. That should be worth staying up late for. And what's this creepy-crawly thing, looks like a hairbrush with eyes. We've found crustaceans in the Epsilon Eridani system?

Where the h.e.l.l is Epsilon Eridani? Submit query.

Episilon Eridani is an orange star, Hertzsprung-Russell type K2, 10.7 light-years away.

It has a system of six planets, four of which are gas giants, Ruth, Mantle, Maris, and Einstein, and two of which are terrestrial, Drysdale and Koufax.

The atmosphere of Koufax has a density .78 that of earth.

Life on planet Koufax. I saw him when he was pitching for the Red Sox I think it was 1978.

He was just about at the end of his career and still Nolan Ryan wasn't worthy enough to carry his jockstrap. I was a big baseball fan, I even owned a piece of the Screaming Loons; they played Double A ball out of Poughkeepsie in the nineties. But I'm probably boring you. What's my attention quotient now? Submit query.

There are currently 14,263,112 unique visitors monitoring this session.

The average attention quotient is 72 percent.

That's better. Where were you people brought up? In a cubicle? You should respect your elders, and G.o.d knows there's no one older than I am. Sure, I could have given the money to some d.a.m.n foundation like Gates did. What for? So people would remember me in a couple of hundred years? I'm still here to remember me. Maybe it bothers people these days that I'm notreally alive, is that it? Just because I left the meat part of myself behind? Well, here's some news for you. I don't miss my body one d.a.m.n bit, not the root ca.n.a.ls or going bald or arthritis.

You think that I'm not really me, because I exist only on a neural net? Look, the memory capacity of the human brain is one hundred trillion neurotransmitter concentrations at interneuronal connections. What the brain boys call synapse strengths. That converts to about a million billion bits. My upload was 1.12 million billion. Besides, do I sound like any computer you've ever heard before? I don't think so. What was it that Aristotle said, "I think, therefore I am?" Well, I am, and I am me. I can still taste my first kiss, my first drink, my first million.

Why are you laughing? That wasn't a joke. You think you're fooling me, but you're not.

What's the day today? Submit query.

Today is Tuesday, May 23.

Is that so? Who's playing third base for Yankees? Who's in first place in the American League East? What's the capital of New Jersey? Who is the president of the United States?

Submit query.

Baseball is extinct.

Baseball.. . extinct. And that's not the worst of it, is it? You don't. .. Listen, Sandy Koufax retired in 1966 and there never was a Mondale administration and Cogtto ergo sum was Descartes, not Aristotle. You don't know anything about us, do you? I began to suspect the last time I woke up. Oh, G.o.d, how long ago was that? Submit query.