Glimmering

Now he sank into the same wicker chair where eight months ago he had sat with The Golden Family’s envoy, and picked up (not for the first time) the copy of The King in Yellow. Opened it at random and read.

THE LOVE TEST

“If it is true that you love,” said Love, “then wait no longer. Give her these jewels which would dishonor her and so dishonor you in loving one dishonored. If it is true that you love,” said Love, “then wait no longer.” I took the jewels and went to her, but she trod upon them, sobbing: “Teach me to wait,—I love you!”

“Then wait, if it is true,” said Love.

He waited. What choice did he have? It would not be much longer. Christmas was approaching, and his New Year’s Eve bash in the shadow of a corporate temple. The end of the century, the end of the millennium.

The end of the Kali Yuga? he wondered, watching for the hundredth time Stand in the Temple’s video on TV and that iconic singer Jack couldn’t help but think of as another emissary from GFI. Trip Marlowe, his name was: Jack learned that by sitting through one of the legion of interviews, documentaries, flatulent news bulletins, and good old-fashioned commercials promoting the band.

“This is so shameless.” Onscreen, Trip Marlowe spoke in reverential tones of the work being done by multinational corporations to restore the environment.

“… like, in the Rockies, they’re trying to reestablish all these extinct species of frogs, and in some places people, like, heard the frogs singing for the first time in ten years…”

“What, dear?” Keeley raised her head; she had been asleep. “I’m sorry…”

“Oh, nothing.” Jack sprawled on the couch, disgusted equally by the singer’s ingenuous blue-eyed gaze and his own lassitude. “It’s just—I mean, look at this guy! It’s like his entire face was reconstructed or something, he looks like he was designed by some damn corporate committee. He probably was.” He reached for the remote.

Keeley peered at the screen. “Is that what’s-his-name? The one with the nose job and the face?”

“No. I mean yes, this one probably has a nose job, but it’s a different nose. Jeez.” He flashed through channels, more than had been available for a year. Bombs exploding above the desert somewhere (Texas? Algeria?), an ad for a winged Barbie that morphed into her own makeup-equipped carrying case (just in time for Christmas, Supplies Very Limited), talk shows featuring people claiming to have spoken with deceased loved ones, a bit on CNN about the upcoming millennial New Year’s bash being hosted by GFI Worldwide in New York City.

“Hey!” said Jack. “That’s—”

He almost said, “That’s my party.” But then remembered he had never mentioned GFI’s invitation to Keeley or anyone else.

Keeley nodded absently. A moment later she began to snore, leaving Jack to stare at a video montage. GFI’s brazen airships in formation against an indigo sky; sturgeon slitted open so that their roe spurted onto dirty grey ice; a vault filled with ranks of champagne bottles; vintage limousines; a Japanese woman being outfitted in a stiffly embroidered kimono four times as large as she was; an aerial shot of some kind of arena, swelling out from one side of the Pyramid like a wasps’ nest and covered with workers and scaffolding and construction equipment. Then the arena faded, replaced by the shuffled images of two or three hundred people Jack assumed must be famous for something. He only recognized a few of them—the beloved sports figure disfigured by petra virus, a much-married millionaire Jack had thought was dead. And the ubiquitous Trip Marlowe, natch, dancing on one foot atop a Day-Glo Sphinx.

“… billing it as the most fabulous bash since King Tut partied on the Nile!” exulted the announcer.

The segment ended and another began, this one about millenarian cults like the Montana-based Cognitive Dissidents, who were planning their own mass suicide at the stroke of midnight, December 31. There was a commercial for telephone insurance. Then a few more worried-looking people speculated about the end of the world. Jack made a rude noise. He turned the volume off, but left the TV on—he was superstitious about turning it off—and went into the kitchen.