Unsong

by Scott Alexander

  NASA didn’t want to go in blind. First in May, then June, they launched manned missions to investigate the extent and composition of the sphere. As far as they could tell, it was about 250,000 miles in radius, centered on the Earth, and made of perfect flawless crystal except in the vicinity of the cracks. The eidolons of stars and planets seemed to be projected on it in some kind of holographic manner that gave them the illusion of depth.

  In early June, NASA told Nixon it had reached the limit of what it could determine about the sphere from remote observation.

  On July 16, 1969, President Nixon travelled to Cape Canaveral, where he met personally with three astronauts whom NASA had assured him were the best of the best. He wished them godspeed, and told them that the hopes of American people and the people of the whole world were fixed on them.

  Later that afternoon, Apollo 11 took off.

  Four days and 250,000 miles later, the lunar module Eagle detached from its mother ship. Inside were Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, who had accepted the task of landing on the crystal sphere and taking mankind’s first steps upon another heavenly body. Such as it was.

  The descent proved more treacherous than expected, and the two came perilously close to running out of fuel for the thrusters and crashing into the crystal at enormous velocity, but with twenty five seconds to spare they touched down at the chosen landing site right on the edge of one of the humongous cracks.

  “Tranquility base here,” said Armstrong. “The Eagle has landed.”

  There had been a brief debate in the Nixon White House over whether or not it was tasteful to plant the American flag on the giant crystal sphere surrounding the world. The argument against was that the sphere appeared to be some sort of celestial mechanism created directly by God that either separated Earth from Heaven or in some complicated sense was itself Heaven, and that for a human nation to claim Heaven might be literally the most hubris it was even conceptually possible to display. The argument in favor of planting the flag was, America.

  Neil Armstrong stepped onto the crystal sphere and planted the flag.

  “That’s one small step for a man,” he said “and one giant leap for mankind.”

  The formalities being over, it was time to get down to business.

  Armstrong and Aldrin hauled from their lunar module a great spool of cable, which they wheeled across the surprisingly smooth crystal a few dozen meters to the edge of the crack. Armstrong stared down.

  “Houston, I’m looking into the crack,” he relayed over his radio. “It’s very bright, maybe not as bright as the sun but close. I can’t see anything down there. The edge of the cliff is almost perfectly vertical. It seems a couple hundred meters wide – I can just barely see the other side, looks about the same. There’s no terrain here, no irregularity. Houston, I think the light source might be only a couple of meters down. It’s like a skin. I…I think we can reach the light with what we’ve got.”

  There followed a short argument over which of the two had to actually climb down into the thing. Aldrin won the argument with his very reasonable position that if Armstrong loved being first to do things so much, maybe he should show the same kind of initiative when it was something important and scary instead of just a photo op. So Commander Neil Armstrong attached the cable to his spacesuit, took a climbing hook in both hands, and slowly began to descend into the crack, while Aldrin peered down from above.

  “Houston, I’m in the crack. I’m down about three meters now, out of a hundred meters of cable. The light is noticeably closer. I don’t think it’s far off. I think it’s an object, or a barrier, or a transition or something.”

  “Houston, the light source is definitely getting closer. I think it’s only another couple of meters down.”

  “Roger that, Commander Armstrong. Colonel Aldrin, is everything all right from your perspective?”

  “Houston, cable is fixed in place. Commander Armstrong is still within visual range.”

  “Roger that, Colonel Aldrin.”

  “Houston, I’m going to touch the light source with my climbing hook and see if anything happens.”

  “Proceed as you see fit, Commander.”

  “The hook passes through the light source. I’ve pulled it back and it is still intact. It seems to be like a skin or a transition zone of some sort, like I said before.”

  “Roger that, Commander Armstrong.”

  “I’m going to touch the light source now…I don’t feel anything. My finger passes right through.”

  “Colonel Aldrin, from where you are standing, any change in the light source?”

  “No, Houston. I can see Commander Armstrong. There’s no disturbance or change. The light source is still uniform throughout the crack.”

  “Houston, I’m going to climb into the light source.”

  “Proceed as you see fit, Commander.”

  …

  “Ground control to Commander Armstrong. Come in, Commander Armstrong.”

  …

  “Ground control to Colonel Aldrin. Come in, Colonel Aldrin.”

  “Colonel Aldrin here, Houston. Commander Armstrong has disappeared below the light barrier.”

  “Ground control to Commander Armstrong. COME IN, COMMANDER ARMSTRONG.”

  …

  “He’s not answering. Houston, I’m going to pull up the cable, bring him back.”

  “Do that immediately, Colonel.”

  …

  …

  “Houston, the end of the cable is no longer attached to Commander Armstrong.”

  “Fuck.”

  “I never should have let him…I’m going down after him.”

  “No, Colonel Aldrin, this is Ground Control. You are ordered to collect the cable and leave the crack. I repeat, collect the cable and leave the crack.”

  “Wait, what if I lower the cable back down to him, maybe if he’s down there he can grab on to…”

  “Colonel Aldrin, I repeat, your direct order is to collect the cable and leave the crack.”

  “Houston, this is Commander Armstrong.”

  “COMMANDER ARMSTRONG! COME IN, COMMANDER ARMSTRONG! IS SOMETHING WRONG?”

  “No, Houston. Nothing is wrong.”

  “All right, we’re going to get Colonel Aldrin to lower down the cable for you and…”

  “No, Houston. Literally. Nothing is wrong. Nothing.”

  “Commander Armstrong, is everything okay?”

  “Exactly, Houston. Everything is okay. Nothing is wrong. Nothing has ever been wrong, anywhere. The cosmos is like a flawless jewel, each of whose facets is another flawless jewel, and so on to infinity. Except there is no jewel. It’s all light. No, there isn’t even light. From within Time you can’t see any of it, but when you step outside into Eternity it’s all so…full. It’s so beautiful, Houston.”

  “Commander Armstrong, you’re not well. Colonel Aldrin is lowering down the cable.”

  “You really think I’m still in the crack? Listen, Houston. The tzimtzum, the Lurianic contraction of God to create the world, from a higher perspective it wasn’t a contraction at all, it was an expansion. An unfolding of divinity into new possibilities. The vessels didn’t shatter, they rearranged themselves into shapes that only become apparent from a pleroma beyond any dimensions but containing the potential for all of them. Houston, is this making sense?”

  “Commander Armstrong, you are ordered to return to the ship.”

  “Houston, William Blake was right about everything.”

  “Commander Armstrong!”

  “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Ho
sts. Holy, holy, holy…”

  “Commander Armstrong!”

  “Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy. Holy, holy, holy…”

  “Commander Armstrong!”

  “Holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, hooooly, hoooooly, hooooooly, hoooooooly, hooooooooly, hoooooooooly, hoooooooooooly, hooooooooooooly, hoooooooooooooly, hooooooooooooooly, hooooooooooooooly, hoooooooooooooooly…”

  “Houston, I’ve lowered the cable as far as it will go. It’s dangling about seventy meters into the light zone. I’m not getting any indication that Commander Armstrong is going to take it.”

  “Roger that, Colonel Aldrin. Please return to the ship. Do you read me, Colonel Aldrin?”

  “Hoooooooooooooooooooooooooooly”

  “Loud and clear, Houston.”

  “oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”

  III.

  When I was ten years old, I got my first ham radio.

  A ham radio is a treasure when you are ten. I listened to boats off the coast, heard the reports from the ranger stations in the nearby forests, even picked up the chatter between policemen patrolling the local streets. One day I turned to a new frequency, and I heard a strange sound, a single pure note unlike any I had ever heard before.

  The sound was: “oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo”

  I brought the radio to my uncle, and I asked him what station that was, and he told me it was the frequency NASA used for its communications, once upon a time. Then a man had taken a radio tuned to that band into a crack in the sky, and it had started broadcasting with such power that it drowned out all the other radio noise and the whole frequency had to be abandoned.

  But what was that unearthly note?

  My uncle told me it was Neil Armstrong, who had passed beyond time into Eternity, praising God forever.

  * * *

  End of Book 1

  Book II: Exodus

  [A picture of a ship with bright multicolored sails in front of a city with various strange skyscrapers. The text says “Your faith was strong but you needed proof / Hay hay yud tav mem tav vav kuf / A ship on which another sailed before us / She saw his flag on the highest mast / She saw a dream that couldn’t last / The Comet King receiving haMephorash – Leonard Cohen, HaMephorash”. City image by a reader who wishes to remain unnamed; ship image is a photoshop of this concept yacht]

  Chapter 17: No Earthly Parents I Confess

  Said the night wind to the little lamb,

  Do you see what I see?

  Way up in the sky, little lamb,

  Do you see what I see?

  A star, a star, dancing in the night

  With a tail as big as a kite

  — Noël Regney, Do You Hear What I Hear?

  February 25, 1976

  Colorado Springs

  Picture a maiden lost in the hills.

  “Maiden” can mean either “young woman” or “virgin”. Its Greek and Hebrew equivalents have the same ambiguity, which is why some people think the person we call the Virgin Mary was actually supposed to be the Young Woman Mary – which might change the significance of her subsequent pregnancy a bit. People grew up faster, back in the days when they spoke of “maidens”. Mary was probably only fourteen when she gave birth.

  I am a kabbalist. Words matter. Nowadays we have replaced “maiden” with “teenage girl”. A maiden and a teenager are the same thing, but their names drag different tracks through lexical space, stir up different waters. Synonymity aside, some young women are maidens and others are teenagers. The girl in our story was definitely a maiden, even though it was the 1970s and being a maiden was somewhat out of fashion.

  So: picture a maiden lost in the hills.

  She was hiking with her brother in the hills of Colorado; while he dozed off in a meadow, she had wandered off exploring. She had gotten lost, and decided to climb a hill to see what she could see from the top. But the hill had been higher than she had first judged, and it had grown dark, and now she sat upon the summit and looked out at the stars.

  Violently they shone, far brighter than in the lamplit valleys of her home, so white they were almost blue. The Milky Way shone a phosphoric ribbon, and the cracks in the sky made a glowing lattice like a spiderweb of light.

  There was another power in Heaven tonight. Behold Comet West, the Great Comet of 1976. It shot exultant through the winter sky, laughing as it felt the void against its icy skin. It flamed over peaks and rivers and countries and oceans, until at last it flew over the Continental Divide and reached its namesake. The true West strong and free. And there it alit upon the highest of the Rocky Mountains, pausing in contemplation, and no one but our maiden saw it land.

  The Great Comet appeared in the aspect of an old man with long flowing white hair tossed about by the wind, winged with many wings. And though he was larger far than a man, larger even than the mountain that he sat upon, by some enchantment the maiden was not afraid.

  And she spoke, saying: “Who are you?”

  And he answered: “I am Comet West.

  “I am the Comet, the spanner in the works of Destiny. All things orbit in circles according to their proper time and pattern, save the Comet. I shoot through unplanned and unpredicted.

  “And I am the West. I am the setting-sun, the twilight of the gods, the coming night. I am the scarlet fires of dusk, the blaze before the blackness. I am the cradle of civilization and its executioner. I am the ending of all things in beauty and fire.

  “I am Comet West. I am both of these things. Are you afraid of me?”

  And the maiden said “No,” for she was not afraid.

  And the Comet said: “Then I will shine on you.”

  And the maiden said: “Shine.”

  And for a moment the Comet shone on her with its full light, and she shivered with cold. And then the light receded, and she was alone beneath a thousand violently bright stars and a single baleful comet.

  And then she slept and then her brother found her and then she went back to the bright electric lights of civilization and then she dismissed the whole thing as a dream.

  I am a kabbalist. Words matter. They used to call it virgin birth. But “virgin” means “maiden” and “maiden” means “teenager”, and so over time the phrase became “teenage pregnancy”.

  About four months later, it was noticed that our maiden had a teenage pregnancy.

  At this point the myth becomes incomprehensible without relating a previous myth from the same epic cycle. A few years earlier there had been a great cosmic battle between two giants named Roe and Wade. For over a year they fought a strange form of ritual combat, without swords, without blood, until finally Roe gained the victory. And the nine black-robed Destinies who silently watched the combat were so delighted that they declared a great boon to humankind: that the Curse of Eve should be rescinded, that no longer would Woman be forced through painful labor to give birth to children, but rather she might bear sons and daughters at her own pleasure only.

  (others tell this myth differently, but they are not kabbalists)

  The discussion turned to whether she would keep the pregnancy. Because she happened to be an Indian-American girl (a Hindoo maiden?) she and her family rejected the gift of the nine black-robed Destinies. The doctors told her she was too young, the baby was growing too big too fast, it wasn’t safe. But she was stubborn, as her parents were stubborn, as her child would one day be stubborn.

  And so in November 1976, behold, a virgin conceived and bore a son, and she called his name Jalaketu.

  Chapter 18: That The Children Of Jerusalem May Be Saved From Slavery (Passover Bonus Chapter)

  And the LORD said unto Moses, Pharaoh’s heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the user control whether or not to memoize thunks

  — kingjamesprogramming.tumblr.com

  I.

  April 10, 2017<
br />
  San Jose

  “Why are we celebrating Passover?” asked Bill. “Are any of us even Jewish?”

  “My father was Jewish,” I answered.

  “Doesn’t count,” said Bill.

  “I’m Jewish,” said Ally Hu.

  “You’re Chinese,” corrected Bill.

  “My great-grandmother came from the Kaifeng Jews,” said Ally. “They have been in Asia for many generations.”

  We all stared at Ally. We’d never heard about this before.

  “We’re celebrating Passover,” said Erica, bringing in a plate of brisket, “because we’re freedom fighters, and Passover is a celebration of freedom. It binds us to everyone across history and around the world who has struggled to escape bondage, from the Israelites in Egypt to the proletariat of today. Across thousands of years and thousands of miles, we’re all joined together, saying the same words, eating the same foods – ”

  “Pyramid-shaped cookies?” asked Zoe, skeptically.

  “The pyramid-shaped cookies are adorable,” said Erica.

  “You’re supposed to avoid anything with flour in it!” I protested.

  “Jews are supposed to avoid anything with flour in it,” Erica explained patiently.

  “You’re supposed to have matzah!”

  “I have matzah!” said Erica. She brought in a plate of matzah. It had been cut into the shapes of little frogs and locusts. They had little eyes made of frosting.

  “Ally, back me up on this,” I said.

  “Frosting is not a traditional Passover food,” said Ally.

  “Thank you!”