Unsong

by Scott Alexander

  Sohu shuddered. Then she said, “The prophecy says that I’ll die screaming and cursing your name. If Uriel killed me, I’d probably just die thinking you were right.”

  “Playing with prophecy is a dangerous thing, Sohu.”

  “Taking me away from the only person who can train me to use my powers is dangerous! Life is dangerous! We’re Cometspawn! If we don’t do the dangerous things, who will?”

  “I will,” said the Comet King, “so that you do not have to.”

  Whatever Sohu might have answered was lost in the brilliance of a sudden lightning bolt and the crash of the following thunder.

  “SOHU,” said Uriel “I JUST DID SOMETHING REALLY BAD.”

  Sohu ran through the door of the cottage, ran across the little cloud, jumped into the empty spaces beneath, leapt at Uriel. The archangel caught her in his giant hand, and she hugged his finger. “Uriel Uriel Uriel I’m so sorry I’m so sorry are you okay I’m so sorry.”

  “I AM SORT OF NOT OKAY BUT IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT.”

  “It is it is I told you to go to the conference I thought you would like it but it was all a trick I was playing right into Thamiel’s hands he wanted to hurt you I’m so sorry.”

  “IT IS NOT YOUR FAULT. YOU ARE GOOD. YOU TRIED TO HELP.”

  Then he noticed the visitor. The Comet King stood on the edge of the cloud. The starlight gleamed off of his silver hair. He listened to his daughter and the archangel quietly, but his mind was deep in thought.

  “Father,” said Sohu. “This is Uriel. Uriel, my father, the Comet King.”

  “Uriel,” said the Comet King, “can I trust you with my daughter?”

  Sohu’s brain immediately generated all of the terrible things that were about to happen. Uriel was going to answer something like “WELL, WHAT IS TRUST, ANYWAY?” and go off on a tangent while her father panicked. Uriel was going to talk about how Thamiel sometimes came to visit them and tried to kill or torture her. Uriel was going to, God help them, try to give a kabbalistic analysis of the question.

  “YES,” said Uriel.

  Sohu blinked.

  The Comet King looked for a moment like he wasn’t sure exactly how to respond, but it was only for a moment. “What happened in Madrid?” he asked. “The diplomatic community is in chaos. I had to talk President Bush out of declaring war on you. And the reports out of Jerusalem are so confusing I can’t even begin to decipher them.”

  “I GOT VERY UPSET,” said Uriel. “THAMIEL TRICKED ME INTO GETTING ANGRY, AND I FELL FOR IT. I USED THE ENERGY I WAS SUPPOSED TO USE TO SUSTAIN THE UNIVERSE TO MAKE EVERYONE GO AWAY. THEN I FELT VERY BAD AND I USED MORE OF IT TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM WITH ISRAEL SO PEOPLE WOULDN’T HATE ME.”

  “Solve the problem with Israel?”

  “I PEELED APART SPACE SO THAT TWO ISRAELS EXIST IN THE SAME SPOT. ONE OF THEM CONTAINS ONLY JEWS, THE OTHER CONTAINS ONLY PALESTINIANS. ANY JEWISH PERSON WHO ENTERS THE COUNTRY WILL FIND THEMSELVES IN THE JEWISH ONE. ANY MUSLIM PERSON WHO ENTERS THE COUNTRY WILL FIND THEMSELVES IN THE PALESTINIAN ONE. ANY CHRISTIAN OR ATHEIST OR SO ON WILL FIND THEMSELVES IN A SUPERPOSITION OF BOTH STATES. IT WILL PROBABLY BE VERY CONFUSING.”

  “You can do that?”

  “NOT WITHOUT COST. I HAVE TAKEN TWENTY YEARS FROM THE LIFESPAN OF THE MACHINERY. IT IS MY FAULT AND I AM BAD. I WANTED PEOPLE TO LIKE ME. NOW I HAVE BETRAYED THE ONLY JOB I EVER REALLY HAD.”

  The three of them stood there in the eye of the hurricane, silent in the starlight. The king. The little girl. The giant archangel. There was little to say. The world had been falling apart for years. Now it was falling apart faster.

  Finally the Comet King spoke.

  “Do you know the Hymn of Breaking Strain?” he asked.

  Uriel shook his head.

  The Comet King stood tall at the edge of the cloud. In a clear voice, from memory, he recited:

  “The careful text-books measure

  (Let all who build beware)

  The load, the shock, the pressure

  Material can bear.

  So, when the buckled girder

  Lets down the grinding span,

  The blame of loss, or murder,

  Is laid upon the man.

  Not on the stuff – the man.

  But in our daily dealing

  With stone and steel, we find

  The gods have no such feeling

  Of justice toward mankind.

  To no set gauge they make us-

  For no laid course prepare-

  And presently o’ertake us

  With loads we cannot bear:

  Too merciless to bear.

  The prudent text-books give it

  In tables at the end

  The stress that shears a rivet

  Or makes a tie-bar bend-

  What traffic wrecks macadam-

  What concrete should endure-

  But we, poor Sons of Adam

  Have no such literature,

  To warn us or make sure.

  We only of Creation

  (Oh, luckier bridge and rail)

  Abide the twin damnation-

  To fail and know we fail.

  Yet we – by which sole token

  We know we once were gods-

  Take shame in being broken

  However great the odds-

  The burden of the odds.

  Oh, veiled and secret Power

  Whose paths we seek in vain,

  Be with us in our hour

  Of overthrow and pain;

  That we – by which sure token

  We know Thy ways are true –

  In spite of being broken,

  Because of being broken

  May rise and build anew

  Stand up and build anew.”

  “YOU SAY WE ARE ALL BROKEN BUT MUST CONTINUE OUR WORK ANYWAY,” said Uriel. “BUT YOU NEVER BREAK.”

  The Comet King stood there on the edge of the cloud, inhumanly perfect, his black cloak and silver hair blowing in the gale.

  “I will,” he said.

  “PROPHECY?” asked Uriel.

  “Probability,” said the Comet King. “No one keeps winning forever. And when I break, I’ll do what comets do. Shatter into fragments, but stay locked on the same path, so that only the most careful astronomers can even tell they’re broken. And that’s what you need to do, Uriel. We need your help.”

  “WE?”

  “Humanity.”

  “HUMANS DON’T LIKE ME.”

  “Humans dislike many things humanity needs.”

  “I AM NOT GOOD AT ANYTHING.”

  “You are good at one thing. You run the universe. That is enough. We need a universe. No one has to be good at everything.”

  “YOU ARE GOOD AT EVERYTHING.”

  “Not everything. I cannot run the universe. That is where you come in. And my daughter.”

  “SHE IS VERY GOOD. SHE IS LEARNING QUICKLY.”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “I WILL NOT HURT HER.”

  “No, I don’t think you will.” He sighed. “But you need to be more careful. Both of you. Uriel, stay away from humans. They are ungrateful. They are foolish. They are cannibalistic. You and I, we are similar. Too similar. We take the straight paths. Try to do things right, damn the consequences. Humans are not like that. They manipulate the social world, the world of popularity and offense and status, with the same ease that you manipulate the world of nature. But not to the same end. There is no goal for them, nothing to be maintained, just the endless twittering of I’m-better-than-you and how-dare-you-say-that. You are no good at that, and you will never be any good at that, and if you were good at that you would not be good at what you need to be good at. We are similar, Uriel, deep down, but leave humans to me. That is my burden. The world is yours. The world, and training my daughter.”

  “JALAKETU,” said Uriel. “DO YOU THINK IT WILL ALL TURN OUT OKAY?”

  “I do not think anything,” said the Comet King. “I plan for it to turn out okay.” He sighed. “But
now I should leave. The European Communion is talking about declaring war. That would be inconvenient. I would have to defeat them. Do we have anything else we need to discuss?”

  Uriel was silent.

  “Stay here a little longer, Father?” Sohu asked.

  “Can’t. There’s always a crisis. And you have work to do. I’ll visit. I know I haven’t visited, but I will.”

  “GOOD LUCK, JALAKETU.”

  The Comet King stared directly at Sohu, spoke into her mind in that creepy way that he did.

  [Keep him safe, Sohu. I am counting on you.]

  [You lied to him, Father]

  [I told him the truth. His part is to remain strong and do his duty. If he fails, I will remain strong and do mine. You will do no less.]

  [That’s not what I mean. You told him you could break quietly. But you told me that if someone hurt me, you would go nuclear on them.]

  [I told both of you the truth. I will destroy anyone who hurts you. But not because I would be broken. Because I would remain intact.]

  He sent her something telepathically, a tangle of thoughts mixed with emotions. When she sorted it out, it came into her mind like a question and answer. The question went If you are Moschiach, and you have to care for everyone as if they are your own children, how do you care for those who are literally your children? The answer was a non-answer, a steamrolling over the paradox. You care for them even more. You care for them extremely and ferociously, beyond any reason.

  He stared at her. [Sohu. Promise me you won’t die.]

  She almost laughed, almost told him that of course that wasn’t something she could promise. Then she saw the look on his face, dead serious. She remembered what Uriel had answered him only a few minutes before. So she just said:

  [There’s a prophecy, Father.]

  [You will be a celestial kabbalist. You can stand above prophecy.]

  That was something she hadn’t heard before.

  [But even without prophecies, everyone dies.]

  [Then promise me you will not die before I do.]

  Something in his look prevented her from arguing any further. [All right, Father. I promise.]

  The Comet King turned into lightning and flew away, merging into the general fury of the storm.

  “HE IS GOOD,” said Uriel, finally. “HE IS RIGHT ABOUT ME AND HUMANS, AND HE IS GOOD.”

  “The prophecy says I will die cursing his name.” said Sohu, “But I don’t think that I will.”

  She went back into her cottage, started tidying up the books. The storm had felt strangely empty without Uriel at the center; now that he was back she felt safe again. There was a horror to Madrid; in her heart she could not forget that he was a mass murderer, that he had in his own words “CREATED THE BLACK PLAGUE TO SEE IF IT WOULD WORK”, but – Father was right. He didn’t understand humans. He never would. And she didn’t understand Uriel, not really. The Bible demanded faith that God was good, despite a whole world full of evidence to the contrary. For some reason, she had faith that Uriel was good. Not very wise, maybe. But good.

  And she had faith that her father was good. She looked at her left hand, where Thamiel said her father had placed a mark that would call him in times of danger. She wondered what other protections were on her, that even Thamiel hadn’t found.

  God she was still iffy about. But Uriel and her father, those two she had faith in. Those two were good. It would have to be enough.

  She fell asleep while the archangel worked silently outside.

  Interlude מ: Miss American Pie

  April 22, 2017

  San Jose

  A piece of onion flew past my head. This was a common occurrence when I argued with Erica while she was trying to cook. Today we were arguing about the lyrics of American Pie. She thought it was about rock n’ roll. I thought it was about Christian soteriology’s claim to supersede the Jewish conception of divine law.

  The first stanza was clearly setting up a contrast between the twin poles of song and dance. Song represented divine goodness or mercy. Its first three letters were “son”, corresponding to the second person of the Christian Trinity, and there were the kabbalistic implications from UNSONG and Peter Singer to consider. Dance represented divine justice, because its first three letters were “dan”, and “dan” or “din” is Hebrew for “judgment”, like in the Beth Din or the name Daniel, “judgment of God”.

  That wasn’t how I earned the onion, though. I’d earned the onion because of the chorus. He drove a Chevy to the levee, but the levee was dry. Well, “shevet” was the Hebrew word for “tribe”, so a Chevy at the levee means the Tribe of Levi, ie the priesthood. John 7:24 says that “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’” When the song says that the levee/Levites were dry, it’s pushing the standard Christian line that the Pharisee priests of Jesus’ day had become so obsessed with the Law that they had lost true faith.

  Apparently Erica believed this interpretation merited an onion, even though in the very next line they refer to whiskey, which comes from the Irish uisce beatha, meaning “water of life”, which is practically an exact match for the John quote. I had a tough audience.

  Bill Dodd walked in through the unlocked door, saw the table empty but for myself. “Am I early?” he asked.

  “Everyone else is late, as usual,” said Erica. “Please, save me. Aaron was just trying to convince me that American Pie is about Christian soteriology.”

  Then she had to explain the whole conversation thus far to Bill, and then Bill protested that it was obviously about the history of rock and roll, even though it clearly wasn’t. “Seriously!” I protested. “The very next stanza starts out with ‘Did you write the Book of Love / Do you have faith in God above / if the Bible tells you so?’ How do you not see that as an attempt to contrast the Old Testament – the Book of the Law – with the New Testament as the Book of Love, offering salvation by faith?”

  “Book of Love is a famous rock n’ roll song,” said Bill, “and the very next line is ‘do you believe in rock n’ roll.”

  “Exactly!” I told him. “Salvation by faith requires belief in Christ’s resurrection. The most obvious sign of which was that the rock blocking his tomb had been rolled away. Then ‘Can music save your mortal soul?’ Music = song = the Son, as I said before! It’s saying that Christ saves people’s souls! And then dancing real slow is the suspension of divine judgment!”

  “I know that you’re in love with him, because I saw you dancing in the gym,” continued Erica. “Where in the New Testament does Christ dance in a gym?”

  “Dancing means divine judgment!” I repeated. “And ‘gym’ is Greek for naked. There’s a perfectly clear part of the Bible that links nakedness to divine judgment, and that’s Genesis 3! The Garden of Eden narrative! We know that God is in love with humanity because even despite the justice of punishing original sin, He chooses not to do so.”

  “You both kicked off your shoes,” protested Bill.

  “Exodus 3:5,” I said. “And the LORD said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

  Erica threw another onion slice at me. It missed by half an inch.

  “Look,” said Bill. “You can fit individual pieces to relevant Bible verses. I’ll even give you that you mostly stuck to the Jesus theme. But the song as a whole only makes sense in the context of rock n’ roll. For example, just after the shoes part, it mentions a pink carnation, which was what young men traditionally wore to dance halls.”

  “And which also contains ‘incarnation’ as a substring. You don’t think that an Incarnation could possibly have anything to do with…”

  The door opened. Zoe Farr came in. “Hey guys. What are you yelling about? I could hear you all the way out in the driveway.”

  “AARON IS TRYING TO SAY THAT AMERICAN PIE IS ABOUT JESUS,” yelled Erica. “HE IS SAYING THAT THE CHEVY AT THE LEVY IS THE TRIBE OF LE
VITES AND THE PINK CARNATION IS THE INCARNATION. YOU NEED TO MAKE HIM STOP.”

  “Calm down,” said Zoe. “That sounds kind of fun. Even though I think I read somewhere that American Pie is about the history of rock n’ roll. It even mentions the Rolling Stones at one point.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Fine. You want to talk Rolling Stones? Let’s talk Rolling Stones. The relevant stanza begins ‘for ten years we’ve been on our own.’ In Bible prophecy, a day of God represents a year – this is why the seventy weeks of Daniel correspond to the 490 years after Daniel’s own time. So ten years by that conversion equals 3650 years. The Seder Olam Rabbah dates the creation of the world as 3761 BC, so in Biblical time the birth of Christ is about ten years and three months from Creation. That’s not a coincidence because nothing is ever a – ”

  “And the Rolling Stones?” asked Bill.

  “For the love of God, I already told you,” I said. “Resurrection of Christ. Matthew 28:2. ‘And, behold, there was a great earthquake: for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door.'”

  “Wait…” said Zoe.

  “No, you wait,” I said. “Let’s go over exactly what happens in the rest of that verse. The King is looking down – obvious reference to God entering the world, especially paired with the incarnation part earlier. Jester has clear phonetic resemblance to “Jesus”, sounds even better if you use the original “Yeshua”. He’s wearing a coat borrowed from James Dean. But we know the root ‘dan’ or ‘din’ means ‘justice’ in Hebrew. So ‘James Dean’ deciphers to ‘James the Just’, who is described in Acts as ‘the brother of Jesus’. Most commentators reconcile this with Jesus’ supposed heavenly descent by saying he was a half-brother from Mary. So James the Just represents Jesus’ human bloodline, which means the ‘coat borrowed from James Dean’ is the human form that He incarnates into, like a coat. So we have God coming down into the world and taking human form, and even having a human soul – a “voice that came from you and me”. Then he ‘steals a thorny crown’ – I hope I don’t have to explain that one to you. What happens then? ‘The courtroom is adjourned; no verdict is returned.’ The Law is supplanted; divine punishment is suspended. This would all be super obvious if you would just stop with your stupid rock n’ roll obsession.”