nod, again? The blue god learns to nod. So much new to learn. What happens then?
Then we get flooded. Five hundred thousand have signed up already. Twenty dollars a month. We’re planning for a few million.
I’m glad to see it like this. Before.
Yes. Just the two of us!
The novice Vishnu stumbles up the trail. They have mountains to cross now. Vine-covered canyons. The god stands for a moment, awed by his surroundings. Then he wanders down the forest path again.
Only a quarter century, Dad. Since we wrote that “Hello World” program. And the curve is still heading straight upwards.
From two thousand miles apart, for a few trillion cycles of the processor’s clock—a processor descended from the one the blue-skinned god helped build—father and son look across the mountains together and into the future. This land of animated wishes will expand without limits. It will fill with richer, wilder, more surprising life beyond life. The map will grow as full as the thing it stands for. And still people will be hungry and alone.
They walk along magnificent crests. Far below, a wide, old river meanders through a jungle dense with many greens. The blue god stands and looks. All his life, he has been homesick. Yearning drove him from a village in Gujarat to the Golden State. He has had no country, except for work and family. And all his life he has thought: It’s only me. Now he looks down on the snaking river. Millions will pay a monthly rent to come here. And he’ll be gone.
Where are we now, Neelay-ji?
It doesn’t work like that, Dad. All brand-new.
Yes. No. I understand. But these plants and animals. We’ve walked from Africa into Asia?
Follow me. I’ll show you something. The beggar leads them down a switchback into the thickening jungle. They enter a maze of twisty trails, all alike. Creatures dart through the undergrowth.
Neem trees, Neelay. Magic!
Wait. There’s more.
The jungle thickens and the trail thins. Shapes play in the fronds and creeping vines. Then the father sees it, hidden in the foliage of this sprawling simulation: a ruined temple, swallowed by a single fig.
Oh, my prince. You’ve really made something.
Not just me. Hundreds of people. Thousands, really. I don’t even know their names. You’re in here, too. The work you did. . . . The beggar turns. He waves at the roots that snake across the ancient stones, looking for cracks to slither into and sip from. He raises the tip of his gnarled pinkie. You see, Pita? All from out of a seed this big. . . .
Vishnu wants to ask: How do I make my eyes water? Instead, he says, Thank you, Neelay. I should go now.
Yes, Dad. I’ll see you soon. It’s a harmless enough lie. In this world, the beggar has just walked across half a continent. But in the other, he’s too frail and wasted to risk an airplane. And the blue god, who has just crossed a jagged mountain range in bare feet: in the world above, his body is so riddled with rogue programs and syntax errors he won’t make it to this world’s opening day.
His puppet body nods and his palms join together. Thank you for this walk, dear Neelay. We’ll be home soon.
FROM ENLIGHTENMENT to the dam burst in Ray Brinkman’s brain takes thirteen seconds.
The bedroom television blares the nightly news. Israeli forces are plowing up Palestinian olive groves. Beneath the quilt, Ray squeezes the remote, boosting the sound enough to drown out thoughts. Dorothy’s in the bathroom, prepping for bed. Her nightly ritual graduates from one noise to another: blow-dryer becoming electric toothbrush becoming water coursing into the ceramic basin. Each sound says night to him, the way wolves must have, once, or the calls of a loon. And like the calls of those animals, these sounds, too, will soon disappear.
She takes forever—and for what? After this night’s catastrophe . . . Which, of all these preparations, couldn’t she do to more purpose in the morning? She’ll be clean for sleep and ready for anything night might bring, though night can bring no worse nightmare than day already has.
Nothing makes sense to him. After this evening, it’s unthinkable that she’ll climb back into the bed of their last dozen years. But it’s even more unthinkable that she’ll sleep down the hall, that room she once, so many years ago, dreamed of converting into a nursery. He’ll destroy this bed. Chop the carved oak headboard up for firewood. The newscaster says, “Meanwhile, other