Diner World

08/ WAS IT YOU WHO INQUIRED ABOUT THE FOIE GRAS, OR WAS IT ME?

 The Solicitor wasn't invited to the wedding but it came anyway, hovering several hundred feet above the heads of the wedding guests. If the Solicitor hated anything in life (or whatever thing machines have that approximates living), it was to not be invited to things. While everyone bustled about the ground floor of Limpey's factory apartment building making sure that everything was ready for the big day, the Solicitor watched and waited. It did not knock when it came in, it simply vaporized a large section of the roof, descending to hover somewhere in the stale air. The Solicitor beeped. This was the last thing anyone remembered before the psychic ray took hold. Nobody could differentiate their thoughts from anyone else's.

"Where is the bride?" I yelled into the gathering. I looked around the room but couldn't tell who was who. They all looked like me but had different faces. Everyone was confused, and with good reason. Individuality could no longer be defined. Another person stood next to me, staring with the same dumbfounded quality as the rest. She was tall and thin with a blue dress and equally blue shoes. Her auburn hair was pulled back with a blue headband that had a periwinkle flower on it. I thought about that moment again and then realized she was me. When she spoke, she spoke with my own voice.

"I think I am the bride but I can't be entirely sure," I said, except I wasn't myself anymore. I was now tall and thin with a blue dress and equally blue shoes. My auburn hair was pulled back with a blue headband and a periwinkle flower. The blue dress I wore felt light, almost as if I were wearing a leaf instead of actual clothes. I was the person standing next to me and at the same time, myself. The congregation stared at me as if my comment was a well known fact and didn't need to be stated again. They all felt the same way. Or perhaps, I felt the same way as myself.

The terrifying, matte black sphere that was the Solicitor floated high above. The sphere struck equal fear in all members of the gathering. Such a feeling could have been a result of the equalized normality that comes with being turned into a collective hive mind, but I like to think that the Solicitor simply strikes terror in all who encounter it. The Solicitor chuckled slowly to itself, egging us on to do something about our predicament. I did not know what to say. Neither did the next me or the next me or the next me or the next. It was a big shock to all of my selves that my wedding had been interrupted so violently and in such a bizarre manner.

A door to the outside world opened quietly in the corner of the room and a dapper waiter came in with a tray of fattened goose liver. He deposited it on a table and looked up to see what was going on. Every eye in the room turned to him. He shot me a peculiar look and then bustled back towards the door, adopting the professional version of a speed walk. He was almost to the threshold when the Solicitor aimed a choice ray at him and I was now the one by the door. The new body quivered with a mixture of fear and hunger. One could get quite peckish whilst carting around food for a wedding reception.

"Where is Jane Salasan and Millie Horn? Where is the soon to be married couple?" I said. My voice came out of an elderly man near the punch bowl. I wore a meticulously tailored jacket and my alligator suede shoes shone brilliantly in the artificial light of the room. I talked among myself for a while but couldn't come up with an answer. Everybody was Jane Salasan and Millie Horn, and then they weren't. It was all terrible and confusing. A woman with an authoritarian gaze and a demeanor suggesting she worked as some kind of tax agent or private detective spoke up.

"I have no idea," I said. I was wearing another blue dress this time, a lower cut with a bit of fringe at the bottom. I could feel a pentagram tattoo burning somewhere on my left shoulder and a knife pinned up in my extravagantly sculpted hairdo. I felt dangerous, more in control than the previous bodies my mind popped into. "I have no idea, but should we really let that get in the way of our wedding? I mean, this is probably going to last a long time. We should really just get on with it."

"Is that really wise?" I said, a middle aged woman with a penchant for crocheting cat doilies. "I don't want to marry myself any more than I want to marry another me. How can we verify which version of ourselves is the true couple?"

"There is only one person in this room who can differentiate between peoples such as Jane Salasan and Millie Horn." I wore a white button down shirt, a tie, black slacks, black shoes, and a newsboy cap that wasn't meant for a twenty-year old woman. I pointed towards the black sphere. It crackled with faint electricity for a second after I spoke. It did not want to be turned into the villain. Such a sentiment was idiotic considering it had initiated all of this misfortune to begin with. "The Solicitor can reverse this process, he knows who is who!"

Now it was not just the me with the newsboy cap pointing at the geodesic menace but also the me with the bolo tie and the me with chef's hat and the me with the ring on the pillow and the me who was also a priest and the me who was just a goat and the me who was some kind of newspaper reporter and the me who was a detective and the me who was the Devil and the me who was a baby being held by another me and the me who delivered food to starving children and the me who prepared coffee for a living and the me who lived in the bayou and the me who didn't and the me who could see into the future and the me who couldn't and the me who had been married for fifty two years and the me who was married to that me and the me who gave meaning to the word marmalade and the me who didn't understand quantum economics as well as I should and the me who didn't know much of anything and the me who was four years old but mostly an accountant and the me who liked butter on toast and the me who was the Emperobo of the Moon and the me who ran a hotel and the me who ran a marathon and the me who could remember back to when I wasn't a slave and the me who was once possessed by a demon and the me who was his wife and could prepare the most delectable meals for passing travelers and the me who simply didn't understand what was going on and the me who was me with the corsage matching another me just across the room...

I pointed to the both of them with every hand that I could muster. "You two, up front and center. You are getting married now." I motioned to the me who was also a priest. I understood and went to my pedestal and started reciting an ancient verse. The crowd of other mes formed two sections of people and the bride walked down the aisle. I brought the ring up to the front and each of me took a ring and bestowed it upon the other. I said 'I do' and then married myself to myself. I clapped and was happy.

I would remark later that nothing truly remarkable happened. It really was a lovely wedding on all accounts. The foie gras was a bit stale but at least I got the bouquet. In the end, the Solicitor was frustrated that his interference had not caused more of a problem. He finally restored everyone's individuality.

After the Emperobo left, the woman with the newsboy cap ate the Solicitor for good measure. He had it coming to him. The woman thought he tasted quite minty. Neither she nor the Solicitor were really the same after that. The woman with the blue headband and the tax agent/ detective with the knife in her hair were successfully married. Enclosed in his lunar fortress, The Emperobo of the Moon vowed he would never go to another wedding again. He would have to fire the Solicitor later for pure incompetence.