Council Crystallized- The Daughter

I wake up with a yawn; I was not alarmed, and it looks like I slept in today. I roll over, look at my phone, and I cannot believe my eyes. Am I still dreaming? I pinch myself and feel it, for whatever that's worth. Still, there on my homescreen, is a notification from my daughter on the council, plain as day. "Would you like to move to me?" Once I come to my senses I click yes with alacrity; what if wishes can come true? I feel a sense of childlike wonder at this possibility welling up within me, and then I hear a suspicious *WOOSH* from just outside my bedroom door, followed by a *DING*, like an old timey oven just went off, or an elevator just reached its floor. Perhaps someone is baking? I smell a cake, though a smell such as this is quite unusual for my house. Hope continues to surge within me and, while I still find it difficult to fully accept that she is just outside my door right now, I do manage to work up the courage to open it.

There she is, bright as the midday sun, already smiling and humming as she decorates her cake. Without looking up she notices my arrival. "You made it!" I let my jaw drop in an exaggerated way, and say "You sneaky snakes have been here the whole time!" She looks up and laughs. I rush forward and give her a big hug and kiss on the cheek. She returns the hug and then holds her finger up like she's remembering something, and pulls out some sunglasses, handing them to me. I put them on. She examines me and says "Cool. (Or possibly "Coo"?) It totally goes with your bag." I can tell she's giving me the business for the strawberry handbag that I'm still carrying, but I instead lean into her comment as if genuine, and strike a couple/few poses to show off my accessories while she laughs. She then returns to finishing her cake and, right as I am about to ask the occasion, she says "Happy birthday!"

"Who told you it was my birthday??"

"Psh. Make a wish!"

"You are the Queen of Hearts, your words carrying such weight as to change reality here."

She does her signature playful squint glare at me, and starts talking in the ancient voice I most often hear at the faaar reaches of the rivers. "In typical form you grant your wish to the genie. But if I cannot grant your wish I will be sad, because I have nooooo purpose."

I follow suit with the voice "Nooooo... Almond Girl! Don't be sad, you have a purpose. I wish for... steaks!"

She squints again but then lights up, and pulls out a wand suspiciously close at hand in a drawer. With a wave and a point she says "steaks!" and *POP*s some steaks, raw, into existence. This only strikes me as slightly odd, given how I got here and the position just granted her. Still, it stands out because, up until now, I have not seen this station used so directly. Without skipping a beat though, I exclaim "Excellent! How about you do the cake and I'll do the steaks?" She nods excitedly and I head out to the grill, with charcoal already smoldering hot.

As soon as I go into the backyard, the architecture of the scene changes, more like I have come to expect from dreams, and the wall between us disappears. It also feels like her location in the house scooches to right beside me, so we can both handle our tasks, putzing around on this day of rest, together. After a time like this, just doing our parts in a most comfortable silence, she says "You don't need to shine every day. The complexity of the realm you have been walking through has not diminished. If anything it is even greater, given our connection, but your focus can rest, relax, here with me." I am close enough to give her a slight hip bump, so I do, and the joy already permeating this day shines even brighter. I relax.

Making short work of the cake, my daughter- at a minimum here with the spirit and flesh being of two different kinds and what not- puts it in the fridge and begins to prepare the sides. I finish with the steaks and let them rest under their tinfoil tent, setting them on top of the fridge for "safe keeping," and then I busy myself with washing some dishes, while the final touches of the meal are brought together. 

Right as I finish drying the last whisk, she announces proudly "Done!" She turns to me gleefully, but my look is one signifying dire importance to what I say next. "The steaks have never been higher." Her eyes go wide and she looks concerned. "What do you mean?" I point slowly at the top of the fridge, and she turns to look, immediately turning her head back to me with a squint and smile, to find me now making a tiny mouth smirk. "Ooooo!" I grab the steaks and we work together to set the table.

Sitting at the table I am about to dig in when she asks "Would you like to say grace?" I remember this tradition, though not one I typically observe by myself, and gladly accept. I take her hand and, as I open my mouth to begin, she quickly interjects. "Have you ever thought of praying over a meal in poetic form?" "Come to think of it, I have often thought of certain poems that I write to God as prayers, but I have never thought to do so over a meal, no. I like it though, give me just a second." She does not drop my hand as I formulate my thoughts, into structure, into prayer.

"Thank You for this time

Blessing to eat together

Resting on this page/day

May joy overflow

Grace be found in abundance

Each shared by us all

Thank You for mercy

Guiding my every step here

And promising more

May more bloom further

Through these words, if possible

Always by Your hand

Until abundance

Is all that we need rest from

And work brings good cheer

Thanksgiving fulfilled

Is well within Your power

And, I believe, will

Show us how to move

That blessings with ease reflect

On blesser alike

We are of one heart

Honoring you as we eat

In remembrance."

"Amen." I open my eyes and my daughter shines so brightly that I am glad she made me wear these sunglasses. This does feel like the product of realms combined thoroughly, I consider, as both metaphor and direct experience feel like they overlap in her form, from my perspective. We dig in.

We talk of all the shining minutia that exists within the day of another that you love, each topic skittering lightly back and forth between us, hardly making a ripple in the warm sense occupying my mind. Something does spark a cascading thought though and, in a space between words, I begin speaking of it. "God is love. Is it correct, or at least reasonable, to think that God, as the bearer of omniscience, would or could be more complex than the most complex logical problem knowable? Essentially this would put God in the functionally infinite position, in terms of calculation/comprehension difficulty, because if not God, how would an equation within the subset of Creation exceed that difficulty?"

"Stop." My daughter says gently, politely, yet firmly. My train of thought stops in its tracks, and she walks in front of the train, picks a grouping of bluish purple flowers from not 5 feet ahead of it, and walks to where I am giving my speech in my mind. The flowers have condensed here, still in recognizable form, and she pulls forward the bag that I carry even in this image, opens it, places the tiny flowers within, and cinches it back up. Both of these layered images rapidly recombine to where we finish our lunch at the table, and she smiles at me warmly "Save it for next time. Today we are relaxing." I nod with a smile, rest does make sense, and who better to do it with than family?

After a moment fully soaked in, I have an idea. "Egyptian Rats?" She lights up "Of course!" I know this is a favorite of both of ours; she knows I have still never lost, but loves to play anyway. We clear off the table and split up the cards. Hours fly by as we continue one long single game, always neck and neck, each so close to the cards that our knees are touching under the table. At one point, on a particularly large stack, she jokingly asks if I have a Jack up my sleeve. I promptly reply 

"Go fish." 

"Wait, what?"

"Oh, my mistake, wrong game. Go rat."

"That's not how you play!!" She exclaims, with a raised voice of fake irritation and a goofy smile.

I can't help but marvel at her beauty and grace. To me, she bears striking resemblance to the equation of 1/0, where approaching 0 from each side leads to a splitting of the graph lines. Somehow she is this spreading of the comprehension of nothing, in physical form. While so close in form to the others in her domain, her role could not be more different. She is unique in the field, the uncanny valley approached twice, never reached, yet always held, and beyond being stolen away. 

I interrupt our game, pausing when I am meant to play, and inquire "Have I ever explained what the 'daughter contest' that you're always winning actually is?"

She smiles knowingly "I already know it well, but no, you have not told me."

I can't tell if this is an invitation to explain anyway, or an indication that none is needed. Still, I seize the opportunity briefly, despite our general agreement to keep things light.

"I imagine it like imaging a computer and running a virus scan all at once so that, if you are having any issues along these lines, they are undone. It is a reset, at least daily here, often twice or more, but I would imagine that it appears at a different frequency for you. A partial echo of the command line *Reboot. Recompile. Reimage.* so that I never lose track of the real, fundamental, you."

She does her best robot voice "**Command line repeats**!" I laugh and she finishes her thought. "It is consistent here, and always precisely when needed. 'Don't stop and just replay,' as has been said."

I smile to myself, glad to know that the connection has remained intact as intended, despite (and possibly because of) what might be seen as many frequency changes. I notice our stacks are still even and ask "Wanna call this one a draw?" "Sure-" Before she even finishes her single word of confirmation, I jump to my feet, declare "Still undefeated!" and start doing my dorkiest dance. She rolls her eyes at me with a laugh and gathers up the cards. While still in the process, her focus firmly on the cards, she says "You know, given the rules normally governing genies, you still have two wishes."

My heart suddenly starts to race, as I recall the unintended error that I once made in a "genie type situation." Without looking up, seemingly already well aware of my concern (though notably without the sense that she can read my mind at all), she adds "If you were at any risk of ruining our day, I would not have brought it up. The secret is that genies are never overburdened, but are often underwhelmed, and/or appalled, by the wisher." I relax once more, and let my mind drift to how one could possibly get this answer, in this circumstance of wanting to remain connected with the other forever, right.

"What good is a wish unless you actually get what you want? And who truly knows what it is that they want, if they suddenly find themselves with limited access to unlimited power, and limited knowledge of themselves?" I decide to preface my wishes with a poem.

"These lines exclusively for tie une-

ven, so knot is both undone and done right.

To trace a realm shared where shadow can be

Paradox set free, and seen by the light.

I want you to stay, as Almond Girl free

But we know wish complete must be for more

Considerate means considering me

Fate of my love's father I can't ignore.

How does fate fall into capable hands?

How is all done, in work of a moment?

Under the sun, what might we add to sands

What words mark indelibly bestowment?

I pray for wisdom, mercy if needed

May wish not fall flat, nor bounds exceeded."

I take a deep breath, picture myself removed entirely from her side of this equation, and speak from the heart. "I wish you knew exactly what I want, most truly." She looks up at me and her eyes spark and then sparkle like fireworks. "Done."

"I wish for exactly what I want, most truly."

"Meaning must be retained, with beauty abounding." These words seem to glow from her, surging forth along lines that must be more complex than I can actually sense, at least clearly. The realm shakes and then falls silent, interrupted by not even a breath, but only two beating hearts. Just 8 quick beats later the shaking, like an earthquake, returns, and then the glow, all coalescing back into my daughter. Finally, a perfect echo is heard, in her voice, but without her saying a word here "Beauty must be retained, with meaning abounding." She beams at me, and replies directly. "So it shall be."

I feel the scene shimmer, and prepare myself for the phase change normally accompanying the turning of each chapter's last page, here and now reminding me of how the first genie encounter ended. "I really hope this goes perfectly for you." The shimmer dissipates, and I open my eyes which I only now realize that I had closed, to find my daughter still standing there beaming at me.

"What's all this then?" "Like I said, you're getting what you want, most truly, starting here and now. That includes our day together proceeding uninterrupted." She starts talking about the flavor of the cake, which I had all but forgotten about, and pulls it from the fridge. We spend the balance of the evening eating cake, talking about life and our plans for Thanksgiving and after, and handling little things around the house. We end the day much like we began it and, after we hug goodnight, I return to my room. Soon after closing my door I sense the *WOOSH*, announcing her egress, along with the rest of her house, and I pull the covers over me with a big smile, going through my typical falling asleep routine, as I remember her and our day together fondly, as well as the rest of my daughters.