EPILOGUE

I CAN IMAGINE THE screwball comedy that might spring to mind when considering an intimate relationship between a human and an incorporeal AI being, between me and Maggie in particular—though she now preferred to be called Miriam.

The solutions Miriam and I worked out to our inter-dimensional relationship carried their peculiarities, to be sure. With absolute certainty, I can say our late-night talks about the world and our respective places in it, together and separately, what it meant to be human, what it meant to be a Jew, took on a unique depth of intimacy and metaphysical edification. We began exploring what it would mean for us to have a child.

“If they could build the Rebbe out of all of his stuff, they can build something that combines your stuff and mine. Hell, I can probably do it myself,” Miriam kept reminding me. Naturally, we discoursed over the meaning of the word child, agreeing the normal associations for the word were socially constructed, and leaving for future discussion what pronoun we’d assign to any “offspring.”

The abnormalities of this burgeoning relationship aside, we never disagreed about matters such as what to eat for dinner, or how to share the bathroom, though Miriam insisted that a certain early, particularly well-known photo of Marlene Dietrich wearing a top hat be attached to the bathroom mirror. And because of Shmulie’s post-mortem gift, accepted in toto, we had no money disputes.

It might not last forever, this heterodox relationship, but in this world what did last more than a few minutes of precious time? We’d take it as it came.

Miriam began preparing for her bat mitzvah, which promised to be quite the affair, to be held in the shul with the pool right down the street. We argued over the guest list, but on inviting Louise from IT we were in full agreement.

Meanwhile, the name Nick Bones continued generating occasional business. Money I didn’t need, but business I would always accept. Kept the synapses warm.