One of the deepest places in Fluxxus was far from the darkest. The den at the end of the tunnel leading west from the junkyard was sheltered from the elements by five meters of compacted rock, which the tornado had left somewhat scrambled but fundamentally unchanged. Yet, in the first hour after sunrise, it was as bright as any windowed home. The most prominent feature was the shaggy green rug on which all else stood; it was encrusted with all types of discarded, excess matter, but it was a precious relic of the past, recording times of carelessness and times of gluttony alike, and letting nothing slip from the memories of its owners. A cockroach lived there, though she hadn't built the place-she'd found it as it was, long ago. She was living with another, however, and it was together they'd caused most of the upsets this rug remembered. He stayed there with her most days because it didn't occur to him to leave the comfort of that den for the junkyard and its ambiance of random materialism. Sometimes he had to work on things which couldn't be brought inside, and on those days he toiled beside the keeper of the junkyard, twisting what he was told to twist, fixing things in his own special way when only his fingers could fit the task. The longer he worked, the more satisfied he was to return to his beloved Ziggy, built much more to his own scale, and far more capable than his boss of making his work seem worthwhile. He liked to drag things in to share with his cockroach, and they spent many a night splashing blue fluids on the shelves to see if they would get any cleaner, or laying tracks for tiny bolts to rock back and forth in forever, or trying to make fireworks out of cryptic locomotive processors. Their home was only a room, but to them it was quite spacious, and they were always trying to provide for more action going on around them than two individuals could produce on their own. They were skilled at entertaining themselves.

Handy was the name of the cockroach's love, the junkyard worker who also organized all the entertainment events for the hamlet of Fluxxus, and was popular in an upright way with everyone. He was nothing more than a walking glove in shape, white and smooth. Ziggy loved Handy's shape-his five fingers were like her six legs in their play-and she loved his skill and his spirit. She knew that he was capable of working with anyone to make them more efficient, a refresher of both the physical and mental worlds. She loved to be refreshed.

They had gone together to the mayor's speech, and had walked home together feeling none of the chill Clucketta and Kangaruffian had experienced. They lacked the words to say why, but then they had no cause or reason to find the words. If they had found the reason for their relative comfort, it would have been this: they loved for things to seem alive even when they were not, and a prophecy substantiated would be life found in the fates. So a prophecy bore nothing to fear.

Ziggy woke up to the sound of refined oil dripping from a slotted pot hung from a crossbeam into a slate tray rimmed with stainless steel that was propped up at her bedside. She clicked her feelers with admiration to see the colors blend on the maturing work of art before her. Eight hues of wax had been affixed to the eight slots; eight dripping streams of color grew from the sun in the morning, mixed with the oil, tempered it, and became an intricate melange. Each night, a different eight colors were used, or the same eight in altered positions, so that each morning a fresh image appeared on the slate as the sun beamed into the room and melted the wax. Ziggy the cockroach had taken to scrutinizing these images in depth, impressing them firmly onto her consciousness so that they would not be forgotten during the course of the day. What she saw in her morning plate told her what the day would be like, even if she had to make it that way herself.

This morning, the oil had suffused into the playful blue, spreading it to the very corners of the tray. The brick red was a streak dissolving into an indefinite blackness, and the tawny wax had mixed unevenly beside it, leaving minuscule flakes along its edge. The vermillion had done its best to imprue the sweeping blue field, but ended up lost. Ziggy was lost as well, in the details of the sun's heedless work. She did not look at Handy until he was leaning on her, and only then did she click her mandibles and fall back, letting the picture impress itself onto her retina, where it would remain in essence as long as the sun was in the sky. She turned her eyes to him.

"Is it the last day?" Handy asked her, watching the morning plate as if it were on the verge of becoming animate.

"No," answered the roach, her brown-goldish face nearly still and yet marvelously expressive. Her voice was a buzz, two slow sounds speaking at once, like the auditory equivalent of the world spied through the mottles of a colored goblet. "But there are two stripes that begin together. We could be those stripes," she said meaningfully, "if we wished."

Handy's voice was far more relaxed, and tended to leave a comically goofy impression in outside environments. With Ziggy, his was the voice of the real, solid world, reminding something more numinous of its existence. In this voice he asked, "Haven't we been together for years?"

"When I went to give Deadhead its rations yesterday," came the finely swathed answer, "it told me about a tradition from prior times. There are ones who stay together, but then, there are ones who pledge that they will stay always." She eased the tray out of its slot, and then crouched under it and took it onto her back. She glanced at Handy, who glanced at the hanging melodiphone whose dulcet hammers, plinking softly in the background, were powered by the glaring sun.

"We can't be together all day long. We have work to do. Different work," he said.

"I know," buzzed the roach, "I know, and that isn't what I meant." Gracefully, she let slip the tray into a tub of soapy solution, and came forward again. "It's simply a ceremony. All we need are tokens, and vows, and the attentions of our friends...and we will be guaranteed eternal life together."

"Eternal life?" asked the skeptical Handy. "How could that be?"

"It is the magic of love," answered Ziggy, clicking her feelers together. She stretched them to touch Handy in two places between the fingers. "No one else can have it because no one else has found it."

"Eternal life is something found?" he asked quietly, turning his attention inward to the hollows where feelers moved.

"It's as simple as finding wind-ups," Ziggy answered smoothly. "Finding them with the constancy of love. Never faltering, and never dying." Finding wind-ups was, in fact, Ziggy's specialty, her work and her role. She knew that if a search pattern were adopted and adhered to, it would be possible to find enough of them to allow everyone to remain healthy forever, only moving the village every twenty years. There was no reason life could not sustain itself for all time. Nothing was that could not be replaced or replenished. She had often told Handy that that was why they made the perfect pair: his job was to replace, hers to replenish. She knew he was thinking of that now, wondering whether to believe its greatest implications.

His fingers loosened, and he fell into a squat. He asked, "Is this the best time to be asking the fates for gifts? Trouble could come from it. If we demand eternal life, someone else might have to pay. Maybe even everyone else."

"Life is not a liquid. It can be created, and it can be destroyed. These two things are most independent."

"Why bring it up now? If we really can be guaranteed eternal life, why only mention it just after the Plicate Rook falls in? It seems eerie of you."

"My cherished," murmured Ziggy, "I mention it only now because Deadhead found it only yesterday. It was looking through a book searching for omens of death, and found an unexpected omen of life. It had the insight to pass it on to me. Now, we can take from this prophecy something great, the flip side of the dread it bears. This thing called marriage is the opposite of dread."

"Is that its name? Marriage?" asked Handy.

"It is, and all it will take from you is a ring, or a band of something precious. Look for it today while you work." Ziggy retracted her antennae demurely and glanced away. "I will look at you less until this is done," she went on. "That is part of it. I will not be here when you return tonight."

Handy flicked away a scrap of fuzz. By remaining silent for several seconds, he implicitly agreed to the arrangement, sudden though it was. After a while, he asked, "Is it that we have to be fresh in each other's minds for the thing to work?"

"Probably. I do not know. It is a ceremony, my dear. It is hard to know why. Let us follow it nonetheless."

Handy put out his fourth finger and set it on the cockroach's head, deciding then and there to take this ceremony entirely as seriously as Ziggy wished to, even if it was destined to be a cipher in the end. "When will it happen?"

"As soon as everyone has stopped dreading the prophecy. As soon as we can get them to come together for us."

"Will I see you tomorrow morning?"

Ziggy made a humming sound of temporary indecision. "Yes, for a while. In the mornings, we will be together. But now, you should go. Your work will be waiting."

Handy lovingly retracted his finger. "I trust you," he whispered, which was his contribution to Ziggy's idea. Ziggy gave him a tiny nod, and turned away. Handy moved away, through the tunnel to the east. As he came out, he entered a world that had much more sky, but in his judgment, was no brighter than the one from which he had come. He prepared himself to report for work, and to begin his search for a ring.