The next layer of conjoined right angles in this castle of archetypes is singular, although dual. The two become one. The inner worlds of two beings join together into a mysterious paradise. Hermes, struck dumb, sees the above united with the below, without his intervention. There are two kinds of technology, really: there is the kind that The Fool can gladly spend all day manipulating, and every card up to The Lovers is at least somewhat overtaken by attempting to positively intervene in this type; and there is the kind of technology that is fundamental to the structure of the universe, and actually creates quantities of spacetime just by existing, such as the venerable, immortal double helix. Structured data, inside of matter. Who would have thought of that? Obviously, because he believes that every single microscope would reveal an homonculistic universe, The Fool did not think of this. Only The Emperor, with the help of The Empress, could ever invent something like the acids that reside in all those many nuclei, like grains of sand. And only The Lovers could deploy these seeds, these numerous seeds -- smaller than tobacco seeds, quickly giving way to a hint of something, branching, splitting. Dividing not just space and time into currents of breath and words, but bestowing names upon the very threads in the fabric of reality: bonds, pairs, and symmetries. It's not enough, of course, to satisfy those Lovers. They want more than just to determine reality absolutely and objectively with their simple act of love: they would like to be serenaded. They would like the entire experience to be like music. They want to feel shy, they want to feel as if they must have known each other, they want to feel as if they never knew each other; certainly, they only found themselves when they became Lovers. Certainly, they only spoke with such glibness the day they actually found each other -- like finding Samarkand in the encyclopedia, they found the idea of home, of reasons to wake up in the morning again and again, in each other. And so, like the Lakota folktake of Iktomi breaking the law by marrying his mother-in-law, the Lovers produced the entire human race in a moment of twisted passion, not looking forward to all the wars, the injustices, the inextricable mutual toxicity of intelligent beings; or even imagining all the breakups that would happen, the lonely narcissists breaking rows of hearts; or the hopeful, wistful souls forever bound to never have their standards fully satisfied. They didn't imagine, either, that not only would every little particle in this universe be wound around an attracting, opposing charge, like those many relationships they never expected to be responsible for -- but would have its own nega-self, its own antiparticle. It was all so fascinating to behold, during the first days that the universe existed, that henceforth, the Lovers retreated into the clouds, relieving the Emperor of his sacred duty to water the ground. This was not met with very well in heaven, where it was generally agreed that these changes of guard were responsible for initiating the reign of chaos and amoralism that has heretofore dominated most of human history. Heartbreakingly silently, the immortal coil winds and unwinds itself by the telomeres, like a battery slowly draining itself.
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