They’re holding a zombie wedding. The groom is wearing not-enough-oxygen. The bride’s horseshoe pillow is stapled to her neck. The guests are delayed, distracted, their gifts more cyborgian than undead—cell phone headsets, automatic toilet flushers.
This is the sonnet read by the minister over courtesy phone. It’s plastered inside a mystery novel by the former queen of Slovakia, available now in the Roadhouse 66, where the best man is choking down a beer. The wedding party is doing its jerky dance now, bride and groom lurching down the aisle to embark on a marathon tour of concourses. The loudspeaker congratulates them by every name but their own.