“We’re ready when you are,” Li Ann says.
That’s my cue to start the presentation. I fiddle with my laptop. Jules passes me his cable, and the sight of his hand, steady and unshaking, is reassuring. Whatever happens, we’ll go home and laugh about it with Cyrus.
“It doesn’t have a name,” I begin, explaining the blank title page.
“We’ll come up with something great,” Jules says.
There’s an image of the landing page, with the Three Questions. “This is our new social media platform. We have devised a way of getting people to form connections with others on the basis of what gives their life meaning, instead of what they like or don’t like. It does this by providing rituals for people based on their interests, beliefs, and passions.”
“Like custom-made religion?” asks Rory, the Scandi vegan.
“Sort of. But imagine if you could integrate your belief system with everything else in your life. A system that embraces the whole you.”
“Maybe you should call it Whole You,” Destiny suggests.
“How it works is, you answer a short questionnaire about things that are important to you. Not just the traditions you’ve inherited but the things you’ve picked up along the way. The life you’ve earned, as it were.”
Marco nods. “Cool. So, if I were about to die, would it be able to come up with a way for me to have a special funeral?”
“Yes, it would. Would you like to give it a try?”
Jules passes his laptop to Marco. Marco types for a few seconds. “Game of Thrones, The Great British Baking Show, and Ancient Egypt,” Marco says. “Let’s see what it does with that.”
We wait the 2.3 seconds it takes the algorithm to go through its calculations. Then Marco starts to read from the screen: “？‘I would propose that you be buried, in the style of the Ancient Egyptians, with your most precious possessions. Then, if you wanted, you could have your loved ones perform the Opening of the Mouth ceremony.’？” He looks up from the screen. “There’s an Opening of the Mouth ceremony? Is this real?”
“Yes,” I reply. “All the suggestions are based on real texts: religious scripture, ancient rites and traditions, myths. Here it gives you an option—sometimes the algorithm does that—you could choose to be cremated, like the Dothraki and the Valyrians, but if you wanted your family to perform the Opening of the Mouth ceremony, you might choose to have your body displayed, your hands clasped over a sword, as was the tradition in Westeros. In that case, you could also have stones placed over your eyes.”
“Yeah.” Marco smiles, rubbing his hands together. “I sometimes fancy myself a Dothraki, but I’m more of a Seven Kingdoms guy.” He keeps reading. “？‘The Opening of the Mouth ceremony is a symbolic ritual in which the body’s mouth is opened so that it can speak and eat in the afterlife. This would enable you to integrate any number of baked goods into the ritual.’？”
Jules and I exchange a glance. How did we manage to make the platform so goddamn awesome, is what I’m thinking.
“I can’t believe it,” Marco says.
Jules leans over and reads the end of the ritual. “？‘Someone in your family might recite the following incantation… I have opened your mouth. I have opened your two eyes.’？”
Marco grins. “I’m totally going to put that in my advance-directives Dropbox.”
We walk them through the platform, the target audience, the growth plan. I describe the tech behind it.
There’s a pause when no one says anything. I turn to the others, and it’s hard to look at them all at once. Sunlight pours in from the large window behind them and they are encased in a giant gold halo.
Rory puts his palms on the table. “Nothing good has ever come from religion,” he announces.
“My father would agree with you,” I say. “But it’s a powerful institution—imagine if we could change it somehow.”
Rory glances away, and I can almost feel him rolling his eyes.
Jules pipes up. “Look, we’re here to restore something to people who have grown up in the shadow of social media—those who are living their entire lives in public. We want to address the thirty-seven percent who say they don’t believe in God because their politics or their sexuality excludes them from organized religion. We believe that even the nonreligious among us deserve our own communities, our own belief systems, whatever they may be based in. Ritual, community, that’s what religion offers that no other human construct has been able to replace. Until now. We are here to give meaning back to people, to restore and amplify faith—not in a higher power but in humanity.”