The Wedding Cake

They said romance was dead. That love was not just forgotten but that it was a myth, along with other long ago notions like courtship and dating. Today, all of that is pre-planned and everyone has a destiny to fulfill, including me. My destiny was a mere day away, as tomorrow was my wedding day. Which it now hit me that I have one day left to finish off a seemingly endless list of things I have put off doing. I am one of those people who will put off today what I can also put off tomorrow, and now here I am. Not ready.

There are no more tomorrows after marriage. It is THE day. It is the day to celebrate everything that has brought me and my beloved to this day. A day which we have planned and readied ourselves for our whole life. With one more sleep it will be here. I try my tux on for the 30th time and sure enough it fits if I don’t breathe very deeply. Sampling all of the wedding cakes available may have put a pound or fourteen on me, but nothing that my bride will notice. Tuxes hide a lot. Thank god.

The cake and picking my tux were basically all I had to do for the ceremony, but I decided long ago, way before I met my wife-to-be, that I was going to go with a more traditional, as in old school traditional, way to celebrate my nuptials, in that I was going to write and read my own wedding vows. As far as I know, no one had done that for decades. I read about that old tradition in an old book I had found in the child’s quarter I was raised in. A book I read in one sitting. It was the first book I had ever seen, all of my other reading was on the standard digipads we were all assigned. The book, or as I would find out later, a magazine, was inside a hidden locker in that room that I found purely by accident and it was in perfect condition. Years later, I thought of this book the day when the moving walkways broke down the first time, making me have to walk and actually move my feet. I know, I know, what a primitive concept. I felt like one of those Neanderthals we learned about in my Facts class. I remember clearly how a few years earlier my online professor said that millenniums ago people always used to walk like this. I think I laughed at that notion for days. Every time it popped into my head I would start laughing again. Based on the comments after the lesson, everyone else thought it was hilarious as well. I saw more than a few CTM’s on there. (Chuckle to myself) The professor was a bit of a riot, and as he was the oldest professor I ever had at 26, I would have thought he was past all of that silliness of walking men.

So, when the moving walkways broke down in my neighbourhood for the first time, it was a big shock to try and propel myself with my wobbly and near useless lower appendages. I looked around at the time and no one else was faring any better. Some never even attempted to move, and just stood there in their standing chairs waiting for assistance. Not sure how long they had to wait as it had never happened before. Not even sure who would come and help. Hopefully the autobots would help. The ones that kept bringing us all of the wonderful meals 4-5 times a day. All of my favourites, especially the sweet desserts that made my vision blurry for a while after eating. I should have stayed home, but I wanted to go to the finalists that I had narrowed my cake tastings to in person. There were two shops I was coming back from when the walkway stopped. Both incredible and with very similar options, but when I asked them if they could do what I was thinking, only one agreed to and that was after more than one call to People’s Hall for approval. It must have been given as they agreed to do it.

The bakery was called The Wedding Cake, which was about as original as the jokes my friend C.C. posted on his wedding day disaster page. Everyone, and I do mean everyone had seen all of the clips that were on there, as watching the daily wedding ceremonies were mandatory. The entire wedding day was mandatory for everyone. For the bride and groom, for the wedding cake makers, and for the rest of the population, there as a rapt and focused audience. For me, I had watched weddings every day of my life. I have seen thousands and thousands. Yet, they never seemed boring or a waste of time, as in the back of my mind I knew that my day is always one day closer. Just like everyone else, I started thinking about THE DAY when I was very young. I recall graphically my first runaway bride that I saw, when I was around 4 years old, and how she was dragged back to the Square to finish the ceremony. A day later I saw my first runaway groom, and he didn’t make it nearly as far before he was physically carried back.

Even though everyone knew they had a destiny to fulfill, that doesn’t mean everyone did it willingly. Hell, I don’t think very many people at all went willingly, but the autobots were there to ensure everyone did. The bakers of all of the cakes on a given day were all there to make sure that events continued on schedule. The bakers were just another form of autobots and they were all programmed decades back to perform their particular job with no exceptions. No wavering from their programmed orders. So everyone had to go along, and to be honest even if they didn’t want to, the bots controlled the power to our rolling chairs and all they had to do was flip a switch somewhere and the bots were left to deal with immobile or very slow protestors. Not difficult to round up. Yet most weeks and more recently most days, there would be new reports of more protests around the world. All easily stopped but the news drones still picked up on them and sent their stories to every digipad on the planet. I hoped there would be no such disruptions tomorrow to mar the day.

I read the list of marriages for tomorrow’s festivities weeks ago and tried to imagine which if any of them would be a runner, but knowing only names it was like picking at one of many identical grains of sugar off of my morning donuts. I just hoped that no one would run and mar the day.

It was reading through that magazine years ago as well as reading the marriage lists every morning for years and that gave me the idea to do my wedding a little differently. With total isolation engrained into our DNA ever since the 20 year virus scare, people just never went back to socializing together. Laws during the end of the virus ensured that and with more than 70% dying in the last wave, those laws were strictly enforced. The end of humanity was at stake and finally people listened and the virus was defeated. In the many years since, the laws fell off the books but people stayed locked away. Afraid to come out and see each other and when they did they were rolled on the moving sidewalks, wrapped in a plastic dome on their infrequent excursions. The trip to the bakeries was my first foray out of my pod since I moved in when I was almost 10. I went out so that my trip to The Square on my wedding day wouldn’t be as scary. I am not sure that breaking down on the way home helped with my fears at all.

Most people avoided even the bakeries on their special day, opting to choose a baker from reviews they read, not really caring who baked them a delicious looking chocolate cake used in the ceremony. As far back as I could remember, when people turned 30, they would make their way down to The Square and once there, choose a partner as their bride or groom. A process that could be done in seconds if both are either excited or dreading their big day. Eventually everyone there would find a partner and the music would begin and the ceremony would commence. Not much flair or fanfare to the process. If no one tried to run then the individual weddings that were spread out throughout The Square would be finished within minutes. The bakers were certainly efficient.

After reading that magazine I decided to make my day more special and actually get to know and meet my bride to be before showing up at The Square. I planned and then set the wheels in motion. That decision was the most stressful I ever made. To approach someone, explain my intentions and then wait for an answer, was absolutely nerve-wracking. I did it though. Weeks before our day, I managed to approach a girl and then propose to her (as the magazine pointed out was necessary) and we even discussed arrangements. Unbelievable how much I shook and sweated as I did that. It certainly wasn’t pretty, but I was quite pleased with myself after. I felt like I was doing things exactly as I remember the magazine saying. We planned to meet at the very far left wedding arch and it all seemed so wonderfully romantic.

Everything went according to plan, and we met after arriving safely. This day was like all others, the floor of The Square busy with all of the people on their rolling chairs.

We found our designated spot and the baker bot made a somewhat conspiratorial head nod in my direction as he began to play the old wedding march I had found online. We were the only ones with music and I looked at my bride with beaming pride. Knowing that this must be having an effect on her. She couldn’t have expected this level of mystery and passion. She hid her pleasure well. A true bride in the making.

The minister bot read out the standard vows for her, paused and then motioned for me to read mine. I was nervous and pulled my little printed notes out and was about to read aloud. She turned and looked at me in confusion and I suspect wonder.

Just then when looked at the little cake stand next to the baker, and although we had seen it thousands of times before, it suddenly became a little scary. Having our bodies ionized and then 3D printed onto our cake was not as romantic as I thought it would. Another minute or two I would be done reading my vows and that would be it. We would become a dessert for some lucky people. The years of making us sweet would be a welcome treat for someone, just like I used to like every day.

A thought just hit me, and it was about the vows I was about to say. I had a question to ask my nervous bride. I whispered it out of the side of my mouth. As I sprung this totally old fashioned wedding on her, especially the part of reading my vows and expressing my love. I looked over at her, wanting to honor the timeless traditions of generations past, rekindling the romance we had all forgotten and whispered quietly “I only know your username online, what is your real name?”