[COMPLETED]
[WATTYS 2022 WINNER]
James Quinn can't die. Actually... that's not true. He's died many times - somewhere in the neighborhood of 250 - only to be reborn as himself to live his life over again.
For millennia, he's had to endure this c...
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October 25, 2024 [10]
The Caribbean breeze tickled James' ear as behind him, Thom Yorke began to strum the opening bars of FakePlasticTrees. James smiled. The song was doubly inappropriate considering Martha's work in environmental science as well as the ceremony at hand. But more than their little joke, he smiled for what would come next.
Standing beneath the driftwood fashioned altar to James' left and wearing a white and yellow uttarasanga robe, Bill Murray said, "If the gallery could rise, that would be just fabulous."
The guests, seated in rows of chairs on the sand, stood and looked up the aisle, extending past the beach and up the steps to the deck of the eco-resort. From a hidden staging area, Martha and Steven stepped into view.
Against her initial objections, she wore a Vera Wang original – an Ethel variation accented with a turquoise sash at her waist and cut short to fit the tropical setting. Had she ever looked this beautiful? Maybe. Probably. Screw it! No. Not she, nor anyone else, has ever looked as stunning as she does in this moment.
At her side, Steven wore a short-sleeve white button down with a turquoise necktie and pants to match. Even from this distance, James could see his eyes were puffy and pink from joyful tears.
Steven always cried at their wedding.
As Yorke progressed into verses telling the story of a woman and man stuck in a meaningless existence, the father and daughter began down the stairs. Though James had lost count of countless, frivolous details from his lives, he knew for a fact that this was their 181st wedding. It was their fifth wedding on Leonardo DiCaprio's private island and their sixth since Martha's rebirth (they'd skipped the formality in her fifth life). Truly, they were running out of 'firsts.' But this is... the first time we've been married on Leo's island after Martha's rebirth. That counts as a first!
A trio of camera drones broadcasting the event live, repositioned above the ceremony as Martha and Steven reached the front row. They stopped to embrace and James had a full view of Steven's face – wrinkled from age and crumpled by emotion. They broke and Martha put a gentle hand to his cheek, then said something James couldn't hear. Chin quivering and thin hair flitting in the breeze, Steven nodded. He was over three hundred years younger than his daughter, but hadn't a clue. And while he wasn't completely himself, he was considerably more stable than James' mother. Add it to the list of things Martha does better than I.
Steven took his seat and Martha turned to the altar. She looked at Camisha, her maid of honor, who gave a tiny wave and a giant smile. Staging a high profile wedding packed with their celebrity friends for the sake of raising awareness of environmentalism had been exhausting for Martha. She needed someone who knew her before she graduated from the mortal coil or became an international sensation. It also helps that Camisha doesn't have an agent and stylist attached at the hip.
