A Touch of Magic in this World of Science

So this girl walks up to another girl and says “Hey, have you heard of the Bechdel Test?”

"And then, for the rest of her life, she will have to explain it. When she is in her 30s and trying on her wedding dress, a woman with pins in her mouth looking quizzically at it, Miley smiling and saying, “Oh, it’s a joke. It’s fwends? Like friends?” Miley at 40, her son pointing at the tattoo poking out from her bathing suit top, Miley having to say, “It says fwends, Braydon. Like friends? It’s a joke I used to make when I was younger.” Miley Cyrus at 55, an empty nester all of a sudden, getting back on the dating scene after her divorce. Things escalating with the nice lawyer her friend Barbara set her up with, making out like a teenager for the first time in many years, then having to sigh and explain to her date, “Oh, it says fwends. It was a thing we used to say, back in 2014 I think. Who knows. We were young and silly.” Miley at 80, in her assisted-living facility, a nurse helping her dress for the lawyer’s funeral, her husband of 25 years. The nurse saying, “Now what’s this you’ve got here Miss Miley? Fw-” “Yes, dear, it says fwends. I got that long before you were even born. It says fwends.” Miley at 100, no longer living, a mortician gazing at the tattoo, sounding out the word before shrugging and covering it up with spray-on makeup. And then, Miley in eternity, Miley skipping through the cosmos with the rest of our souls, awash in starlight and mystery, the infinity asking what it all means and Miley telling the infinity, “It was just this weird way we said ‘friends.’ You know, fwends. It was funny. A long time ago, so very long ago.’" — Richard Lawson in Vanity Fair