Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma

One truly odd moment occurs halfway through the event. Guests hear a galvanizing crack crack! on the living room window, where an ostrich pecks the glass with a cruel, hilarious beak. It is as though everybody fell into a deep warm dream. Then another ostrich appears and begins clacking its beak onto the living room window while the room devolves into guffaws and chaos. Karen loves it: "Oh, Richard, this is just the bee's knees. Did you plan this just for me? It's so sweet."

Mr. Lennox from the house around the corner scoots into view with a coil of rope. A small mustachioed man, he apologizes profusely. "They escaped from the garage. I was supposed to take them out to Abbotsford, but everything's closed for the holidays."

Megan asks, "What does anybody need with a pair of dorky-looking ostriches?"

"Why Megan—they're the meat of tomorrow. Lean as tofu and tasty like beef. They're my retirement fund. Please, can you hold on to that rope for me?"

A well-cheered ostrich rodeo ensues. Poor Mr. Lennox is petrified that his investment might be damaged. "Oh, Christ—just don't Jet them get into the forest. Then we're doomed. They'll break their legs or get eaten by coyotes. They're that stupid."By late afternoon, the sky has gone black and cold and the core group of friends sit by the fire eating huckleberry muffins.

Later, the doorbell rings. Linus answers. It is Skitter, but Linus doesn't know him by face.

"Megan here?"

"Megan, your friend's here." Megan and Jenny soundlessly gloss over to the front door, into their coats, and out of the house. Richard, looking at CD's by the Christmas tree, hears nothing. Minutes later, Linus asks, "Who's biker dude?"

"Huh?"

"The guy Megan just left with. The guy with the scar."

"Guy with a scar?" Richard clues in. "Shit."

Flying home from Los Angeles, the captain allows Richard to peek out the front cockpit window a few minutes after takeoff. Richard sees the view of God: a dappled sky like a baby's giggles, volcanoes stretching up the coast, the Earth's gentle curve at the horizon. Back in his seat, while idly flipping through a two-week-old Newsweek and rereading an article about Karen, Richard mentally reviews the past week only to find himself chilled. A drop of cool sweat crawls like a slug through his hairline and into his eye.

Richard's plane ride continues—a cold ride: the airlines are saving money by not heating the cabins as they once did. Dinner service comes and goes. The sun, low on the horizon, is wan and colorless: a December sunset; even sunlight feels dark.

Richard thinks about last night in his hotel room, watching Karen's TV appearance on a speakerphone with the family. It was a tight little production and Gloria had managed to orchestrate a predictable level of syrupy rudeness.

Afterward, he and Karen spent nearly an hour on the phone apologizing to each other, whispering endearments, and feeling close in that special way that only phones provide. I think this darkness stuff is all in my head, Richard, I'm not going crazy and I'm sure these ices and stuff will soon be gone.

Afterward, Richard fell into a dreamless sleep.Then this morning he drove to Culver City, but after ten minutes of work, he started to panic. He went to the washroom, rinsed off his face, breathed furiously, and then instinctively hightailed the rental car to LAX, catching the next flight up the coast, paying for full-fare Business Class, desperate to be aloft, the wheels no longer on the ground.

On the tarmac while awaiting takeoff, he looked out the window of his ZF seat just in time to see a blue-overalled airline luggage handler praying at the feet of another obvious dead luggage handler. The man from a fuel truck was screaming into a cell phone while an airline employee threw his blazer over the employee's head. An ambulance came, the body was sheeted, the stewardess closed the door latch, and the plane took off.

Now, five miles above Oregon, Richard continues trying to make sense of his rashness and his tangled feelings. He tries using the GTE Airphone, but service is out. "Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. We're experiencing a delay on the ground at Vancouver. Traffic controllers there have requested we stay aloft for half an hour or so while the situation down there is rectified. I hope you'll understand our situation and continue enjoying today's flight. As a goodwill gesture, flight attendants will be serving complimentary beer and wines."

There are groans and cheers while the jet flies over Seattle and then follows I-5 up to the Canadian border. The traffic below looks jammed like he's never seen it before. Holiday sales.

Once near Vancouver, the plane circles the city then flies over the Coast Mountains and makes lazy-eights over the pristine frozen alps and lakes behind, a flying tour of Year Zero. Another delay is announced, and then finally, after two hours of dawdling, the plane lands on the runway, but just before doing so, the runway lights that guide the way go black.

At Vancouver's airport, Richard's flight is the only moving plane on the tarmac. The captain announces another delay, and the passengers spend one more hour on the tarmac—a problem with ground staff, but not to panic, even though, as passengers can plainly see, half the building is without light and there's not a single ground person in view.

The passengers become increasingly crazed with the discovery of a seat-buckled dead salesman in 670 and then a dead teenager in 18E Fear amplifies. Passengers can plainly see that there's no action at the airport—no trucks or luggage carts or other activity. Another whole Section of the terminal's lights blink then fail, and finally the flight attendants pop open the door and the passengers slide down an inflatable yellow escape chute. To enter the airport, they pass through a utility door with quiet, orderly docility. Upon finding a dead stewardess propped against an access door, this soon devolves into anarchy. Outside it's raining and inside the building it's cold. There are almost no people present—at the immigration lineup there are no staff, save for one woman in the corner wearing a white paper breathing mask waving them onward. Bodies are strewn about the airport. Passengers scuttle toward the mild hum of the luggage carousel, which chugs and dies, never again to cough forth the passengers' luggage.

Something has gone dreadfully wrong. Richard is dazed. Karen's future has come true. An adrenaline fang bites the rear of his neck.

There are no staff at customs. The phones are blank and no taxis wait outside—only one or two cars speeding like mad through the main traffic corridor. Richard hears a voice calling his name—it's Mr. Dunphy, no, Captain Dunphy, a neighbor from West Van,

"Richard? Is that you, Richard Doorland?"

"Oh. Hey, Captain Dunphy. Hi. What the hell's going on here?"

"Christ. You wouldn't believe it. You on the Los Angeles flight?"

"Yes, but—"

"There was a real debate about whether they should let you land or let your fuel run out flying over the mountains." Richard is dumbstruck. "The tower operators thought that planes would bring in more infected people, but it turned out everybody was dropping off. The moment you touched the runway they turned off the lights and went home. C'mon, let's scram."

They bustle through a labyrinth of metal corridors, ramps, and NO ACCESS hallways for which Captain Dunphy has a magnetic card. At the end of their jaunt, they stand on the runway's apron, where the rain has temporarily stopped and clouds blot the sky like sullied dinner plates. From a piece of yellow luggage that has fallen from the hold of a 73 7 and then split open, Richard takes a large winter coat. Captain Dunphy grabs an electric luggage wagon.