Douglas Coupland - Girlfriend in a Coma

"Were you surprised when the world ended?"

Megan pulls her body up into a more comfortable position on the bed. "Yes. No. No—I wasn't. It was kind of like the whole world went into a coma. I'm used to that. I'm not saying that to make you pity me. It's just the truth." She lights one of Jenny's year-old cigarettes. "Still tastes menthol fresh. Did you ever smoke?"

"Me? No. I was a jock."

"You're kind of cute. Did you ever make it with anybody?"

"Here and there. Why are you curious?"

"There's kind of a cute guy shortage down here."

I come closer and see Megan more clearly: pink windburnt skin, eye whites clear as ringing chimes. "Do you ever—" I say, not finishing the sentence.

"Wait," Megan says, "Are you hitting on me?"

"Me? What?" I've been caught.

"You are! I don't believe this—I'm being hit on by the dead." Jane squawks; Megan gives her a bottle of formula and a yanks small cotton bunny from the pack. "Look, Mr. Ghost…"

"Jared."

"Whatever. This isn't the time or place. I'm flattered, but no. I prefer real meat."

"lean take a hint."

Megan folds up Jenny's diary with a snap, then looks at me. "So how come we were abandoned here? Why us?"

"There's a reason."

"Which «?"

"Oh, God. I can't tell you right now." "You're pulling a Karen. Stupid sprite.""Oh, grow up."

" You, a sixteen-year-old telling me to grow up. Ha. So then tell me this—is there anybody else left down here besides us? Karen said there wasn't, but I'm not so sure."

"Karen's only allowed a few facts, but those she has are always true."

"I was right! Linus kept on trying to ham-radio weird places like oil rigs in the middle of the Indian Ocean and scientists at the South Pole. Now he owes me a bucket of Krugerrands."

"A bucket of gold?"

"It's a joke really. There's so much gold it's silly. We huck it off of bridges. We have money fights. Money's over."

"I guess so."

"Hey, Jared, what's heaven like?"

"Heaven? Heaven's like the world at its finest. It's all natural—no buildings. It's built of stars and roots and mud and flesh and snakes and birds. It's built of clouds and stones and rivers and lava. But it's not a building. It's greater than the material world."

"Well. Isn't that something. Do people get lonely there?"

"No."

"Then it really is heaven." We're quiet for a second as I stand close to her. "Sorry I can't take up your offer, Stud Boy. It's not like I get many others."

"I know." I slap my forehead: "Hey—I need to go now. I liked speaking with you."

"No. Don't go—you're somebody new."

"Here," I say. "Hold Jane out to me."

"Why?"

"You'll see." Her arms are like a set rat trap ready to spring back in case I do something weird, which I don't. I breathe gently into each of Jane's eyes and then I touch my tongue to the space between her eyes. I am the first thing she sees on Earth. "Your kid is whole. She's more than whole—she's a genius; she'll be wise. And you are now her servant."

Speechless, Megan watches as I shrink into nothing and disappear.

There are things I miss about Earth. I loved the way my mother made a pork roast and I loved getting up in the mornings super early and being the first to see the sun, jogging around the neighborhood in nothing more than terry underwear knowing that everybody else was sleeping. Once in summer 1978 I ran my daily jog naked and if anybody saw me, they never phoned the cops. Even more than sex, that solitary jog remains my most potent body memory of Earth—the air and the sun and the pads of my feet landing on Rabbit Lane. What else? Oh, there was an owl that lived in the tree behind the house. Its roost was bang outside my window and each night around sunset it came out and swooped its long floppy wings—like an Afghan hound's ears. It used to fly into Karen's yard on the hill below mine and catch mice. I used to watch Mrs. McNeil feed it meat scraps but she never saw me, but I know for sure Mrs. McNeil was watching me quite clearly the summer afternoon before eleventh grade when I was mowing the back lawn in my red Speedo. Saucy old broad! I popped a rod and I know she noticed it.

Regrets? I have no regrets about life. I didn't live long enough to make a mess of it. But then I never really had any pictures in my head of adulthood. Had I made it that far I probably would have floundered like the rest of the gang.

I've been watching my friends over the past year or so—ever since Karen woke up. Karen can't remember, but she was with me for much of the time she was in her coma. She receives her 'extra' information in the same way I do—in fits and snatches that make no sense at the time, filled with maddeningly blank stretches.

The technicalities of my visits are strict. My current appearances are only allowed to be brief—I'm allowed only X amount of time to visit the old crew and in these brief stretches I have specific goals that have to be met.

Goals—that word sounds like I'm crew chief at McDonald's or something. But you know, every second of our life we're reaching goals of some sort. Every single second of our lives we're crossing a finish line of some sort, with heaven's roaring cheers surrounding us as we win our way forward. Our smallest acts—crossing a street, peeling an apple, giving Miss January the one-hand salute—are as though we are ripping an Olympic ribbon to thunderous applause. The universe wants us to win. The universe makes sure we're winning even when we lose. I wish that I could have run naked through the streets every moment of my life.

But I think I'm ahead of myself now. Now I have to go see Linus, up on the highest point of the mountain suburb where one can see far over the curved ends of the Earth, the United States and over to the Olympic Peninsula. The sky is clear as a lens. To the east stands Mount Baker a hundred miles away—an American Fuji: solid as lead, white as light.

Linus is thinking about me, and he's thinking about time—about death, infinity, survival, and those questions he sought answers toback when he was so young. He was the only one of us who ever asked questions bigger than where the night's party was scheduled to take place. I've always respected his opinion.

He's sitting on the warm hood of his Humvee, which is parked at the top of the driveway of the film shoot location from a year ago. The film trucks and trailers are still parked on the street. The silent city, pocked with burns and sores and rashes, is spread below him.

In the midst of this serenity comes a surflike roar and then a catastrophic bang. An image flashes through his mind: his drunken father slamming the dinner table with a fist. The ground booms and Mount Baker in the east erupts with a fire pole of lava shooting up into gray, cabbagey Nagasaki ash clouds. A shock wave ripples across the land and throws Linus onto the ground with another boom. The glass in nearby houses shatters.

"Oh, man—"

The spectacle is gorgeous and voluptuous and sad. Sad in that so few people will ever even see it or know about it. Linus isn't even sure if an erupting volcano counts as news. "News" no longer exists, and Mount Baker might just as well have erupted on Jupiter. This is the point when I appear.

"Hey, Linus."

"Jared—hey!—I mean, look at that! I mean—oh man, I sound like a cretin, but look at that volcano."

"I know. It's cool. So beautiful it almost hurts."

Mount Baker stops shooting lava, but continues blowing staggering plumes of ash and steam that are now melting ever so slightly in the easterly winds, off toward Alberta, Idaho, Montana, and the Dakotas. Linus is torn between watching the eruption and speaking with me. "Jared! Man, I missed you so badly." Linus tries to hug me, but he ends up hugging himself around his chest. "Jared—let me look at you." I hover above the ground, shining and radiant as always. "You look so young, Jared. Like a puppy, so young."