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Authors: John Gould
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settled on. He settled on it at midnight one night, three in the morning Zane’s time. Out of consideration for his friend (the guy certainly needed his immunity sleep) Matt stayed up till three
his
time, finally too frantic to wait any longer.
“‘Lo?” said Zane that morning. Six his time, still a little dopey.
“Up and at ‘em, sport.”
Hack.
“The hell?”
“Rise and shine there, buddy ol’ pal.”
“You must be joking.”
Tricky fellow that he was, Matt led with Zane’s side of the debate, a catalogue of reasons life
wasn’t
worth living. Having so recently psyched up for his own suicide he was well prepared.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, “so the planet’s pretty much trashed. Pollution, terrorism, fundamentalism, bigotry, bird flu, blah blah blah.”
“Matt, did I … have I never explained to you about the time difference? Just the three hours, right? See, the earth turns on its—”
“And sure, okay, humans are brutal, they’re ignorant. They let you down. They abandon you, they rip your fugging heart out. Boo hoo.”
“Can you at least hang on a sec while I pee?”
“There’s no escape from them, and even worse than that there’s no escape from
you.
What the dickens did you drink last night, anyway?”
From the far end came the silly, seemingly interminable splash of pee in a toilet bowl. It wavered in pitch—Matt pictured Zane swaying in the breeze of his own fusty fatigue, fighting that up-too-soon nausea. Sleepy dink in one hand, walk-around phone in the other.
“And okay, even when things are good they aren’t
really
good, are they? You know they’ll go bad any minute, and they’re already bad for almost everybody else.”
Another
hack
or two and then the toilet flushed.
“And since we’re going to die anyway there’s obviously no
point
to this.”
“Speaking of point, Matt.” Zane could be heard whacking his pillows, groaning back into bed.
“But you can’t just die, no. That’d be too easy. You have to fall apart first, you have to deteriorate one—”
“I love you too,” said Zane. “Now really.”
“Oh, okay. Um, sleep tight?”
Click.
So Matt never did get to the good bit, the
but
bit. Why Zane should live, what Matt was going to do to make him want to. The odd thing was that he felt better anyway, Matt did (hard to say about Zane, of course). Weirdly, wildly elated. He sneakypeted down the hall and crawled in with Mariko. He hadn’t been in their bed since the big night, the night she broke her news.
“Hm?” She squirmed as Matt slipped in between the sheets, but let herself stay sleepy. She snuggled up to him, hitched one leg over his thigh, just the way she used to do. They cuddled a bit, Mariko gradually rising to the surface, getting detectably aroused. Finally, with the halting complicity of a very first time, they brought each other off through flannel jammies.
Once they’d come they cried, not a stoic tear or two but the real thing. Matt’s bawling, always an embarrassment to him, is really more like laughing, a hillbilly’s
hyuck-hyuck-hyuck—
Erin used to do a dead-on imitation of it when she thought he needed sorting out. His grief sounded especially ludicrous in the sex-scented room that night, moonlight draping itself artfully from the skylight. To be fair, Mariko’s weeping was almost as absurd, her usual whinny reaching what seemed to Matt to be extraordinary heights. He pictured the raccoons out in the night, silencing their own uncanny screams to listen to this new human call.
In the morning Mariko was gone. Lying there alone in the marital bed Matt felt, for the first time, the full pulverizing weight of his solitude, of all the solo nights he’d already spent down the hall, and had yet to spend before something inside or outside of him might turn, might return. Quick calculation: he’d never passed so many consecutive nights alone since he’d left his parents’ home. Surely this ordeal was good for him in some way,
his
time, finally too frantic to wait any longer.
“‘Lo?” said Zane that morning. Six his time, still a little dopey.
“Up and at ‘em, sport.”
Hack.
“The hell?”
“Rise and shine there, buddy ol’ pal.”
“You must be joking.”
Tricky fellow that he was, Matt led with Zane’s side of the debate, a catalogue of reasons life
wasn’t
worth living. Having so recently psyched up for his own suicide he was well prepared.
“Yeah, okay,” he said, “so the planet’s pretty much trashed. Pollution, terrorism, fundamentalism, bigotry, bird flu, blah blah blah.”
“Matt, did I … have I never explained to you about the time difference? Just the three hours, right? See, the earth turns on its—”
“And sure, okay, humans are brutal, they’re ignorant. They let you down. They abandon you, they rip your fugging heart out. Boo hoo.”
“Can you at least hang on a sec while I pee?”
“There’s no escape from them, and even worse than that there’s no escape from
you.
What the dickens did you drink last night, anyway?”
From the far end came the silly, seemingly interminable splash of pee in a toilet bowl. It wavered in pitch—Matt pictured Zane swaying in the breeze of his own fusty fatigue, fighting that up-too-soon nausea. Sleepy dink in one hand, walk-around phone in the other.
“And okay, even when things are good they aren’t
really
good, are they? You know they’ll go bad any minute, and they’re already bad for almost everybody else.”
Another
hack
or two and then the toilet flushed.
“And since we’re going to die anyway there’s obviously no
point
to this.”
“Speaking of point, Matt.” Zane could be heard whacking his pillows, groaning back into bed.
“But you can’t just die, no. That’d be too easy. You have to fall apart first, you have to deteriorate one—”
“I love you too,” said Zane. “Now really.”
“Oh, okay. Um, sleep tight?”
Click.
So Matt never did get to the good bit, the
but
bit. Why Zane should live, what Matt was going to do to make him want to. The odd thing was that he felt better anyway, Matt did (hard to say about Zane, of course). Weirdly, wildly elated. He sneakypeted down the hall and crawled in with Mariko. He hadn’t been in their bed since the big night, the night she broke her news.
“Hm?” She squirmed as Matt slipped in between the sheets, but let herself stay sleepy. She snuggled up to him, hitched one leg over his thigh, just the way she used to do. They cuddled a bit, Mariko gradually rising to the surface, getting detectably aroused. Finally, with the halting complicity of a very first time, they brought each other off through flannel jammies.
Once they’d come they cried, not a stoic tear or two but the real thing. Matt’s bawling, always an embarrassment to him, is really more like laughing, a hillbilly’s
hyuck-hyuck-hyuck—
Erin used to do a dead-on imitation of it when she thought he needed sorting out. His grief sounded especially ludicrous in the sex-scented room that night, moonlight draping itself artfully from the skylight. To be fair, Mariko’s weeping was almost as absurd, her usual whinny reaching what seemed to Matt to be extraordinary heights. He pictured the raccoons out in the night, silencing their own uncanny screams to listen to this new human call.
In the morning Mariko was gone. Lying there alone in the marital bed Matt felt, for the first time, the full pulverizing weight of his solitude, of all the solo nights he’d already spent down the hall, and had yet to spend before something inside or outside of him might turn, might return. Quick calculation: he’d never passed so many consecutive nights alone since he’d left his parents’ home. Surely this ordeal was good for him in some way,
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