Read Online The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland - Free Book Online Page A

His body won't fit his old clothes, and he doesn't know how to find new ones. He keeps waiting for the moral of his life to appear, but it never does. The clock is ticking, and all he can see is decades more of the same thing until his body gives out, and he wonders what the point is of being alive if it's merely more of the same-and the thing is, he'd like to change things, but he doesn't know what, or how. He sees a scam in everything the world offers. He doesn't believe in the Apocalypse, and he thinks that both faith and reason are equally stupid, and that all leaders are frauds.
    "He tries to lose himself in work, but he's also lazy. He wonders if he should declare himself a ward of the state and live in a homeless shelter, but he can't bring himself to do that, though he feels close to the edge. He looks back on his early life for clues to his present disaster, but he doesn't think he was raised to be overly dependent on others or without morality or without a few practical hints for good living. But the other people in his family are pretty tight with each other, and he knows that on those rare occasions when they discuss him, or even think about him, it's probably not too fondly or with much charity. He used up all of his 'welcome coupons' in the family department when he was younger. He pretty much used up his welcome coupons everywhere. He feels wretched, yet he knows that he has a ways to go before he hits bottom. Perversely, a vision of the bottom keeps him going. Every morning he's curious to see what new indignity he will be subjected to what flagrant new assaults will be made on his good taste. And will he ever change in some way that's good or meaningful?"
    There was a pregnant silence after Kyle's plot summation. Steve used this moment to try to remember the office superstore he'd visited that very day, that grotesque hangar filled with Chinese-made office crap, staffed with kindergarten students and offering all the charm of an airport luggage-handling facility. Steve, you can write a novel set in an office superstore. You can. Bring a notepad. Pretend you're an anthropologist-anthropologists can do anything and appear smart. Who knows-perhaps a grand theme will emerge from the stacks of underpriced CDs, vinyl attaché cases and software upgrade kits.
    Steve realized the silence was going on a bit too long (oh yes, that wretched young man's wretched novel) and looked out of the corner of his eye at his wife, her jewelled talons clasped to her bosom, her eyes tearing up. "So deep. So truly, truly deep," she said, casting a taunting eye at Steve. "So simple and yet I felt blood pulsing through every fibre of its being. Intelligent, yet broad. And it's sold millions of copies, correct?"
    "Ten," said Kyle. He then looked at Steve's bookcases. "Steve, are those leather-bound copies of your five novels I see there?"

Bethany

    I should be mad at my mother for writing to you, Roger, but I'm not because that's exactly the sort of depressing thing she does-not only writing a paper letter during the golden age of email, but also mailing it to you with a stamp. At work. What kind of person gets mail at work?
    To hear my mother speak, you'd think her life was something shattered and gone, like Superman's home planet. But she's got friends, her job, and when I leave home she'll still have me in her life.
    I dream of going to Europe one day. What exactly is it about Europe? People go there and suddenly all of their problems are solved, and as a bonus they're suddenly sophisticated and glam when they come back. Hello, I'm Count Chocula. Welcome to my chateau. We'll dine on peacock livers atop little pieces of toast cut into triangles with the crusts removed. After that, I'll ravage you with an heirloom jewel encrusted dildo from the Crusades, and then we'll discuss the socially beneficial effects of government-sanctioned drug injection sites.
    Listen to me; I can barely wait to find out.
    On my pay? Ha.
    So ... Kyle. Ever