The Gum Thief - Douglas Coupland [75]
And it’s good that you’re getting into physical activity; you’re making me ashamed of my slug lifestyle. Yesterday I went to the corner store for orange juice then to a coffee shop to steal a morning paper. Calories expended: thirty- seven. I’m a coronary statistic in waiting.
You’ve been asking how I’m feeling. The answer is not too great, but it’s best not to go into it. I’m actually glad to be out of Staples, and I had a great afternoon with Zoe last week skating on the lake up Grouse Mountain. It was very Charlie Brown Christmas. What’s making me feel marooned inside my own life is not knowing what I’m going to do next, but I think that happens to folks my age even when their lives are still on the rails. I hang in there.
So, my friend, go easy on yourself. You have people in your life who care about you. Not everyone can say that. I spoke with Steve and Gloria this afternoon, and they both recommend that you keep a diary—you’ll treasure it one day.
Roger
Glove Pond: Brittany
Brittany’s night walk was lit by a scrim of stars and serenaded by muffled suburban noises—a barking dog; a teenager burning out in a blue Honda; transformers humming atop telephone poles. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d walked for the sake of walking. She always had to have a reason for walking; some productivity had to be involved: endless brains in need of surgery, galas in need of overachieving attendees. How novel it was merely to roam! To breathe! To (should she want to) sing!
Tonight was the first night in which living things were starting to freeze. She recalled, a few months back, walking across the neurosurgery wing’s well-manicured lawn—the end of August?—and she remembered the sensation that her lungs and the air outside were the same temperature. So was the grass. So were the robins darting about the grass and the cicadas chirping in the shrubs. All of these living creatures mingling and coexisting and sharing the world. And then Brittany thought of her own DNA and the DNA of all the creatures surrounding her—quintillions of cells, all of them loaded with DNA, and all of that spiral DNA rotating as mechanically and passionlessly as a car’s odometer.
Suddenly, she felt surrounded by billions of little odometers, a universe of churning and grinding and drilling and digging. She felt like her body was turning inside out. She felt her body foaming from within like cumulus clouds. She felt odometers grinding away inside her teeth and bones and flesh.
And now, walking through Steve and Gloria’s suburb, she felt life shutting down around her, all of the little odometers slowing down from the cold, yet she was so vibrantly warm and alive—so different from the rest of the world. She felt there was a message she was supposed to be receiving: instructions, clues. And all she could think to do was to continue walking through the world, waiting for whatever it was that was supposed to happen next.
Brittany thought of Steve and she thought of Gloria. She remembered the way Gloria had been massaging her spleen all night. Dear God—Gloria has spleen cancer. The diagnosis came to her like that.
She thought some more about Gloria. Gloria has Alzheimer’s. That’s why she can’t remember her lines.
And then Brittany thought about herself, and suddenly it came to her: I’m no longer a child. It happened to me when I wasn’t looking.
Shawn
To: Blair
From: Shawn Paxton
Time: Three hours ago
Blair, you won’t believe what happened today amid the Christmas craziness here at the store. (Once again, consider yourself lucky for being canned from this hovel.) I told you that Cruella De Vil came home with her tail between her legs after her big trip to Europe with StudBoy? Well, she got royally dumped (as if it was ever going to last) and then she came back here part-time, which is okay because we all need shift replacements, but she’s like a ghost of what she used to be and it’s spooky having her around. Like she wasn’t already spooky enough, but she