Girlfriend in a Coma

by Douglas Coupland

  Between tapes what do they do? They have money fights, lobbing and tossing Krugerrands, rubies and thousand-dollar bills at each other; at other times they make paper airplanes from prints by Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein and shoot them into the fireplace.

  During one particularly long lull between videos, I, Jared, slip to the side of the house and turn off the Honda gas generator Linus has rigged up. The power dies and triggers a clump of groans amid the clan. It's at this point I choose to appear outside the window—across the lawn—a ball of white light. Wendy is the first to see me and she calls my name.

  "Jared?"

  "What's that, Wendy?" Megan asks.

  "It's Jared. Look. He's back."

  All eyes gaze rapt while I gavotte across the lawn in my old football uniform, the brown and whites.

  In the silence I glow like a deep-sea creature, like a pale moon, and I flow several feet above the ground, and then scoot through the one unsmashed pane of the glass patio doors as though catching a fumbled ball. I walk across the room as though on an airport conveyor belt and out the other wall. Hamilton runs out to the car port but I'm not there.

  Wendy lights candles and a few moments later I enter the room from the ceiling, stopping with my feet above the fireplace, where I introduce myself:

  "Hey guys. It's me—Jared. Fucking A—I'm so happy to see all of you."

  "Jared?" Karen says.

  "Hi, Karen. Hello everybody."

  "Jared, what are you? Where are you? Are you ofokay?" asks Richard.

  "I'm a ghost and I guess I'm blissed out, Richard. I'm high on life. It's the Hotel California. Yessiree."

  "What are you doing here?" Megan asks, recognizing me from my old high school yearbook photo.

  "I'm here to help you out," I say as I begin to dissolve through the floor.

  "Wait!" Wendy shouts. "Don't go!"

  I'm halfway through the floor: "Man, this floor feels good.""You can feel the floor?" Linus asks.

  "What's heaven like?" Richard asks

  "What happens when you die?" Pam asks.

  "Show us a miracle, big boy" Hamilton says.

  Only my head lies above the floor: "Oof!—you should try this sometime. This floor beats Cheryl Anderson any day of the week."

  "Jared!" Karen's shout is urgent.

  "All of you," I say, "—you're birds born without wings; you're bees who pollinate cut flowers. Don't pee yourselves. I'll return soon. Let's get weird."

  It's the next day and Richard is growing impatient with Hamilton and Pam, dawdling as the two step out of the minivan, wobbly and silly.

  "You go first, Barbara Hutton."

  "No wayyyy, Mr. Hefner. You first."

  "Pals call me Hef."

  "Listen you two freaks, can we just step to it?"

  Before them is a wide, faded tar piazza strewn with skeletons, cars parked at odd angles, and rusted shopping carts. Beyond this is the faded and ratty looking Save-On supermarket. Its glass doors are like gums without dentures.

  "Ooh. Miss Thing needs a drinky."

  "Hamilton—I mean Hef—let's get in and out as quickly as we can."

  "Okay, okay, Richard. Don't cack your nappies."

  "Richard," Karen says, "I'm going to stay out in the van. You three go in. I need some sun."

  "You want anything special, Kare?"

  "Yeah, cotton balls … a hot oil treatment … some licorice if it's still any good."

  "Gotcha."

  Karen sits alone in the minivan's front seat, sifting through CD's and enjoying a freakish heat wave warming the remains of the city. I, Jared, become manifest."Hi, Karen."

  "Jared! Where are you?"

  "Out here." She swivels to see me standing outside the door atop a rusted shopping cart on its side. I'm hard to see during the day—like gas flames against a blue sky.

  "Jared, what's the deal here? I've got a thousand questions I want to ask you."

  "Ask away, Karen. You look good. How are you feeling?"

  "Crappy. But my arms are getting pretty strong. My legs—they're kind of going downhill now. They're deteriorating. I can only barely walk around the house and stuff. What about you—do ghosts have pain? I mean, do you hurt?"

  "Not the way you do."

  "No. I imagine not." She changes gears: "So cough up the truth, Jared, because I'm really mad at you or whoever did this to me. You deep-freezed me for seventeen years and left me with a puppet body. And who smashed in the patio door last year when everything started falling apart?"

  "Actually, that was me at the door."

  "You?"

  "Apologies, Kare. I screwed up—it was my first time back here. I was going to give a you a speech. I decided not to—I was^too embarrassed about wrecking the door. It was just like the night I walked into Brian Alwin's parents' patio door in tenth grade. Duh. I went and helped Wendy instead. She got lost in the forest coming here from the dam.

  "You scared the crap out of me."

  "Hey—it won't happen again. I've got good control of it now—my astral presence, I mean." I do a double flip there and land atop the rusted shopping cart. "Sexy or what?"

  " Ooh baby baby. Shit, Jared, tell me, what exactly is the point of everything that's happened? And why did / go into a coma? I can't explain anything. So maybe you can. Everybody treats me like I know the answers and that I won't tell them out of spite. I hate it."

  "Well, Karen, you—how shall I say this—you accidentally opened certain doors. You were taking all those diet pills and starving your-self. Your brain did somersaults; you saw things; you caught a glimpse of things to come."

  "For that I lost my youth? And for that matter, how come I was the one selected for coma duty? Huh? Did I ask? Who decided?"

  "Mellow out, Kare—I mean, if you remember the note you gave Richard, you yourself wanted to sleep for 'a thousand years,' and avoid the future. You chose this, not me or anybody else. Worse things could have happened. I mean, you could have died completely. You could have had brain death."

  "So why am I awake now instead of sleeping another nine-hundred-eighty-three years?"

  "You woke up from your coma because you'd be able to see the present through the eyes of the past. Without you there'd be no one to see the world as it turned out in contrast to your expectations. Your testimony was needed. Your testament."

  "Jared, nothing ever turns out the way it was intended. Just look at me." Karen looks at her legs and grimaces. "Oh, God. This is so bizarre. This is not what I was expecting life to be like. Hey wait— Jared—how come it's you here and not anybody else? I want to see my parents."

  "I can't swing that, Kare. I'm your Official Dead Person. I'm the only person any of you knew who died when you were young. Because of this I register in your heads as the, umm, the deadest."

  "The deadest? What a crock."

  "Karen, forget about that for a second. Tell me—I have to ask you this: What is the main thing you noticed—the major difference between the world you left and the world you woke up into?"

  Karen exhales heavily, as though she's having a massage and her tension is dissolving. She looks into the Save-On's dark interior and says, "Alack."

  "A lack?"

  "Yes. A lack of convictions—of beliefs, of wisdom, or even of good old badness. No sorrow; no nothing. People—the people I knew when I came back they only, well, existed. It was so sad. I couldn't allow myself to tell them.""What's so wrong with that—just existing, I mean?"

  "I'm not sure, Jared. Animals and plants exist and we envy them that. But in people it just doesn't look good. I didn't like it when I came out of the coma and I still don't like it—even with just the few of us remaining here."

  "And?"

  "God, Jared—you're relentless. I know. Tell you what—you tell me who you slept with and I'll answer more of your questions."

  "Karen, I dunno "

  "Stacey Klaasen?"

  "Okay, yeah."

  "Jennifer Banks?"

  "Yeah."
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  "Jennifer Banks's younger sister?"

  "Guilty."

  "I knew you two did it."

  "No shit, Sherlock."

  "Annabel Freed?"

  "Yes."

  "Dee-Ann Walsh."

  "Yup."

  "God, Jared—we should have come and hosed you down like a mink in heat. Who didn't you make it with?"

  "Pam."

  "I could have guessed that."

  "Wendy."

  "I knewww that."

  "I was going to meet her after the football game. It was in the cards. And now you have to answer more of my questions."

  "Fair n'uff."

  "You were talking about what was different about people when you woke up. Spill."

  "All right already. Let's see. Give me a second." She scratches her chin while a wild animal screams within the Save-On. "I know— I remember when I first woke up how people kept on trying to impressme with how efficient the world had become. What a weird thing to brag about, eh? Efficiency. I mean, what's the point of being efficient if you're only leading an efficiently blank life?"

  I egg her on. "For example?"

  Karen pulls a blanket around herself, speaking as she moves. "I thought back in 1979 that in the future the world would—evolve. I thought that we would make the world cleaner and safer and smarter, and that people would become smarter and wiser and kinder as a result of all the changes."

  "And … ?"

  "People didn't evolve. I mean, the world became faster and smarter and in some ways cleaner. Like cars—cars didn't smell anymore. But people stayed the same. They actually—wait—what's the opposite of progressed?"

  "In this case, devolved."

  "People devolved. Hey, Jared—how come you know so many words now?"

  "How to best explain … there's a certain aspect of the afterworld that's like English class and you're not allowed to skip. Anyway, forget that. You were talking about devolution."

  "Yes. Megan—my daughter—she didn't even believe in the future before the world ended. She thought the future was death and crime and lawlessness. And as soon as the future actually did end, she took it in stride. She had a daughter, Jane, born blind and brain defective— probably because of all the crap in the air these days—and she simply assumed that's the way life should be. Actually, nobody believed in the future: Richard, Wendy—it's like they expected the end."

  "How?" My body temporarily flares orange with anticipation.

  "Drugs. Pam and Ham did smack—still do—or whatever they can find that's still fresh after one year because the notion of forty more years of time was, and continues to be, too much for them. Wendy lost herself in grueling routine. Linus apparently went away for years trying to figure out the meaning of life and he never found it and so he curled up inside himself and became dusty and slightly bitter. Megan had the baby born blind and with mental problems and sonow Megan's gone slightly autistic as a result. And Richard—Richard drank and placed all his hope in me. He thinks I don't know, but I do. You have to remember, Jared, I wasn't supposed to ever wake up. Richard could have spent his life mooning away about me and never have to deal with real life."

  "All good points. But a bit harsh, wouldn't you say?"

  "Jared, use your brain—look at me. I'm a monster. I'm like some UFO woman that Linus or Hamilton cooked up for TV movies. I gave up my body just so I could learn that the modern world was becoming sort of pointless and empty? A crappy trade."

  "Okay, but answer me this: Would you have believed in the emptiness of the world if you'd eased into the world slowly, buying into its principles one crumb at a time the way your friends did?"

  She sighs. "No. Probably not. Are you happy now? Can I have my body back?" Karen grabs Pam's cigarettes from the dashboard, lights one up, and then coughs.

  "You smoke?" I ask.

  "You jock. Yes, I'm smoking again as of now. Ooh. My head's dizzy. Hey—how's God?"

  "Aw, Karen—don't be flippant. It doesn't suit you. This isn't social studies class."

  "Oops—careless and stupid. But, how are you? I mean, you're dead. I don't want to be flippant. I'm really curious. Who wouldn't be?"

  "Don't worry about me. I'm totally cool. But I am worried about you and the rest of the crew, though."

  "Us? Forget us. We're losers. Who'd worry about us? Go find some winners and worry about them."

  "Don't say that, Karen. It's just not true. It just isn't." Karen stares at me as though I've made a lame joke. "I have to go now—into the Save-On."

  "Well I'm not going anywhere with these chopstick legs of mine. I feel like one of those glass birds that dips its beak into a glass of water. By the way, if you go in to see the others, Hamilton and Pam are going to drive you nuts.They spend their days shooting up and watching biography videos about the Duchess of Windsor, Studio 54, and Hollywood stars. They're losing themselves back in time. They talk all crazy."

  "I can handle it."

  "Hey Jared, you haven't answered many of my questions. Don't go. Quick, tell me, what's the deal? What happens next? Ten more years of this? Twenty? Thirty?"

  "I can't answer that, Karen. You know how the deal works."

  "You do know something then."

  "Come here, Karen—open the door." Karen opens the door. "Swing out your legs," I command, and she does. "Here—" I approach Karen and kneel before her. I kiss both her shins and then rise. "Stand up," I say, and Karen, coltish and unsure, steps down onto the parking lot. "Run," I say.

  And she runs—around the van and then around the lot, whooping with joy. Her legs are whole again.

  "I love you, Jared," she says, to which I reply, in words she can't hear because she is now so far away, "I love you, too."

  28 THE FUTURE IS

  Inside the blackened supermarket, scores of animals, birds, and insects have made the building their home. Shit of all types splotches the floor, as do tussles of feathers, fur, bones, and soil. Squirrels and raccoons have reduced the cereal aisle to fiber while the meat department's offerings have been entirely looted by wildlife. The smell of rot, a year later, is ebbing away, masked by the smell of shampoos and cosmetics fallen to the floor in a small earthquake six months prior. Birds rustle in the ceiling while down below flashlights carried by Richard, Hamilton, and Pam klieg their way across the store's floor. The trio daintily minuet above the muck and locate the pharmacy in the middle of the store. A white-smocked Leaker sits at the counter—a beef jerky skeleton.

  "Lord, I am sick of these things," Hamilton says, draping the corpse with a spare smock. "I, Hef, last of the Famous International Playboys have no time for rot. Agnelli, Niarchos, the Prince of Wales—all gone now. I alone must keep up their grand tradition. Voulez-vous un Cadillac car? I live solely for nightclubs, hooch, and rides on the Concorde."

  "Hamilton, f'Chrissake, shut up," Richard says. "Did you bring the awl and hammer?"

  "Presto."

  "Thank you."

  Richard and Pam prod and jimmy a locked cupboard storing untold pharmaceutical gems. After some expert elbow grease, it flies open, causing plastic tubs to tumble onto the floor.

  " Brush me, Daddy-O!"

  "Just give me the rucksack, Hef," Richard says as a shadow runs across his feet. "Squirrel alert."

  "Oh look! Look—it's so sweet," Pam says. "We can take it to Babe Paley's place in Bermuda for dinner."

  "It's Jamaica, dear. Who's on the guest list?"

  "Twiggy. The Sex Pistols. Jackson Pollock. Linda Evangelista."

  "You two are driving me up the fucking wall with your fantasies," says Richard.

  "If having a fantasy is a crime, I stand guilty as accused." Hamilton makes a big huffy sniff of the air and then quickly regrets it.

  Richard ignores this. "Aye yi yi. Oh, look—bingo!—two thousand Vicodins." Something screams and scampers across the store down Aisle 3. "Oh, man, this place is a creep show. Let's grab and scram. Hamilton, go get a shopping cart for the loot."

  "Roger." I
n the greeting card section, Hamilton finds an abandoned cart. It squeaks and rubs across the sludgy floor. Richard and Pam pile the pharmaceuticals into the cart.

  "Oh, Christ. Karen wants some cotton balls and a hot oil treatment. Where are they?" "Next aisle over."The trio walks slowly through the store's cobwebbed, stinky carcass, and the farther away they get from the front, the blacker it gets. They pass two Leakers along the way, but of course, after all this time they are casual about such a sight. Slowly, slowly they move when suddenly they bump into three raccoons who hiss and try to escape, scaling a Matterhorn of soggy paper towels. "Oh shit…"

  "Do I hear Karen calling us from outside?"

  Koonk-koonk.

  The lights in the ceiling pulse into operation, scorching brighter than daylight—the light all the more painful for its unexpectedness, illuminating the store and casting all of the wildlife into shrieks of panic, revealing the extent of devastation.

  My friends scream and look up above, where they see me, Jared, in the rafters. "It's me," I say, and I tell them, "I've come back to you to bring you light."

  "You prick," Hamilton bellows, "—the light almost blinded us!"

  "Whoopsy daisy, guys. I was trying to put on a light show for you. It fell kinda flat. See you later this afternoon."

  "Light show?" Pam says.

  "He's technically sixteen, Pam," adds Hamilton.

  "Oh yeah," she muses, "He's younger than Karen."

  Wendy is hesitantly meandering through the browning forest behind her house, armed with a twelve-gauge rifle should feral dogs attack. Her hair is washed and styled in a manner considered fetching by 1997, and, for that matter, 1978, standards and beneath her thick beige raincoat clings a saucy frilled lingerie getup fetched earlier that morning from a Marine Drive naughty shop. She's calling me: "Jared? Jared?" She's worried I won't hear her call—or that I won't respond—but I do.