Girlfriend in a Coma

by Douglas Coupland

  "Hey—" Wendy says.

  "What?" I ask.

  "Nothing. I just wanted to stop Hamilton from making some cynical crack."

  "It's okay, Wendy," I say. "It's nice to think back on old times and be with old friends. I mean, we were all so lucky living when and where we did. There was no Vietnam. Childhood dragged on forever. Gasoline, cars, and potato chips were cheap and plenty. If we wanted to hop a jet to fly anywhere on Earth, we could. We could believe in anything we wanted. Shit—we could wear a San Diego Chicken costume down Marine Drive while carrying a bloody rubber head of Richard Nixon if we wanted—that would have been just fine. And we all went to school. And we weren't in jail. Wow." The stars are suddenly stained pink as a tiny waft of chemical residue from a long exploded Yokohama paint factory passes over.

  "I remember running through the neighborhood in little more than a jockstrap. I remember being able to read Life magazine and making up my own mind on politics. I remember being in a car and thinking of a road map of North America and knowing that if I chose, I could drive anywhere. All of that time and all of that tranquillity, freedom and abundance. Amazing. The sweet and effortless nodule of freedom we all shared—it was a fine idea. It was, in its own unglamorous way, the goal of all of human history—the wars, the genius, the madness, the beauty and the grief—it was all to reach ever farther unclouded points on which to stand and view and think and evolve and understand ever farther and farther and, well, farther. Progress is real. Destiny is real. You are real." The pink passes on."And so that's why we're all here tonight—today—whatever day it is: Thursday—six weeks from now—1954—three days ago—one million B.C. It's all the same. I mean, I know you're wondering what was wrong with the way you were living your lives in the first place— what your Jimmy Stewart-esque crisis was—and I know you're wondering why you had to spend the past year the way you did. You say your lives weren't in crisis, but you know deep down they were. I was up there hearing you."

  "You nark'ed on us?" Megan asks, ever alert.

  Richard darts in, "Megan, drop it, okay?"

  The water behind the dam is luminous Day-Glo green. It looks electric. Radioactive. "So, yes, here all of us were, living on the outermost edge of that farthest point. People elsewhere—people who didn't have our Boy-in-the-Bubble lifestyle—they looked at us and our freedoms fought for by others, and these people expected us with our advantages to take mankind to the next level … newer, smarter, innovative ways of thinking and living and being. They looked at us and hoped we could figure out what comes … next."

  Wendy sneezes three pistol-crack snorts. "Bless you," I say. "And bless all of you, too." The light in the sky is so bright it's like daylight. "And weren't we blessed, too, with options in life—and didn't we ignore them completely?—like unwanted Christmas gifts hidden in the storeroom. What did life boil down to in the end? … Smokey and the Bandit videos. Instead of finding inspiration and intellectual momentum there was … Ativan. And overwork. And Johnny Walker. And silence. And—I mean, guys, just look at the situation. And it's not as if I was any better. I never looked beyond the tip of my dick."

  "Get to a point," Richard says. He knows we're close to an answer.

  "This past year—if you'd have tried, you'd have seen even more clearly the futility of trying to change the world without the efforts of everybody else on Earth. You saw and smelled and drank the evidence of six billion disasters that can only be mended by six billion people."A thousand years ago this wouldn't have been the case. If human beings had suddenly vanished a thousand years ago, the planet would have healed overnight with no damage. Maybe a few lumps where the pyramids stand. One hundred years ago—or even fifty years ago—the world would have healed itself just fine in the absence of people. But not now. We crossed the line. The only thing that can keep the planet turning smoothly now is human free will forged into effort. Nothing else. That's why the world has seemed so large in the past few years, and time so screwy. It's because Earth is now totally ours."

  "The pioneers—they conquered the world," Linus says quietly.

  "They did, Linus. The New World isn't new anymore. The New World—the Americas—it's over. People don't have dominion over Nature. It's gone beyond that. Human beings and the world are now the same thing. The future and whatever happens to you after you die—it's all melted together. Death isn't an escape hatch the way it used to be."

  "Well fuck me," Hamilton says.

  "Your destiny's now big enough to meet your jaded capacity for awe. It's now powerful enough for you to rise to the task of being individuals."

  The meteorites disappear and the pulsing white sky goes black as though unplugged. Richard asks me, "Jared, wait a second—wait wait wait. You're going too quickly. Way earlier you said we could return to the world. What did you mean—the world as it was before—all this?"

  "Exactamundo, Richard. You can return to the world the way it was—back to the morning of November 1, 1997. There'll have been no Sleep, and your lives will continue, at least in the beginning, as they were."

  "Bull." Wendy says.

  "I shit you not."

  "Jared—are we gonna forget all this past year? the Sleep?" Linus asks. "Will I lose the pictures of heaven you gave me?"

  I say, "You'll remember every single thing, Linus: everything that was lost and everything that was gained.""Jane," Megan says, "What about Jane?"

  "Jane will be whole."

  "My—our—baby . .." puffs Wendy.

  "Born," I say. "And Hamilton and Pam, you'll be clean."

  Eyes are wide before me—all save for Karen's. Karen has pulled back from the group, biting her finger, sucking in breath, closing her eyes and standing with her arms and legs pulled in as tightly as possible—as though she wished to become a thin line, so thin as to be invisible. The gang doesn't notice this; they're riveted by my words.

  "You said that in the beginning our lives will be the same," Wendy says. "I sense there's some kind of deal happening here. We have to change somehow. There's a catch. How will our lives be changed. What's your Plan B?"

  35 3 2 1 ZERO

  "Plan B is this:

  "You're to be different now. Your behavior will be changing. Your thinking is to change. And people will watch these changes in you and they'll come to experience the world in your new manner."

  "How?" Richard asks. "How do we change?"

  "Richard, tell me this: back in the old world, didn't you often feel as if the only way you could fully truly change yourself in the powerful way you yearned for was to die and then start again from scratch? Didn't you feel as if all of the symbols and ideas fed to you since birth had become worn out like old shoes? Didn't you ache for change but you didn't know how achieve it? And even if you knew how to do it, would you have had the guts to go forth? Didn't you want your cards shuffled a different way?"

  "Yeah Sure. But didn't everybody?"

  "No. Not always. This feeling is specific to the times we lived in."

  "Okay ____ "

  "And Richard, haven't you always felt that you live forever on the brink of knowing a great truth? Well, that feeling is true. There is the truth. It does exist."

  "Yes. Well, now it's going to be as if you've died and were reincarnated but you stay inside your own body. For all of you. And in your new lives you'll have to live entirely for that one sensation — that of imminent truth. And you're going to have to holler for it, steal for it, beg for it — and you're never to stop asking questions about it twenty-four hours a day, the rest of your life.

  "This is Plan B.

  "Every day for the rest of your lives, all of your living moments are to be spent making others aware of this need — the need to probe and drill and examine and locate the words that take us to beyond ourselves.

  "Scrape. Feel. Dig. Believe. Ask.

  "Ask questions, no, screech questions out loud — while kneeling in front of the electric doors at Safeway, demanding other citizens ask questions along with you —
while chewing up old textbooks and spitting the words onto downtown sidewalks — outside the Planet Hollywood, outside the stock exchange, and outside the Gap.

  "Grind questions onto the glass on photocopiers. Scrape challenges onto old auto parts and throw them off of bridges so that future people digging in the mud will question the world, too. Carve eyeballs into tire treads and onto shoe leathers so that your every trail speaks of thinking and questioning and awareness. Design molecules that crystallize into question marks. Make bar codes print out fables, not prices. You can't even throw away a piece of litter unless it has a question stamped on it — a demand for people to reach a finer place." There's silence. The water's white noise is invisible now. The skyhas cleared and the stars are timidly reappearing, point by point.

  "What do we ask?" Wendy says.

  "Ask whatever challenges dead and thoughtless beliefs. Ask: When did we become human beings and stop being whatever it was we were before this? Ask: What was the specific change that made us human? Ask: Why do people not particularly care about their ancestors more than three generations back? Ask: Why are we unable to think of any real future beyond, say, a hundred years from now? Ask: How can we begin to think of the future as something enormous before us that also includes us? Ask: Having become human, what is it that we are now doing or creating that will transform us into whatever it is that we are slated to next become?

  "Even if it means barking on street corners, that's what you have to do, each time baying louder than before. You must testify. There is no other choice.

  "What is destiny? Is there a difference between personal destiny and collective destiny? 'I always knew I was going to be a movie star.' 'I always knew I was meant to murder.' Is Destiny artificial? Is it unique to Man? Where did Destiny come from?

  "You're going to be forever homesick, walking through a cold railway station until the end, whispering strange ideas about existence into the ears of children. Your lives will be tinged with urgency, as though rescuing buried men and lassooing drowning horses. You'll be mistaken for crazies. You may well end up foaming at the mouth in a central Canadian drug clinic, Magic-Markering ideas onto your thighs which are bony from scouring the land on foot. Your eyes will always feel as if you've been staring at the sun, your bodies seemingly aching to cool them by staring at the moon. There aren't enough words for 'transform.' You'll invent more."

  "We'll go crazy!" Hamilton shouts.

  "No. You'll become clearer and clearer."

  "No—we'll go totally effing crazy."

  "Haven't you always known that, Hamilton? At the base of all of your cynicism across the years, haven't you always known that one day it was going to boil down into hard work? Haven't you?"Hamilton and the rest imagine their new lives.

  "And you're going to care about what people think? As if they care! And you know the truth—or at least you'll always be headed in its direction. It doesn't matter how stupid or crazy or extreme you become. There is no other meaning. This is it."

  Hamilton closes his eyes and specks of mica dust fall from the sky, making his face glint.

  "In your old lives you had nothing to live for. Now you do. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Go clear the land for a new culture—bring your axes, scythes, and guns. I know you have the necessary skills—explosives, medicine, engineering, media knowledge, and the ability to camouflage yourselves. If you're not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world—if you're not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order—then you're wasting your day."

  The water flowing beneath us and over into the spillway has stopped, but nobody notices. One by one I come face-to-face with my friends.

  "Pam, you have hard work ahead of you. Every moment of your life from now is going to be work, and no excuses. It's as though you've have to dig up a massive tree and untie the roots which have been tied into complex knots by dark forces beneath the soil. Could you do that? Are you capable?"

  "Yes."

  "Hamilton—no more pretending to be a child trapped inside an aging body. No avoiding the enormity and responsibility of being an adult. Could you do that? Are you capable?"

  "Yeah."

  "Wendy, no excuses: no drugs, no sleeping, no booze, no overworking, no repetition or insulation or efforts to make time disappear. You're in for the long haul. Could you do that? Are you capable?"

  "I am. But what about the baby?"

  "You may not be able to change the world on your own, but our kid will—as will Jane. You'll be their teachers and then they'll teach you."Linus—the world is not going to end in your lifetime once you return. That form of self-flattery is gone. But too much freedom won't swamp you anymore. Are you ready to change—to join—to become part of what's Next?"

  "Yes."

  "Megan—if necessary, you're going to need to reject and destroy the remains of history—kill the past—if it hinders truth. Most of the past can only hold back what needs to be done. An astounding weight of history hangs around your shoulders. But in so many ways, it'll be useless to you. Too many things are too new. Rules have to be made up as you go along. Are you ready, along with Jane, to change—to join—to become part of what's Next?"

  "Yes."

  "And Richard: Will you go undercover? Will you destroy information? Cut wires? Sever links? In an efficient, adult, and professional manner will you dismantle and smash everything that stops questioning? Will you cut your hair? Will you infiltrate systems? You had no trouble thinking of dinosaurs and Ice Ages as prehistoric. Will you have just as little trouble thinking of your new epoch as post-historic?"

  "I will."

  Nobody notices that I don't speak to Karen. Richard asks me, "Jared—"

  "Yes, Richard?"

  "What if we don't want to go back? What if we don't mind the way things are? What if we choose to stay here?"

  "I was wondering when you'd ask. The answer is, if you want to stay here and continue the life you've been leading, you can. No strings attached. But I want you to think about that for a second." Richard and the others mull this over and the implications of this quickly becomes obvious. "No, I didn't think you'd like that option. You had another question, Richard. …"

  "Yeah, Jared—what happens if we go back and we stop asking questions? What happens if we stop looking and asking?"

  I look at Karen; everybody's eyes turn to Karen. "Karen—you remember now?" I ask. "Don't you, Karen?""I do."

  "What?" Richard shouts. "What are you talking about?"

  "I remember now. It's all coming back to me. I can't believe I didn't remember. Richard—Beb … I have to go back into my … coma."

  "Oh no—"

  "Yeah," she says, "I do. I have to go back," she says.

  "What do you mean you're going back? You can't. Stay here. I won't let you."

  "It's not your choice to make, Richard—it's mine. And unless I make it, none of you can go anywhere. That's what I saw, Richard. Back in 1979. This. Here. Me—I'm your Plan B."

  36 THE END

  "Jared, you demented psycho—what gives you any right to do this?" "Richard, buddy, bro—I wish I were psycho, but I'm not. And nei-ther's Karen. I'm not even doing anything, Richard, I mean, you're the ones who need to do the choosing."

  Richard is flailing and it's not cool—it reminds me of when we were younger and he never got picked for teams. He says, "What happens if Karen and I—all of us—don't go along with your deal— what then? What if we all like it here and want to stay here? We could build a new society—the planet could be our ark. I've been thinking of this—we've all thought about it at some point during the year. Earth isn't heaven and it isn't hell but it's something."

  Karen's breathing is stiff and pumplike, similar to latex lungs I once saw in a high school guidance film on smoking. "Richard, Beb, that's sweet. But it's too late. This was decided a long time ago." She looks toward me. "You can't stop it. It's a done deal. Sacrifices need to be made. This is mine."<
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  Megan breaks the silence: "How do we go back?" she says.

  "Megan, at least defend your mother," Richard says.

  "Dad, you never listen to me. She's going, okay? She's leaving."

  "Megan," I say, "Getting back is easy, a real no-brainer. All you guys have to do is each return to the place you were at the moment Karen woke up—that point in time and space where the world banged off of its old foundations. Just before dawn, November i, I997- Walk to the places where you were at that moment. All of you standing in your correct spots will be like notches on a key in a tumbler—you'll unlock the world—reopen its doors. Megan, I believe you and Jane, then eight cells big, were in the Emergency waiting room with Linus that morning. Wendy was with Pam and Hamilton in Intensive Care. Richard was down there," I say, pointing to the canyon just down around the bend from the dam's spillway.

  "Oh excuse me, Glinda, Good Witch of the North," Hamilton interrupts, "You mean all this time we've been marooned on this slag heap all we had to do was go stand around the hospital?"

  "No, Hamilton. The offer's only good as of now. C'mon, Karen, it's time to leave."

  "But wait, Jared," Richard says. "You didn't fully answer my question—okay, so Karen goes back into her coma. I repeat my question—what happens if we stop questioning—what happens if we stop looking for good questions and good answers?"

  "Then you come back here."

  "Yeah?"

  "And you stay here." I let this sink in. "Ready to go, Karen? It's almost dark out."

  "Wait!" Linus shouts, "We've lost something—and I don't know what it is we've gained in the process."

  The lights above us dazzle. I say, "Linus, there are three things we cry for in life—things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent. You've got all three this evening."