Girlfriend in a Coma: A Novel

by Douglas Coupland

  “No. It’s been crazy. I will tonight. Holidays throw everything into a mess. But one question, Wendy, if you were me, would you go?” “I’d probably go, too.”

  Later that evening, Richard and Karen have their first real fight, which colors the entire next week. “The twenty-eighth is not going to be a good day, Richard.”

  “Karen you can’t just say, ‘Oh, something awful’s going to happen.’ You have to tell me why. You have to tell me what you know. And why.”

  Karen sighed. “What about trust?”

  “Karen, whether or not I believe you on this particular issue has nothing to do with whether or not I love or trust you. Karen—look at it from my point of view.”

  “How do you explain what Wendy told us about Pam and Hamilton in the hospital—their stereo freak-outs?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Doesn’t that note I gave you back before my coma mean anything?”

  “Of course it does.”

  “The fact that I’m on TV on the twenty-seventh doesn’t sway you? You can’t stay here for moral support?”

  “It’s bad luck. I’ll watch it down there. I’ll watch it on speakerphone with you.”

  “So you’re still going to go?”

  “I will—unless you can get a helluva lot more specific about what’s going to happen and when. The sleep thing doesn’t cut it.”

  “Richard, I want to be able to tell you. I’m not being a cow and keeping something away from you on purpose. There are these background voices I hear. The only time they became clear was on film with Gloria.”

  Richard looks at her as calmly as he can, worrying that something is going wrong with Karen after her miraculous wake-up. “It’s only for one day, Karen. One piddly little overnight; I promised the office I’d do it months ago. They’re not going to be able to find someone to go instead of me during Christmas week.”

  “What are you doing there that’s so important?”

  Richard then feels he is arguing with a teenager. “I have to go over sets and budgets with the crew down there. It has to be done and it has to be done in person.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Please don’t whatever me.” “Whatever.”

  In spite of tensions, a truce is called and Christmas and the engagement party continue as planned. It is a day of small gifts and gentle surprises. Megan hand-made a roomful of decorations using construction paper and silver hearts. The windows are slightly steamed and the air is tinged with eggnog. Pam and Wendy boo-hoo shamelessly over the toasts, and even crusty old Hamilton has a lumpy throat while Linus seems concerned about the structural integrity of the meringue cake.

  One truly odd moment occurs halfway through the event. Guests hear a galvanizing crack crack! on the living room window, where an ostrich pecks the glass with a cruel, hilarious beak. It is as though everybody fell into a deep warm dream. Then another ostrich appears and begins clacking its beak onto the living room window while the room devolves into guffaws and chaos. Karen loves it: “Oh, Richard, this is just the bee’s knees. Did you plan this just for me? It’s so sweet.”

  Mr. Lennox from the house around the corner scoots into view with a coil of rope. A small mustachioed man, he apologizes profusely. “They escaped from the garage. I was supposed to take them out to Abbotsford, but everything’s closed for the holidays.”

  Megan asks, “What does anybody need with a pair of dorky-looking ostriches?”

  “Why Megan—they’re the meat of tomorrow. Lean as tofu and tasty like beef. They’re my retirement fund. Please, can you hold on to that rope for me?”

  A well-cheered ostrich rodeo ensues. Poor Mr. Lennox is petrified that his investment might be damaged. “Oh, Christ—just don’t let them get into the forest. Then we’re doomed. They’ll break their legs or get eaten by coyotes. They’re that stupid.”

  By late afternoon, the sky has gone black and cold and the core group of friends sit by the fire eating huckleberry muffins.

  Later, the doorbell rings. Linus answers. It is Skitter, but Linus doesn’t know him by face.

  “Megan here?”

  “Megan, your friend’s here.” Megan and Jenny soundlessly gloss over to the front door, into their coats, and out of the house. Richard, looking at CD’s by the Christmas tree, hears nothing. Minutes later, Linus asks, “Who’s biker dude?”

  “Huh?”

  “The guy Megan just left with. The guy with the scar.” “Guy with a scar?” Richard clues in. “Shit.”

  Flying home from Los Angeles, the captain allows Richard to peek out the front cockpit window a few minutes after takeoff. Richard sees the view of God: a dappled sky like a baby’s giggles, volcanoes stretching up the coast, the Earth’s gentle curve at the horizon. Back in his seat, while idly flipping through a two-week-old Newsweek and rereading an article about Karen, Richard mentally reviews the past week only to find himself chilled. A drop of cool sweat crawls like a slug through his hairline and into his eye.

  Richard’s plane ride continues—a cold ride: the airlines are saving money by not heating the cabins as they once did. Dinner service comes and goes. The sun, low on the horizon, is wan and colorless: a December sunset; even sunlight feels dark.

  Richard thinks about last night in his hotel room, watching Karen’s TV appearance on a speakerphone with the family. It was a tight little production and Gloria had managed to orchestrate a predictable level of syrupy rudeness.

  Afterward, he and Karen spent nearly an hour on the phone apologizing to each other, whispering endearments, and feeling close in that special way that only phones provide. I think this darkness stuff is all in my head, Richard. I’m not going crazy and I’m sure these voices and stuff will soon be gone.

  Afterward, Richard fell into a dreamless sleep.

  Then this morning he drove to Culver City, but after ten minutes of work, he started to panic. He went to the washroom, rinsed off his face, breathed furiously, and then instinctively hightailed the rental car to LAX, catching the next flight up the coast, paying for full-fare Business Class, desperate to be aloft, the wheels no longer on the ground.

  On the tarmac while awaiting takeoff, he looked out the window of his 2F seat just in time to see a blue-overalled airline luggage handler praying at the feet of another obvious dead luggage handler. The man from a fuel truck was screaming into a cell phone while an airline employee threw his blazer over the employee’s head. An ambulance came, the body was sheeted, the stewardess closed the door latch, and the plane took off.

  Now, five miles above Oregon, Richard continues trying to make sense of his rashness and his tangled feelings. He tries using the GTE Airphone, but service is out. “Good afternoon, this is your captain speaking. We’re experiencing a delay on the ground at Vancouver. Traffic controllers there have requested we stay aloft for half an hour or so while the situation down there is rectified. I hope you’ll understand our situation and continue enjoying today’s flight. As a goodwill gesture, flight attendants will be serving complimentary beer and wines.”

  There are groans and cheers while the jet flies over Seattle and then follows I-5 up to the Canadian border. The traffic below looks jammed like he’s never seen it before. Holiday sales.

  Once near Vancouver, the plane circles the city then flies over the Coast Mountains and makes lazy-eights over the pristine frozen alps and lakes behind, a flying tour of Year Zero. Another delay is announced, and then finally, after two hours of dawdling, the plane lands on the runway, but just before doing so, the runway lights that guide the way go black.

  22

  NATION OR ANT COLONY?

  At Vancouver’s airport, Richard’s flight is the only moving plane on the tarmac. The captain announces another delay, and the passengers spend one more hour on the tarmac—a problem with ground staff, but not to panic, even though, as passengers can plainly see, half the building is without light and there’s not a single ground person in view.

  The passengers become increasingly cr
azed with the discovery of a seat-buckled dead salesman in 67C and then a dead teenager in 18E Fear amplifies. Passengers can plainly see that there’s no action at the airport—no trucks or luggage carts or other activity. Another whole section of the terminal’s lights blink then fail, and finally the flight attendants pop open the door and the passengers slide down an inflatable yellow escape chute. To enter the airport, they pass through a utility door with quiet, orderly docility. Upon finding a dead stewardess propped against an access door, this soon devolves into anarchy. Outside it’s raining and inside the building it’s cold. There are almost no people present—at the immigration lineup there are no staff, save for one woman in the corner wearing a white paper breathing mask waving them onward. Bodies are strewn about the airport. Passengers scuttle toward the mild hum of the luggage carousel, which chugs and dies, never again to cough forth the passengers’ luggage.

  Something has gone dreadfully wrong. Richard is dazed. Karen’s future has come true. An adrenaline fang bites the rear of his neck.

  There are no staff at customs. The phones are blank and no taxis wait outside—only one or two cars speeding like mad through the main traffic corridor. Richard hears a voice calling his name—it’s Mr. Dunphy, no, Captain Dunphy, a neighbor from West Van.

  “Richard? Is that you, Richard Doorland?”

  “Oh. Hey, Captain Dunphy. Hi. What the hell’s going on here?”

  “Christ. You wouldn’t believe it. You on the Los Angeles flight?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “There was a real debate about whether they should let you land or let your fuel run out flying over the mountains.” Richard is dumbstruck. “The tower operators thought that planes would bring in more infected people, but it turned out everybody was dropping off. The moment you touched the runway they turned off the lights and went home. C’mon, let’s scram.”

  They bustle through a labyrinth of metal corridors, ramps, and NO ACCESS hallways for which Captain Dunphy has a magnetic card. At the end of their jaunt, they stand on the runway’s apron, where the rain has temporarily stopped and clouds blot the sky like sullied dinner plates. From a piece of yellow luggage that has fallen from the hold of a 737 and then split open, Richard takes a large winter coat. Captain Dunphy grabs an electric luggage wagon.

  “Where are we going?” Richard asks.

  “To the jetty at the runway’s end. My brother Jerry’s coming over from West Van in his sixteen-footer to pick me up. Called him on my cell phone—I just got in from Taipei. Fucking nightmare. We had three deaths onboard and the passengers were going ape-shit between Honolulu and Vancouver. Screaming, wailing—Christ. We had to bolt shut the cockpit door.”

  The two scan the horizon for a boat or a light. “I wouldn’t have believed it possible in all my years flying. I’m just glad I was able to get home. Once we docked, all the passengers simply ran. They didn’t even wait for their luggage. I don’t even know where these people could have gone. Waiting relatives? No taxis then, too.”

  “The plague—what is it?” Richard asks, his mind spooling out plotlines from 1970s sci-fi movies. “Who’s dying? Old people? Babies? Any one group?”

  “No pattern. Everybody. It brought down planes everywhere. All the big cities are fucked up. Vancouver, too. Noon today people started dropping like flies. It’s pointless trying to drive anywhere downtown. It’s a parking lot clogged with desperate, freaked-out people. People who catch this thing—whatever it is—have this powerful urge to sleep, so they lie down wherever they are—in their cars, on the mall floors, in the offices. A minute later, they’re dead.”

  The runway drive is far longer than Richard might have thought. North, toward the city, Richard can see the plumes of smoke of several fires and patches of the city with failed electrical grids. They park near the muddy water at the runway’s end. They hop off the luggage cart and stand in the rain as Captain Dunphy blinks a flashlight. They can see a boat coming toward them in the distance, and soon they hear a boat’s engine in the December wind. Captain Dunphy blinks the flashlight to signal his brother; the boat berths sideways against the shore onto which sloppy water laps feebly. Captain Dunphy sees Jerry’s suspicious face and says, “He’s with me, Jerry. This is Richard, my neighbor.”

  “Hop in. It’s going to be dark soon. Christ, the city’s a mess. Everywhere’s a mess. This plague—it’s speeding up.”

  They hop into the boat, which jolts away from the shore like a knife tugged from a magnet. As the boat slaps against the small whitecaps, its passengers goggle the fevered city. Richard tries to phone home to Karen on Jerry’s cell, but something’s not working.

  As they near West Vancouver, binoculars reveal that Lions Gate Bridge is full of cars. On the mountain, fires are burning—their gray plumes more reminiscent of autumn leaf burn-offs than of burning houses.

  The boat travels up the shore and docks at a private dock a mile west of the Park Royal Mall, currently in flames. Onshore, Mrs. Dunphy is in a Volvo. They weave throughout West Vancouver’s curves and hairpins. They see cars parked on the roadsides with dead drivers behind the wheels. A minivan stops at a stop sign and they briefly see four children looking out the rear window, chalky silent faces frightened out of their wits. At the corner of Cross Creek and Highland, two men try to stop them, but Mrs. Dunphy stomps the gas pedal as they race down the hill toward home. A shot is fired, which cracks the rear window.

  On Rabbit Lane, the electricity still works, but Lois’s and George’s cars are gone. Karen is on the floor by the blank, snowstorming TV. Her knees are up to her chin, but her eyes are far, far away. She’s shivering madly. Her forearms resemble a freshly plucked chicken.

  “Karen? Karen—honey?” Richard says, but there is no response. He picks her up in his arms and is about to stand up when Karen speaks.

  “It’s happening,” she says. “It’s here. What I saw back then …”

  “I know, honey.”

  “I tried to run away from it so long ago.”

  “Karen—I know, but you’ve gotta tell me. Something big’s going on—all over the world. And you know what it is. Tell me, please.” Karen squeezes her eyes shut and says nothing. Richard is exasperated: “Jesus H. Christ, Karen, can you tell me what’s going on! Speak to me!”

  She says, “The world’s falling asleep. But not me. I don’t know about you.”

  “Who told you?”

  “The voices—they came in clearly this afternoon. I could finally hear them. Him. Jared. It. I don’t know.”

  Richard carries her onto the couch, smothers her body in blankets, and ignites the gas fireplace, which throws off considerable heat. He then cradles Karen in his lap and she calms down. Richard collects his thoughts. “Now tell me, Karen, what are we in for? Why us? Why here? Why you and me and …?”

  “Richard, I have a brain the size of a seventeen-year-old’s. It’s not always easy.”

  “Does anybody else live?”

  “I don’t know. I only know about us here close to home.” “What are we supposed to be doing?” “I told you I don’t know. Now stop this.” Richard thumps the sofa. “Jared! Jared! Can you hear me?” “Don’t scare me by thumping like that. Anyway, he, or whatever it is, can’t hear you, Richard. He’s busy.” “How obvious. I should have known.” “This is not a very good time or place for sarcasm, Richard.” “It’s called irony these days.” “Whatever.”

  23

  STEEL MINK BEEF MUSIC

  She breathes deeply; the plastic-wrapped beef cool on her cheeks.

  The lucky people, thinks Lois, will fall asleep inside their sleep: blissful sleepiness followed with a visit to dreamland forever—heaven—the cold clear hills that graced the world of her youth.

  Lois was at Super-Valu in Park Royal, striding purposefully amid the store’s glorious aisles of glorious food all gloriously lit, when the sleeping began. She was savoring the waves of admiration sent her way by staff and shoppers who recognized her from the previous evening’s
broadcast.

  “You are so strong,” said one young woman.

  “A saint,” said another. Lois’s cheeks burned with pleasure.

  Lois was the first shopper to notice a sleeper, a young woman in blue sweat clothing asleep beneath the cauliflower and broccoli bins. Lois bent down to gently tap her on the shoulder; a shank of hair fell from the woman’s face revealing her peaceful death mask.

  Paramedics were called, and no sooner had the young woman been moved into the back office when a shout came from down the mall outside the Super-Valu—news of another death. A nervous buzz began among the shoppers. “Just the oddest thing, isn’t it?” said the woman in line in front of Lois. “Plastic bags, please—I mean, you just don’t see something like that too often and then—”

  Lois’s eyes flared wide open; behind their till the cashier was yawning, falling down onto her knees and taking a nap before them. “Hello?”

  The cashier from the next till came over. “Susan? Susan?” The cashier looked up at Lois. “No,” Lois said, “it can’t be.”

  The woman grabbed the intercom and beckoned management down to the tills pronto. Another shopper fell asleep on the frozen foods aisle’s cold white floor. With news of this, delicate pandemonium broke out. Customers abandoned their carts and dashed for the exits. A voice came over the speakers announcing that due to technical problems, the store would have to close for the day.

  Lois watched the shoppers panic. The man behind her squeezed his full cart through the space behind the clerk and left the store without paying. Lois, like some shoppers, moved out of the checkout area and stood silently in one of the main aisles to watch the scene unfold. Two more shoppers keeled over; the mall’s tiny first-aid post lost its ability to cope with trauma. From some unknown corner, a siren, dormant since the days of the USSR, woke up frightened and cranky.

  At the end of the aisle Lois saw her neighbor, Elaine Buchanan, piling steaks and chickens into a cart. She walked down to say, “Elaine—”