Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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"When do you normally pick up your messages, so to speak?" "It has to be during the night." "So tonight you'll get more?" "I can only wait and see." "Will you call me if you get anything?" "Of course I will. But I think it's because of my car and money worries that I'm blocking more than I could otherwise receive." "I'll help you out with your car. And of course I'll pay you your normal psychic fees." "You're very kind, Heather. And after tonight's lavish meal, too." Oh, brother.I took ten twenty-dollar bills from my bag and gave them to Allison. "This is for today. And also, I'll cover your car's repair bill this time. How does that sound?" "Such kindness! But really Heather, you - " I was swept away in the emotion of hearing Quails from the dead. "It's my pleasure. Can I ask you to keep your phone on tomorrow, Allison? It's so frustrating to be unable to reach you sometimes." "Of course I will, dear." And so I came home, where I'm sitting now trying to make sense of Jason's happy message from beyond. Glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü glü. I'm wondering if I should just jump off Cleveland Dam and get to him right away, but that would probably somehow disqualify me. So I think I just need to sit here, enjoy the glow and then take two sleeping pills because tomorrow's a working day. Just before I fall asleep . . . I've been thinking. I'm older. I'm on the other side of thirty-five, and I have a better notion of wasted time and energy than I did even two years ago. If somebody wastes my time these days, I get mad. I'm also seven years older than Jason, but after about thirty-three, we're all the same age in our heads, so it's not the big deal it looks like. At least not from the inside looking out. And as Jason was almost thirty-three, we were almost the same. And anyway, a few decades after your first kiss and your first cigarette, I don't care if you're rich or poor, life leaves the same number of bruises on you. Most people might view Jason as a failure, and that's just fine. Failure is authentic, and because it's authentic, it's real and genuine, and because of that, it's a pure state of being. I thought Jason was as pure and bright as a halo, and no, I'm not trying to make excuses for the guy. God only knows he snored through enough Page 112
morning jobs, and he clocked out early once a week to watch the games down at the pubs. But Jason never curried favor with people he didn't like. He never tried to fake being busy so he'd look good, and he never fudged his opinion to suit the temperature of the room. In failure, Jason could be truly himself, and there's a liberation that stems from that. Leave that shirt untucked. Wash your hair tomorrow. Beer with lunch? Sure. I wish I could say that success turns people into plastic dolls, but the truth is that I don't know any successful people. The people in the courts are the closest I might come to knowing success stories, but they're all vermin. At first I wondered if I should take Jason and clean him up and turn him into a gung-ho PowerPoint-driven success story, but that was never going to happen. I figured that out quickly, so I never pushed him. That I didn't try to force him to change might have been my biggest attraction - that and my manicotti Florentine - and the fact that I never judged him harshly, or even judged him at all. I simply let him be who he was, this sweet, screwed-up refugee from a past that was so extreme and harsh, and so different from my own. And he was so lonely when I met him - oh! He almost hummed with relief in the mornings when he learned we could talk at breakfast. Apparently, that was forbidden growing up. Reg must have been pretty gruesome back then. Jason also had this thing called the glory-meter. A glory-meter was an invisible device Jason said almost everybody carries around with them, a Palm Pilot-ish gadget that goes ding-ding-ding whenever we come up with a salve to try to inflate our sense of importance. Examples would be "I make the best sour cherry pie in Vancouver"; "My dachshund has the silkiest fur of all the dogs in the park"; "My spreadsheets have the most sensibly ordered fields"; "I won the 500-yard dash in my senior year." You get the picture. Simple stuff. Jason never saw anything wrong with this kind of thing, but when he pointed the meter to himself, the ding-ding-ding stopped, and he'd pretend to whack it, as if the needle were broken. "Jason, you must have something in you to activate the glory-meter." "Sorry, honey. Nada." "Oh, come on . . ." "Zilch." This was his cue for me to say how much I loved him, and I'd spend the next ten minutes girlishly telling him all the goofy things I like about him, and he felt so much better because of that. So, if that's fixing someone, yup, I fixed the man. Wednesday morning 10:30 I ended up needing five sleeping pills to knock me out, and it was all I could do to drag my butt into work this morning. As an antidote, I took some trucker pills Jason kept in the medicine cabinet - heavy duty, but they do wake me up. Fortunately, people will misinterpret my sour, inwardly turned face as contrition after yesterday's cell phone debacle. However, I can barely think properly, let alone transcribe Page 113
Page 1 and 2:
Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Couplan
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house was quiet - not even a clock
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I said, "Let's talk about it at hom
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Dear God, Remove the blood from the
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My family didn't know what to make
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Dear God, What's hardest here is th
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The important thing is that we were
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only indicate Your absence - that f
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outfits must have made us look all
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And I did have questions and uneasy
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late into the game, I think." "What
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didn't hurt, the shooting, and I di
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someone who spends her days deliver
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ecame ghosts. The only thing that c
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It's a bit later again, still here
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on a locker's ventilation slits. "L
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turned around to me and said, "You
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their badge. Another cop looked at
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myself reflected in the one remaini
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* * * Like anyone, I've seen those
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I sat down, while Mom gave Joyce a
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Mom said, "Didn't you hear me?" Dad
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"Stick a potato in it. Your job, by
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"Barb?" "Go now. Because I'll break
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the water, and here I am now in my
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My main memories of those two weeks
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Just don't screw your life up the w
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was in. What came over me? It was n
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I changed the subject. "How long ar
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In the third week after the massacr
Page 61 and 62: don't, and they all work so hard -
Page 63 and 64: Alive! friends look forward to the
Page 65 and 66: But I was going to say that when it
Page 67 and 68: "Tell me." "He said, 'Who are we to
Page 69 and 70: "I've heard of that. More for me, t
Page 71 and 72: I dropped the rock onto a nearby bo
Page 73 and 74: But I hadn't killed Yorgo. I stoppe
Page 75 and 76: * * * I'm in a Denny's in North Van
Page 77 and 78: "No. Just you." I was confused. I h
Page 79 and 80: have a carry-on bag? So that some c
Page 81 and 82: I was going to motion to the elevat
Page 83 and 84: Saturday afternoon 4:00 I met Jason
Page 85 and 86: Barb's commuting down the coast, an
Page 87 and 88: "Heather, how many people are in th
Page 89 and 90: Okay, Barb's housekeeper will be in
Page 91 and 92: Oh, Heather, you knew it wouldn't b
Page 93 and 94: "I'm driving." "So?" I didn't argue
Page 95 and 96: kitchen table where I picked at the
Page 97 and 98: "Wait. Hold on a minute. When you g
Page 99 and 100: It was becoming windy, and our voic
Page 101 and 102: Oh. So, um - what are you up to lat
Page 103 and 104: "Why did he say, 'Oh, I say'?" "Bec
Page 105 and 106: first disappeared, but which I've s
Page 107 and 108: What has happened to me? I've gone
Page 109 and 110: In my peripheral vision I'm also no
Page 111: sweater and readying my purse. "Oh,
Page 115 and 116: Tuesday afternoon 3:00 I was eating
Page 117 and 118: "No, I'm not." And he wasn't. Reg h
Page 119 and 120: "Five thousand dollars." "I figured
Page 121 and 122: existence. This is when I felt the
Page 123 and 124: "How could Allison have known such
Page 125 and 126: Okay then, what did happen? I follo
Page 127 and 128: Five years ago, before I met Jason,
Page 129 and 130: Allison didn't like this. "Oh, real
Page 131 and 132: I was appalled. "How could you use
Page 133 and 134: eating an egg salad sandwich, when
Page 135 and 136: We were in the Keg at the foot of L
Page 137: But I haven't lost you, my son. No
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Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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