Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

ecame ghosts. The only thing that counted was Cheryl, and because we kept the marriage secret, it was
way better and more forbidden feeling than if we'd waited and done all the sensible stuff.
There were some problems when we got home. This churchy group Cheryl and I were in, Youth Alive!,
crabby morality spooks who spied on us for weeks, likely with the blessing of my older brother, Kent.
When I was in twelfth grade, Kent was in second year at the University of Alberta, but he was still a
honcho, and I can only imagine the phone conversations he must have been having with the local Alive!
creeps:
Were the lights on or off?
Which lights?
Did they order in pizza?
What time did they leave?
Separately or together?
As if we hadn't noticed we were being spied on. Yet in fairness, the Alive!ers were baby chicks, too.
We all were. Seventeen is nothing. You're still in the womb.
* * *
There are a number of things a woman can tell about a man who is roughly twenty-nine years old, sitting
in the cab of a pickup truck at 3:37 in the afternoon on a weekday, facing the Pacific, writing furiously on
the back of pink invoice slips. Such a man may or may not be employed, but regardless, there is mystery
there. If this man is with a dog, then that's good, because it means he's capable of forming relationships.
But if the dog is a male dog, that's probably a bad sign, because it means the guy is likely a dog, too. A
girl dog is much better, but if the guy is over thirty, any kind of dog is a bad sign regardless, because it
means he's stopped trusting humans altogether. In general, if nothing else, guys my age with dogs are
going to be work.
Then there's stubble: stubble indicates a possible drinker, but if he's driving a van or a pickup truck, he
hasn't hit bottom yet, so watch out, honey. A guy writing something on a clipboard while facing the ocean
at 3:37p.m. may be writing poetry, or he may be writing a letter begging someone for forgiveness. But if
he's writing real words, not just a job estimate or something business-y, then more likely than not this guy
has something emotional going on, which could mean he has a soul.
Maybe you're generous and maybe you assume that everybody has a soul. I'm not so sure. I know that I
have one, even though I'd like to reject my father's every tenet, and say I don't. But I do. It feels like a
small glowing ember buried deep inside my guts.
I also believe people can be born without souls; my father believes this, too, possibly the sole issue we
agree upon. I've never found a technical term for such a person - "monster" doesn't quite nail it - but I
believe it to be true.
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