Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

"Stick a potato in it. Your job, by the way, is to continue being the doomed loser brother. It shouldn't be
a stretch."
"And your job?"
"Stoic widow who at least has two kids as a souvenir."
I went out to the car and brought in a canvas duffel bag filled with some presents for the two of you, but
your mother got mad at me for spoiling you, a battle that will never stop, because I'll never stop spoiling
you. I went in to see you in your cribs - chubby, a bit of curly hair, Kent's smile, which is actually my
mother's smile. I gave you each some animal puppets and entertained you with them for a while.
Out on the patio, I shook a few hands and tried not to look like a doomed loser. Kent's friends were
using the technically friendly Youth Alive! conversation strategy with me. Example: "That's great, Jason,
Gina and I were thinking of redoing the guest bathroom, weren't we, Gina?"
"Oh yeah. We really were. We ought to take down your phone number."
"We'll get it from you after the service."
"Great."
After a few minutes of this, Gary, Kent's best friend, tinkled his glass and the group sat down. On easels
up front were color photocopy enlargements of Kent's life: Kent white-water rafting; Kent at a cigar
party; Kent playing Frisbee golf; Kent and Barb lunching in a Cabo San Lucas patio bistro; Kent at his
stag party, pretending to drink a yard-long glass of beer. Each of these photos emphasized the absence
of similar photos in my own life.
Gary began giving a speech, which I tuned out, and when it felt as if it was nearing the end, I heard a
click behind me: Reg trying to open the latch on the living room's sliding doors. Barb got up, offered a
terse hello, brought him down onto the lawn and gave him a chair. We all remembered Kent for a silent
minute, which was hard for me. Kent's death meant that there were more Jasons in the world than there
were Kents, an imbalance I don't like. I'm not sure whether I'm any good for the world.
I sprang up when the minute of silence ended, and dashed to the bar in the kitchen. There was nothing
hard there, just wine; chugging was in order, so I poured most of a bottle of white into a twenty-ounce
Aladdin souvenir plastic drinking cup, then downed it like Gatorade after a soccer game. Barb saw me
do this and spoke in a sarcastic Dick and Jane tone: "Gosh, Jason - you must be very thirsty."
"Yes, I am, Barb." She let it go. Outside, all of Kent's friends were doing Dad duty, fine by me. I asked
Barb if she ever spoke with Reg these days.
"No."
"Never?"
"Never."
I decided to be naughty. "You should try."
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