Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

1982. The windows face the mountains - the apartment receives no direct sunlight except for maybe two
minutes at sunset on the longest day of the year. This is not an apartment in which fresh vegetables are
consumed. It smells like a dead spice rack.
The August heat brought out the full aroma of the furniture - homely crappy stuff Reg kept, nay,
demanded to keep, after he and Mom split: a brown plaid recliner aimed at a TV inside an oak console
like they used to give away on game shows. On a cheap colonial kitchen table was a box of insurance
documents; a half-eaten can of Beef-a-Roni and a spoon lay on the floor where I guess he fell. Jesus,
how depressing.
The bedroom is where the good stuff ought to have been, at least that's what I'd hoped. Again, dark
furniture left over from his split-up with Mom, and all of it too big for the room. On his dresser top was a
blue runner, on which stood framed photos, yellowed and bleached, of him, Mom, Kent and me. I
remember when each photo was taken - the sittings were torture; it was simply weird that he had photos
of Mom and me there. Kent sure, but me? And Mom?
His bed was queen-sized. If he'd had a twin bed, it would have been so bleak I'd have had to flee. I
went and sat down on his preferred side, which smelled of pipe tobacco, smoke and dust. There was an
olive rotary phone, a can of no-name tonic water and an aspirin bottle. What would be in the two
drawers beneath it - girlie mags? A salad bowl filled with condoms? No. He had Bibles, Reader's Digest
Condensed Books and clipped newspaper articles. Oh, to find something human like an escort service
card or a gin bottle to go with the tonic, but no. Just this garage sale jumble, all of it so blank, so totally
anti-1999 as to evoke thoughts of time travel back to, say, North Platte, Nebraska, circa 1952. The
thought of my silent, sour-faced father walking from room to room - rooms in which phones never ring,
where other voices never enter -it almost broke my heart, but then I realized, Wait a second, this is Reg,
not some monk. Also, before I take too much pity on him, I ought to note how much his place is like my
place.
I fetched the items on the list: pajamas, T-shirts, underwear, socks, and so on. The contents of his
dresser were all folded and color-coded as if waiting for inspection by some cosmic drill sergeant on
Judgment Day.
I grabbed his bottles of old people's medications, a toothbrush and contact lens gear and headed for the
front door where, passing a little side table, I came close to missing a photo of my father with a woman -
an ample and cheery woman - in a pink floral dress. His arms were around her shoulders, and, alert the
media, there was a smile on his face.
The heart of a man is like deep water.
* * *
I've been writing these last bits in a coffee shop. I'm now officially one of those people you see writing
dream diaries and screenplays in every Starbucks, except if you saw me writing, you'd maybe guess I
was faking some quickie journal entries to hand my anger management counselor. So be it.
Around three I went to the hospital with the white plastic Save-On shopping bag full of Reg's personal
needs. In the building's lobby I had the choice of dumping it at the desk or asking what room my father
Page 54