Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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emember watching Mitchell and Duncan having a wicked scrap with hunting knives down by the portables, all because Duncan brought a six-sided dice, not a twelve-sided dice, for one of those role-playing games they were into. In social studies, Duncan brought in a solid-state panel from a TV set and spent the class in the last row writing hex symbols all over it, but they were fake symbols he was inventing, which looked a lot like the pictures of crop circles he'd photocopied for class the year before. And they wondered why nobody paid them any attention? They were messes, and there was no way you and they even breathed from the same atmosphere. So when they said you were connected to them? I think not. I was thinking about you and October 4. You've seen the TV stuff like everyone else, but you left the scene and I don't think you ever came back, and maybe you don't know what it was like to have been there. I was in PE, and during the class jog up the mountain, my friend Mike and I cut out and went down Queens Avenue to smoke. It was a beautiful day. Why waste it with a bunch of jocks? We got to talking with these three girls from the grade below us who were headed to the Safeway deli down at Westview. Then we heard some shots. Funny, I'd never heard a real gun fired in my life, but I knew exactly what it was. So did Mike. We heard a siren, some more shots and - I bet you didn't know this, but that first siren wasn't for massacre victims, it was for that guy you hammered down by the shop classes. Anyway, the five of us decided to walk up the hill, and the shots continued and then theswat team, the Navyseals, James Bond, and, I don't know, Charlie's Angels, all arrived at once. And all of the students pouring out of the school? Their heads looked like Sugar Crisp being poured from a box. Everybody was running as fast as they could, but they were all trying to look back, too, and so they were wiping out all over. <strong>By</strong> the time we neared the front of the school, they were hauling out bodies and, well, no need to go into that. We were moved up to the top of the hill, but we could tell exactly who had blood on them and who was being treated. I saw you, and you were covered in blood, but you were walking, so I assumed you were okay. And then I suddenly had a chill and I knew Cheryl was dead. I think ESP is BS, but that's what I felt. The rest of the day was a war zone. All of the parents began showing up from work and home, and they'd leave their cars parked wherever with the engines still running and the doors open. Once family members hooked up, the RCMP moved them up and onto the football field, and so the parking lot became the place for an ever-shrinking number of parents without children. Mom and Dad showed up, and around 3:30 we heard the news about Cheryl. Our brains were so fried by that point that it didn't even make sense. Mrs. Wong from next door drove us to the hospital in Dad's car. There was no way he could drive. Her two kids were in the caf but were unhurt. She'd have driven us to Antarctica if we'd asked. The hospital was another scene altogether - dead and mended bodies rolling around like shopping carts in a supermarket. I don't even know why they or we stuck around. It was kind of pointless by then. I mean, we knew Cheryl was lost even before we arrived. We were so messed up. When it turned dark out, I was still in my gym clothes from PE class. Somebody, I don't remember who, gave me a windbreaker, and it was as I was zipping it up that I heard the first rumor about YOU, there in the hospital lobby. The rumors didn't even start small. Right from the outset YOU were the mastermind, and when Mom and Dad found out, Mom went hysterical, and they had to give her a barbiturate, which is like this elephant pill from the 1950s. Dad took something, too, and for the first week they were floating on these things. Mom still is. I can always tell when it's time for her next dose, because her breathing goes all choppy. They really were out of their minds that you were to blame. I tried sticking up for you, and nearly got excommunicated from the family. And what did you ever do to those Alive! oids? They were brutal about you. Page 64
But I was going to say that when it was announced at the end of the second week that you were innocent of all charges, Mom went even crazier, and dragged Dad down with her. They refused to believe the RCMP's report. The you-know-whos had done a real number on the two of them. Anyway, this is the longest letter I've ever written, and the most focused I've been since October 4. You've moved or split town or something - good for you. Lucky you. Can I come escape to wherever you are? Be strong, buddy, Chris Through a Starbucks window I'm watching a sunset the color of children's aspirin as I crash-land on two clonazepams. I paid twenty bucks a pop for them from some Persian brat in his daddy's BMW, down at the corner of Fourth and Lonsdale - just blocks away from Mom's place. God. Now I do feel like I'm prepping for an anger management class. But there's no class, and if you're still doing what I'm doing at my age, then a class isn't what you need. Money, maybe? Kent got drunk as a log at his wedding, and while I was dancing with a bridesmaid, and he with Barb, he looped past me, stuck his face into mine, and with a hot breath of champagne, chicken breast and vegetable medley said, "You'll never be rich because you don't like rich people." And then he whirled off. And he was right: I don't like rich people, with their built-in towel racks that need a heating system that comes from Scotland - Scotland! —with their double-door refrigerators with nonmagnetic surfaces to discourage the use of fridge magnets, and with their Queen Charlotte Islands red cedar shoe closets that smell like saunas. Here's what I did wrong: I installed the built-in towel racks on the wrong side of the bath, and Les went mental on me because the owner won't surrender the weekly payment until it's done properly. I care but I don't care, but then Les is furious with the universe because his kid has a cataract, so I do care, but then at the same time, for God's sake, it's just a towel rack for some guy who, for whatever reason, needs to get his jollies with a warm towel every morning. So in the end, it's not possible to care - it's just towels. If Rich Guy uses one towel a day for a decade, it's still going to cost him over eighty cents a towel. $3,000.00= 82¢ 365 x 10 And in any event, best friends don't fistfight over towels or towel racks - or, if I ruled the world, they wouldn't. Forget about ruling the world, I can barely get the automatic doors at Save-On-Foods to acknowledge my existence. So I have to take what life sends me. I put a smile on it. I seethe. I leave work a few hours early. I get cranked in a downtown parking lot. I fly high and develop elaborate schemes to elevate Page 65
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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
Page 7 and 8:
Dear God, Remove the blood from the
Page 9 and 10:
My family didn't know what to make
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Dear God, What's hardest here is th
Page 13 and 14: The important thing is that we were
Page 15 and 16: only indicate Your absence - that f
Page 17 and 18: outfits must have made us look all
Page 19 and 20: And I did have questions and uneasy
Page 21 and 22: late into the game, I think." "What
Page 23 and 24: didn't hurt, the shooting, and I di
Page 25 and 26: someone who spends her days deliver
Page 27 and 28: ecame ghosts. The only thing that c
Page 29 and 30: It's a bit later again, still here
Page 31 and 32: on a locker's ventilation slits. "L
Page 33 and 34: turned around to me and said, "You
Page 35 and 36: their badge. Another cop looked at
Page 37 and 38: myself reflected in the one remaini
Page 39 and 40: * * * Like anyone, I've seen those
Page 41 and 42: I sat down, while Mom gave Joyce a
Page 43 and 44: Mom said, "Didn't you hear me?" Dad
Page 45 and 46: "Stick a potato in it. Your job, by
Page 47 and 48: "Barb?" "Go now. Because I'll break
Page 49 and 50: the water, and here I am now in my
Page 51 and 52: My main memories of those two weeks
Page 53 and 54: Just don't screw your life up the w
Page 55 and 56: was in. What came over me? It was n
Page 57 and 58: I changed the subject. "How long ar
Page 59 and 60: In the third week after the massacr
Page 61 and 62: don't, and they all work so hard -
Page 63: Alive! friends look forward to the
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 and 112: sweater and readying my purse. "Oh,
Page 113 and 114: morning jobs, and he clocked out ea
Page 115 and 116:
Tuesday afternoon 3:00 I was eating
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"No, I'm not." And he wasn't. Reg h
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"Five thousand dollars." "I figured
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existence. This is when I felt the
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"How could Allison have known such
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Okay then, what did happen? I follo
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Five years ago, before I met Jason,
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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
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But I haven't lost you, my son. No
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