Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

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I'm in a Denny's in North Van, Booth Number 7, a dead breakfast in front of me, and a couple arguing
about child custody behind me. I've run out of pink invoice paper, so three-ring binder paper from the
Staples across the street will suffice.
I slept maybe two hours at my friend Nigel's - he's good at wiring and plastering drywall. He left early to
frame a house in West Van, so I had his place to myself. It's a variation of my place: bachelor crap -
moldy dishes in the sink; skis leaning against the wall beside the door; newspaper entertainment sections
folded open to the TV listings sprayed all over the carpet, which smells like a dog and he doesn't even
have a dog.
Here in Denny's Booth Number 7, I can take as much time as I want because the breakfast rush is over,
and lunch won't start for maybe an hour. The arguing couple had one final squawk and then left. I've
asked the waitress to keep bringing me water so I can flush everything poisonous from my body, the
residual alcohol and the residual pills that made me bigger and smaller.
Already I've reconciled myself to the possibility that my truck will explode next time I turn the key, or
that they'll find me on the sidewalk outside the Chevron with a pea-sized hole in my third eye. That would
be so great, to have it be fast like that.
But there's this other part of me, the part that's shed the block of hate, the part that decided not to kill
Yorgo - the part that wants to go further in life. I have to let it be known that I existed. I was real. I had a
name. I know there must have been a point to my being here; there must have been a point.
Everyone I meet eventually says, "Jason, you saved so many lives back in 1988." Yeah sure, but it
wrecked my family, and there are still more people than not who believe I'm implicated in the massacre.
Last year I was in the library researching blackouts, and somebody hissed at me - I'm not supposed to
notice these things? Cheryl fluked into martyrdom, and Jeremy Kyriakis scammed his way onto Santa's
list of redeemed little girls and boys, but me? Redemption exists, but only for others. I believe, and yet I
lack faith. I tried building a private world free of hypocrisy, but all I ended up with was a sour little
bubble as insular and exclusive as my father's.
I can feel the little black sun's rays zeroing in on me -burning, burning, burning, like a magnifying glass
burning an ant ... At the count of three, Jason Klaasen, tell the people who you were . . . What do you
want your clone to know about you?
Dear Clone,
My favorite song was "Suzanne," by Leonard Cohen. I was a courteous driver and I took good care of
Joyce. I loved my mama. My favorite color was cornflower blue. If I walked past a shop window and
saw a vase or something that was cornflower blue, I would be hypnotized and would stand there for
minutes, just feeling the blueness pump into my eyes. What else? What else? I laughed a lot. I never once
drove drunk, or even slightly drunk. I'm proud of that. I don't know about the blackouts, but when I was
conscious, never.
But, okay, mostly I've been here on Earth for nearly thirty years, and I don't think there is even one
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