Away We Go (21 page)

THE TASTE OF NIRVANA

The news content on AwayWeGo changes overnight.

We know, finally, where it is the sick kids go.

In between articles about The Great Cliché and who was truly responsible for the Egyptian pyramids (ancient aliens?), there are stories we've never seen before.

Stories about the National Recovery Program.

Two hundred thousand children infected in the United States alone, dispersed to over a thousand recovery centers and three hundred tertiary care facilities throughout the country.

There are reports of worsening conditions in the improvised mass recovery clinics—life expectancy for youths in recovery at IMRCs is estimated at 4.7 years, two years lower than the national average.

The top daily story is a photo-essay that examines conditions in three different tertiary care facilities nationwide, one of which is located in Vermont, though the article doesn't specify where.

The conditions aren't great. The Vermont facility has six beds to a room.

“Doctors and nurses at tertiary stage facilities are widely acknowledged to be overworked and underpaid, and new data published in
JAMA Internal Medicine
found that medical error rates have risen by 15% over the past few years, as more and more youths in recovery enter tertiary care.”

There is no evidence of vivisection and human science experiments. There is no evidence of our memories being
downloaded onto chips and sold to their highest bidder. But then, of course, there wouldn't be.

I don't know what to believe about what to believe.

I've been eating scrambled eggs a lot.

In the kitchen, I crack an egg. A second.

There are little would-be chicks inside.

A third. A fourth.

With a fork, I turn them into yellow soup. I make them one. Next, I pour them into a hot frying pan. They spread, then stiffen. I add a little cheese. Some tomatoes.

There, little chicks. There is your afterlife. Is it everything you hoped for?

I get our plates ready—mine and Alice's—end up tripping over a bucket Alice set out to catch a leak in our ceiling. The overturned bucket sends waves across the floor. I mop the water up with a paper towel. Once that's done, I bring the plates over to the table and we dig in. Breakfast tastes like nirvana. Nirvana could've used a little more salt, though. The Buddhists never tell you that part.

“Noah, if you want to talk—”

I listen to the drip of the leak. “Sure, thanks.”

“He was such a nice kid—”

Kid.
God. Dr. Laura Sanberg, who discovered and named the Peter Pan Virus twenty years ago, she understood. We try to act grown-up, but it's all make-believe, pretend, like playing house when you're in kindergarten, with some bossy, ponytailed wife serving you invisible porridge in a plastic pot, porridge that tastes like air and dreams—in short, nothing at all.

Alice dips a forkful of scrambled eggs into the ketchup, brings it up to her mouth. “He would hold the door for you. Even when you were thirty feet away.”

“You'd have to run, since you felt bad.” My eyes burn. I turn so Alice can't see my face.

“He'd quote Pushkin to me.”

“Tolstoy to me,” I said. “But when we say Marty's nice.
Was
nice. My grammar, I still mess it up sometimes.”

She scoots her seat closer to me and I can't breathe, so I push her away. “You know, for months you tried to drag me here and there, to services, to this meeting and that, wanted me to believe whatever the hell you believe. Well, I'm listening now. Convert me. Save me. Show me how to believe. Show me how to manifest my best self before—”

“You're being cruel.”

“Why? Isn't this what you want?”

She bites her lip. “Do you remember Richard?” she says.

“Richard?”

“The one with the golden retriever. He
died,
Noah. He died when we were still kids. Not from PPV. In that pool of his. I don't know what happened. I think maybe he hit his head, but it was so long ago. I went to his funeral. I stopped believing in God, after that.”

That takes me aback.

“You go to chapel. You dragged me to Bible study.”

“I did. You trolled the whole time.”

“I did not—”

“You brought spaghetti from the cafeteria and started talking about how you were eating the Flying Spaghetti Monster.”

I can't help it. I laugh.

“I forgot,” I admit.

“You said God goes really well with ketchup.”

“You have a good memory,” I say, quiet.

“The reason,” she says. “The reason I go to church and Bible study—I think it's beautiful to be around people who believe in something. I don't believe in God, but I believe in people.
Noah, are you
—”

“I'm okay,” I say, wiping at my eyes angrily. “I'm not—I'm sorry. It's just. It's not enough. For me. If that makes you feel better—”

“We were his friends, Noah.”

“When has friends ever been enough, Alice?”

She has no answer for me.

SORRY, MARTY

It is September 22nd today.

I'm on my laptop in the kitchen, scrolling through articles. Every learned astronomer on AwayWeKnow testifies to The Great Cliché's “infinitesmal probability of terrestrial impact.”

I lean my chair back, and imagine:

In the event of impact, the energy released would be equal to that of twenty thousand Hiroshimas, leveling everything within one to two hundred miles of the epicenter, sending enough dust into the atmosphere to block out the sun. If The Great Cliché landed in the ocean, tsunamis hundreds of feet high would sweep the coasts, washing away cities like New York and Tokyo and Rio De Janeiro, cities I've never been to but that have always occupied vast spaces in my mind.

I shut my laptop with a click, stuff it in my backpack. On the way to psych class, leaves crunch softly beneath my feet; my reflection follows me as I walk along the lake until I take the fork in the path that leads me past the front of Galloway, where the Believers are gathered on the lawn outside the main entrance, holding banners in support of F.L.Y.

A chill sweeps through me when I see Marty's face on the banners.

In the academic quad, teachers stream from building to building, classes and clubs continue. A group of students are hula hooping on the grass by Lombardy. There is a one in ten thousand chance that the earth will rock in its orbit, grow cold
and dark, because the universe has no more intrinsic meaning than a mediocre superhero movie like
Salvation Day,
in which a villain named The Cosmic Jester attaches giant rockets to the moon and puts it on an intercept course with Earth, a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. In other words, it is the ideal time for hula hooping. Sometimes my gaze catches on the long blue stretches of sky, but for the most part, I just. Keep. Going.

In psych, I sit near the back. We're learning about grief and mourning. We learned that it takes six months to get over the death of a loved one. Presumably, on the first day of the seventh month, you wake up and think to yourself, “Hey, that sucker's dead, but I'm not. I'm going to take six shots of vodka now, because I can. Yes, I know it's seven-thirty a.m. Yes, with my Cheerios. What of it?”

There's a boy with tight jeans and the faint bristle of a beard beside me. I want to turn to him and say:
I am still here.
This is my constant refrain, here at Westing, maybe it's everyone's refrain the whole world over, sick or healthy, I don't know.

I want to say: We invented language for the sole purpose of issuing this reminder.

When I return to my apartment from class, there's a note pinned to the door from the office of residential life, stating Alice and I have to find a replacement for Marty, or else they'll assign someone to us. I crumple the note and throw it into the trash so Alice doesn't see it, and then I settle into the kitchen, on my computer, with every intention of playing Factoryfarmville for the next eight hours straight, to beat Connor Grant's most recent high score, because he's bumped me out of the Top Ten Hall of Fame. Maybe you can reduce friendship to playing a
game—constructing a set of rules inside which you build a story together. In this case, me and Connor Grant must be bffs (sorry, Marty).

I've slaughtered a hundred twenty-seven cows and turned their hooves into McDonald's beef patties when I get a text from Jane, telling me she had another fainting spell.

orientation leader, want to come make sure i dont drop dead? :)

She's playing Zombie Survival in her bed at Wellness, grimacing and tapping maddeningly on her laptop keys as a headless zombie reaches for her.

She blows him away with a machine gun.

She glances up, then back at the screen. “I'm under observation,” she says, in the same tone someone else would use to announce they've been sentenced to life without parole.

“I prefer Age of Rome,” I say.

“I know,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You're always on the high score list. It's a little sad.”

I laugh. “What can I say? It's my legacy.”

“Getting sadder,” she says.

“Virtual accomplishments are still accomplishments,” I insist.

“Saddest,” she says, and gives me a pitying look.

“Zombies has a cooperative mode,” I say.

We play Zombie Survival together, both of us craned over her screen. We move through an abandoned warehouse, mowing down one undead minion after another, and I realize Alice was right about becoming orientation leaders. Sitting here with Jane, saving the world one zombie at a time, racking up the highest score we can manage before we run out of bullets and
become zombie food, that feels right, just the way calling EMS for Ally did.

In fact, mowing down zombies together feels more than right.

It makes me feel whole.

I cannot simply disappear when there are more zombies to slay.

SEPTEMBER 26TH

The last day begins as all days do: the earth spins, the sun rises, my alarm clock blares.

But I realize something as I listen to that dreaded screech, as I run through the morning chill, breath white, eyes closing, closing; as I take a hot shower; as I sit on the toilet, wrapped in two towels, completely wrapped, gazing at the porcelain tub while the water sinks down the drain; as I swallow a fork or two of mediocre scrambled eggs, breakfast of the gods
;
as I leaf carelessly through an assigned reading, Escobar's
Territories of Difference,
which might as well be
Territories of
In
difference
.

The one-in-ten thousand odds of Apep hitting earth are only as trustworthy as their source.

Why should I believe anything Westing lets us read, what with Marty gone?

So tonight, I will gather with all the rest of the Believers, on the lawn around Sunset Lake, for a midnight picnic, and, under Peter and Wendy's watchful gaze, I will wait for the world to end.

I need the world to end.

It will be simpler, this way, easier. No more worry and uncertainty, no more unsolved mysteries. This is my plan and it makes me so happy, to have a plan for the future, a story to fulfill. I know what I am here to do.

I feel like I'm on stage again—the one and only place where I don't have to act.

Maybe I will hold Alice's palm in my right hand and Zach's
palm in my left and we will wait for the clock to hit 11:37 p.m.

That would be the perfect end.

Except that's not what happens.

At five p.m., my pants emit a beep. I steal a glance at my phone when the teacher turns her back. The guy sitting opposite me gives me a dirty look, but I don't care. The text is from Zach.

i need help. pleaes.

I leave the lecture hall. Stop at nearby bathroom. Splash water in my face. When I get to his room, he's on the floor, on his side, bedcovers everywhere.

“Can't move,” is all he says.

I pick him up, help him to his bed. He's talking, talking. “Woke up yesterday and couldn't move my legs. Can't move my legs. But I needed to make it to today. I made it to today.”

Lines of sweat worm their way down his face, his arms. I've never seen him panicked before, not like this.

“Noah,” he says. “They see me like this and I suppose they're going to take me away now.”

“How long have you been like—
this
?”

“They're going to take me away now.”

“Zach, how long have you—”

“Yesterday. I kept hoping. Kept waiting. I thought I'd wake up today and be better, good days and bad days. Sometimes my legs go numb. But not like this. I can't
move
them, Noah. And I'm losing—I can't feel the left side of my face.”

I've never seen someone this bad. They're always taken away before they get this bad.

“Have you told anyone?”

“Addie would flip. She would freak. She knocked on the door but I can't deal with that. Right now. I don't know if I love her.
Isn't that crazy? After all that. I don't know what I'm saying. I'm so—God, I need you to help me.”

I stand there, as paralyzed as he is.

He takes a deep breath. “I need—” He looks away. He points to his closet. “The painkillers. Top shelf.”

“I remember,” I say, find the bottle, and hand it to him. He fumbles with the cap, can't get it open. I look away. He laughs; there's no humor in it.

“Get it open for me, will you?”

I open it, pretending to have some difficulty.

He takes it from me. “Thanks, Noah,” he says. One look inside, and his face falls. “Fuck,” he says. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.” He throws the bottle against the wall. I count three pills rolling on the floor. Pick up the bottle. Empty inside.

“I thought there were more. Thought there were more. Fuck,” he says. “God,” he says. “Shit.”

His phone rings and he ignores it. I think he's crying now, but I'm not sure, since his face is already drenched from sweat.

“Three's not enough?” I ask. I'm about to reach down and try to pick the pills up.

“
Fuck,
Noah. I had an appointment at Wellness today
.
They keep calling. I told them I forgot and they made me reschedule for five-thirty. When I don't show up, they're going to send someone here—second they see me like this they'll—” He bites his lip and, with apparent difficulty, says, “I just wanted to know if Apep, I couldn't save anyone, I mean, Polo Club couldn't, but I thought, I don't know what I thought, but if Apep doesn't hit—they shot Marty and now they're going to take me God knows where. I don't know what I want, but I don't want that. I'm sorry, Noah.”

“It's okay,” I say, even though it couldn't be farther from okay.

“I'm sorry because—because I need to ask you to help me. I need you to do something. Horrible.”

My eyes meet his red, watery ones.

“If Apep doesn't hit, we can't let them take me. I don't want them to take me. I wanted to save—” his voice breaks. “I know I promised we'd figure it out, but I don't want to know which stories are true and which aren't. I don't want to know where the sick kids go, okay? That's the truth, kid. I'm sorry, but I don't.”

I understand now why he's called me here, why he needs me, why he was upset that the bottle only had three pills.

“No,” I say. “I
can't,
Zach.”

“Please—”

“I can't.”

“Noah, I know. What I'm asking is horrible. I know, I know,
I know.
I'm sorry it's you. It shouldn't be you. But I have nobody else. I tried—I texted, I called, there's nobody else and Addie will freak, she won't understand, and you're always so good at responding to texts—”

“Zach, I
can't
.”

“I know I said I'd do it. The one who goes away first. I said I'd be the one to do it, to tell you all what's true and what's not, but God, Noah. I'm
scared.
I don't
want
to know if it's heaven they're taking us to or a crematorium or heaven via a crematorium. I don't want them to cut into me and drug me and take notes to see what effect dosage X has and what effect candidate Y has or download my memories onto a chip. Worst of all, kid, I'll lie in some comfortable bed with fluffed pillows till I die and there will be painkillers and catheter tubes and this white room and faces I don't recognize, I won't know who I
am
—”

“We don't know that,” I say, recalling a theory popular at Richmond. “There could be prototype treatments at the tertiary
centers. Prototype cures. We don't know. You could get better.”

He gives me an incredulous look, and I repeat, “We don't know.”

“You don't really believe that, Noah. You've seen those tertiary care flyers.” He adds, “Incontinence support.”

I don't know what I believe. For a long time I believed in nothing and now I don't even know if I believe in that. I slump down, to the floor. Stare up at him. “Shall I beat you to death with my bare hands?”

“Thank you, Noah,” he says quietly. “You're a good friend. You're one of my favorite people. Did I ever tell you that?”

“Yes,” I say.

“First I want to see Apep,” he says, softly. “I want to know whether we'll be saved or not. I want the government to blow it out of the sky. And then—we can figure the rest out then.”

“The chances it gets anywhere near Earth are
minute
. You do realize that, don't you?”

I say it to hurt him. Because it's not fair, what he's asking me to do, to help him do.

“Or so the government would say, wouldn't they?” he retorts so fast it's like he's had the line rehearsed and ready for me.

I sigh. There's no use arguing. “I know a place with a great view.”

The key is not to think, I think.

Movement. Pure movement.

Jog back to my apartment. Wheel Alice's wheelchair outside. Wheel it to Clover House. Approach Zach's door. Stop. Stop. Turn around. Ride the elevator down to the basement. Stare at the vending machine. Punch F7. Take the Skittles. Ride the elevator to the second floor. Knock.

Give Zach the Skittles. Listen to him say, “I'll save them for later.”

Help Zach into the chair. Wheel him to the library. To one of the twenty-four-hour study rooms with their plush chairs and humming computers. Pretend to read Escobar's
Territories of Difference.

Realize a response paper is due tomorrow.

Laugh out loud. A literal LOL.

Have people stare; even now, even today, people are studying.

Have Zach stare.

Find yourself unable to stop laughing.

Excuse yourself.

Go to the bathroom. Hear pant pocket beep. Ignore it. Sit in a stall. Read the graffiti on the paper towel dispenser. Someone has drawn a rather hairy pair of balls.

Remember the director's words.

There are Michelangelos here. Michelangelos and Sapphos.

Laugh out loud again.

Say, “So only Michelangelos deserve to live?”

Flush the toilet for the hell of it.

Step out of the stall and run hands through warm water. A boy looks back from inside the mirror. He is stuck.

Back in the twenty-four-hour room.

Listen to Zach say, in a whisper, “How do you think they'll do it? When they save us. They'll probably nuke it.”

Not know what to tell him.

Say, “It helps to have someone like Marty write the right words out for you.”

You are making no sense.

You are aware of this.

At a few minutes past eleven, when the library is mostly
deserted, bring Zach up to the top floor, to a window that leads out onto the roof. Pants beep again. Ignore them. The window is locked.

Carry a nearby chair to the window. Lift it overhead.

Bring it down, once, twice.

Listen to the tinkle of glass. Listen to an alarm go off.

Pick Zach up, out of the wheelchair.

Almost trip. Step through the window. Hit head.

Sharp, throbbing pain.

Nearly drop him. His hands around your neck. Foreheads inches apart. Lips inches apart, yours cracked and bleeding from leprosy, his perfect and smooth. The alarm, blaring.

Step, step, step.

Drop to knees a few feet away from the edge. Put him down.

Listen to the alarm.

Want to speak.

Have nothing to say.

Force yourself. “Do you want Apep to hit?”

He doesn't answer right away. Then, “I don't know. Oh kid, what do I know? You know what I want? I want the government to blow it apart. I want them to blow it out of the sky. I want them to save us all. I want a light show, fireworks. That would be a great last memory. I couldn't save anyone, but maybe they can save me.”

The sound of plastic ripping. An outstretched hand. “Here,” he says. He gives me three yellows in a row.

I eat them, and say, “I hate yellows.”

“I know. You scrunch up your face. It was always a mystery to me, Noah, why you were so fond of me.”

Knots in my throat, my chest.

“I'm not,” I say. “I'm just really good at answering texts.”

“Ouch,” he says. “I suppose I deserve it. God, I suppose I deserve worse.” He glances over the edge of the roof.

“Why did you give me a yellow if you knew I hated yellows?”

“I don't know,” he says with a weary sigh, and it feels like he's accepted something. “I think you've always wanted something from me I couldn't give, kid. I think you've always thought I was someone I wasn't.”

“I think you're the best,” I say. “You helped me with my room, and you showed me that squirrel because you felt bad. We raced in the rain. You gave me your shirt. You started Polo and you were there for Melanie and you're always so kind. I like everything about you.”

I want to tell him about how he brushed his finger through my hair, that small, intimate gesture. A friend does not brush a friend's hair.

“God,” he says.

“So why do you always have to do things like—give me the yellows?”

“The world's about to be blown apart and all you can think about—”

“It wasn't just me,” I say. “Was it?”

Because it matters more than ever if what I felt was real, if what I felt was returned, especially if the world is about to be blown apart. If all this time I've been living in a fantasy, then I might as well just off and vanish.

“Check the time,” he says, scanning the night above.

The alarm's still blaring.

“I know you felt something,” I say.

“Check the time, Noah.”

I do.

There is a minute and a half left.

I tell him so.

There is a minute left.

I tell him so.

There are forty-five seconds left.

I tell him so.

Our eyes are set on the sky, and the stars in the sky, Peter and Wendy and beyond them the stars we'll never see, even in the night, as we wait for the great tragic powers of the world to reveal themselves.

There are twenty seconds.

“You're not going to respond?”

There are ten seconds.

I put a hand on his shoulder. “Why won't you tell me?”

He brushes my hand off, looks at me sadly. “I don't want to ruin our end of the world. Can't you see that?”

There are five seconds.

And four.

And three.

And two.

And one.

We wait.

We wait.

We wait.

“Maybe they were wrong,” I say eventually.

And then we see it.

A red streak in the sky.

“They're going to do it,” Zach says, watching, his mouth hanging open. We wait to be saved, for that red streak to burst into a thousand smaller ones.