25 2000 IS SILLY

"The Queen is dead."

"Go on," Richard says.

Karen continues: "The two princes are wearing blackout sunglasses. The Queen's body is being lowered into a grave. Only a few people are looking through the palace fence. It's dark out—and raining. The grave is all muddy."

Silence.

"Karen, do you really have to wear that paper bag over your head?"

"It's not just one paper bag, Richard, it's three bags. I can't see my visions properly if there's even one speck of light hitting my face. Even candlelight. It's a recognized paranormal fact."

"You look like a joke wearing it."

"Yeah, a real triple-bagger, Richard."

"Richard," Hamilton says, "could you please shut up? Let Karen speak."

"Hamilton, stop being an alpha male for just one second and let Karen alone."

"Hey, Wendy, excuse me for being so interested in what is decidedly one great big dung heap of a situation. I thought you were asleep."

"I'm not going to sleep through this situation no matter how tired I am."

"He's right, Wen," Pam says, "this is an extremely not good situation. "

''''Quiet, everybody. If you want me to tell you what I can see, then be quiet. Could you all put your personalities on hold for just two minutes?"

Karen is trying to describe the collapse of the world to her friends, who are masking their fear with funeral giggles—a protective, ironic coating. "Okay. Let me see—Pam, did I just hear you yawn?"

Pam jumps: "Yawn? No! Tired? Not at all." The group is petrified of yawning, physical comfort, and anything that might make them restful or sleepy. Their coffee is strong.

"Karen," Hamilton says, "do you have a little list of who makes it and who doesn't?"

"You're being facetious, Hamilton. I don't have a list. And I don't know where my information comes from."

"Hmmm. I think Mr. Liver needs a drink."

"Can we get on with this?" Richard asks.

"Richard, please remove the paper bags from my head. I don't know if this is a good time for me to trance. You people have to stop thinking I have this huge Scoreboard in my head with constant information spewing out that I'm not telling you. It's not like that. I tell you facts whenever I can."

The rooms goes silent. "I need a break. Linus, can you turn on the generator again? Let's scan the radio and watch that CNN tape again."Linus activates the Honda generator and Karen's house on Rabbit Lane regains electric light. The radio squawks out only predictable news: Every human activity has shut down—hospitals, dams, the military, malls. All machines are turned off. Once again, they watch the CNN VHS tapes Karen recorded earlier that afternoon before the power failed. The tape plays and again Pam and Hamilton blanch as they see the images they witnessed in stereo last Halloween play themselves out on screen: Dallas; India; Florida … They have no idea what to make of them.

Sleep that night is dodgy. Helicopters buzz the trees; a military jet strafes the mountain then crashes somewhere down near Park Royal. Blankets and duvets are brought downstairs and the fire is stoked and everybody camps there. Unspoken is the agreement to not display fear. Yet in spite of the fear, Richard is excited by the fantastic changes of the day. They all are. Richard remembers a few years ago on the Port Mann bridge where he witnessed a five-car pileup coming the other way—that same combination of being special and thrilled. He remembers being the only child in his third-grade class not to get a flu one year.

Before lights out, Linus asks for helpers to collect water samples to check with the Geiger counter. Shadows of neighbors can be seen walking out in the rain while the quacking sound of ostriches can be heard down the block.

Karen remembers the exact point of the day when the Great Change began. She'd been sitting alone in the TV room waiting for the noon news rotation on CNN. She was feeling partially angry, restless, and bored, as well as somewhat silly over telling Richard not to go to California.

"Karen, stop beating yourself up over this," Richard had said during one of the many arguments on the subject. "Nothing's going to happen. If I don't go to Los Angeles, then I'm just enabling your paranoia."

"Huh?" Karen remembered that modern people occasionally lapse into a strange jargon of emotional claptrap and hooey. "Richard, I'm only telling you what I saw and heard in my heart.""Please, Karen, don't make this any harder—please."

And so Richard went to Los Angeles. Lois had gone out shopping and George was down at the auto shop; Megan was out with Jenny; and the gang were all out in the world on the one day she knew they oughtn't be.

Chilly, she wore three sweaters and a pair of Richard's gray work socks; her legs that morning were sore and hard to move. She was listlessly watching CNN while trying to unscrew a coffee thermos, at which point the TV screen fuzzed into snow and then flared a brilliant white. She looked up and dropped the thermos. Other lamps in the TV room as well as the kitchen pulsed brightly then browned out while the entire house bumped and wavered as though it were an improperly docking boat.

"It's you," Karen said. "You. You're finally here."

Yes.

To her right, the glass patio door jiggled as she watched its hook unlatch itself—clack. With a rusty dry squeaking, the glass slid across its floor runner and the rain blew a cluster of brown leaves inside. Karen began to caterpillar her body across the room, a throw rug caught on her numb senseless legs like sacks of potatoes strapped onto her waist. Brisk wet air and rain slapped her face as she neared the sliding door. Oh God, the glass is so heavy. Go away. A tug of war began between herself and the door's mass.

Show yourself, Karen said, her weak spindly hands aching as she pushed the door closed ever so slowly. Why'd you do this? Why'd you take my youth? Go away. I know you're here. That should be enough.

She was crying, her face wet, her hands red, feeling as though the tendons were peeling like ribbons from her bones. With a final jolt, the door slammed shut and she fell exhausted onto the linoleum's ancient daisies. There. And then came a crash from the outside, like a tackled football player, oomph, the sliding door's glass shattering into a spider's web lace, a million tiny shards in a fraction of a second—yet only a few tiny shards tinkling out from the middle, allowing the wind to whistle through the small remaining hole. Karen screamed and thenwent silent, laid back on the floor, stared at the ceiling, and waited for what could only be bad news. She grabbed a cool, soft cushion that had fallen from the couch and used it to calm her eyes, holding it over her face. The TV resumed its babbling in the background; Karen found the remote button and began recording a tape.

She thinks: I had so little time to enjoy the world and now it's soon to be over. I don't want to live in what this world is about to become. I yearn to leave my body. I yearn to leave this life quickly and cleanly, as though falling into a mine shaft. I want to climb a mountain—any mountain—and put the world behind me, and when I reach the top turn into a piece of the sun. My body is so weak and scrawny. I miss holding things. I miss wiggling my toes and I miss my period. I never held Megan as a baby.

She thinks: I used to ski once. The sky would be so cold it ached, but I was warm and I sped down the snow like a dancer. I used to jump and twirl. And I've never complained until now—not once. But I wanted to enjoy the world a bit more—just a little bit more.

She can hear a helicopter overhead and booms from downtown. It's happening quickly, isn't it?

She closes her eyes and she sees things—images of blood and soil mixed together like the center of a Black Forest cake; Grand Canyons of silent office towers. Houses, coffins, babies, cars, brooms, and bottle caps all burning and draining into the sea and dissolving like candies. There's a reason for this, she's sure. She sees a convenience store in Texas, and a black-and-white monitor camera shows two children lying on the floor covered in slush drinks. She sees a nerve gas explosion at Tooele, Utah, a yellow ghost rising to haunt the continent. She sees work cubicles—an office in Sao Paolo, Brazil, yellow sticky notes falling like leaves from a tree onto the carpeting.