"Oh excuse me, Glinda, Good Witch of the North," Hamilton interrupts, "You mean all this time we've been marooned on this slag heap all we had to do was go stand around the hospital?"

"No, Hamilton. The offer's only good as of now. C'mon, Karen, it's time to leave."

"But wait, Jared," Richard says. "You didn't fully answer my question—okay, so Karen goes back into her coma. I repeat my question—what happens if we stop questioning—what happens if we stop looking for good questions and good answers?"

"Then you come back here."

"Yeah?"

"And you stay here." I let this sink in. "Ready to go, Karen? It's almost dark out."

"Wait!" Linus shouts, "We've lost something—and I don't know what it is we've gained in the process."

The lights above us dazzle. I say, "Linus, there are three things we cry for in life—things that are lost, things that are found, and things that are magnificent. You've got all three this evening."

The lights, dazzle as they will, are silent. "Karen," I repeat, "It's game time.""Go where?" Richard asks, his voice sandpaper dry with desperation. "Now what?"

"Karen needs to walk up the mountain," I say, "and she needs to take Jane with her. When she reaches the top, the world will return and Jane will be born on the same date as before."

Richard says, "Jared, shit, no. You can't—her legs—"

"My legs are fine, Richard. Stop treating me like porcelain. I'm strong. The die's cast." One by one Karen bids good-bye to the others as Richard stands beside her, trying to catch her eyes.

"Pammie—Hamilton: we'll have drinks some day. Okay? With the Duchess of Windsor and Jimi Hendrix—and we'll laugh at this past year. And Pam?—always speak your mind, and Hamilton—always say whatever's truest. Don't be afraid of being kind." Hamilton and Pam look grief stricken. "Please guys—it's for the best. I'll always be dreaming of you and maybe you of me." Hurried hugs, as though a train is leaving, which it is. She moves along: "Wendy—Linus—you know this is true—this is all for the better. And I'm counting on you guys to change the world."

"Karen—"

"This is odd," Karen says, "I feel like I'm an astronaut before takeoff. Maybe you guys can think of it that way. Look at this as glorious and exciting. It's a launch—think of it that way, each of us reaching a new world once again. Megan?" She approaches Megan whose eyes are overflowing into Jane's wool sweater. "You're a good daughter, Megan. You're a smart kid. You're a good mother. You're a good friend. I wouldn't have wanted anybody else to be my kid."

"Mom?"

Karen kisses Jane. "She's beautiful. I'm glad you can know how much I love you."

"She—she goes with you now?"

"Sorry, sweetie. Just for the time being. You'll meet again come September."

"But."

Karen holds Jane and comes to Richard. "Richard—Beb, I'll stilllove you, even in my sleep, and in my dreams I'll—" she pauses. "We never did get married, did we?"

"No. We didn't."

"Well then, in my dreams we'll be married."

"No—"

"Yeah. Yes. Yes, we will." A final kiss. "Bye." She turns to me: "Hey, Jared. I think you made the cut."

I touch my heart and remove a glowing spark from it. I take the spark and place it inside Karen's chest and say, "Touchdown."

Karen turns and walks away from the group, across the dam toward the mountain's base, her body like a doodle on a telephone book. "I'm glad I woke up," she shouts. "The world is so pretty and the future was so interesting. But I'll be awake inside my dreaming. I'll be dreaming of you all. Good night, everyone!"

Then there's silence. I look at those who remain, frozen by the speedy sequence of life and its action. "The rest of you, it's time for you to go. Wendy, Linus and Megan, Ham and Pam—you walk to the hospital. Richard, you walk down into the canyon. Once you reach your places, please sit and stay. Once Karen reaches the apex you will have your world again."

I pause. "Good-bye, men. Good-bye, women. Think of me."

"Good-bye, Jar—"

And then I'm gone, sunk down into the dam's concrete, leaving their lives for the time being. But I have my own secret job. I'm a part of Plan B, too. My job is to stay here on this blank and now empty Earth and traipse its unholy carcass for years and years—decades, even—for as long as Karen remains in her coma. That's the choice I had to make. I'd do it again.

God.

So it looks as if I'll be running the streets here naked for the next fifty years. Reading a bit of porn; watching a few tapes. Tomorrow it may rain spiders or it may rain battery acid—I'll still be here. And no dates for a few decades except for Miss Fist; don't blame me if I crack.

I can see the others now as I feel my own life pulling away fromtheirs. Megan and Linus are sitting in the waiting area as the outside sky flickers hot and white. The hospital lobby is littered with countless leathery skeletons, but neither these bones nor the clanging silence bothers them.

"I still feel pregnant," Megan says. "Jane's still here. Four hours old. She's a clump of cells now, like a basketball, like bread dough— imagine that, Linus."

Down a hallway, something clanks.

"Look at all these people," Linus says. "They'll be real people soon."

Megan's face relaxes. "Funny how used to them we got—Leakers, I mean. I don't think of them as monsters anymore."

"Me neither."

"We're friends now, aren't we, Linus?"

"Yup."

"Are you scared about our new lives?"

"Yup."

"But there's no other choice, is there?"

"I don't think there ever was."

Over in the ruins of the Intensive Care unit, Wendy stands beside both Hamilton and Pam, who are resting on two gurneys They're silent. What is their fate? How will their lives be changed?

"The room's a bit dark," Pam says.

"Do you want more flashlights on?" Hamilton asks, reaching over to swat one of a dozen emergency flashlights placed on their bottoms, shining up into the dusty air at the trolley's end.

"No. It's okay. It doesn't scare me anymore. Darkness, I mean."

"I know what you mean," Hamilton says.

"And look at the beams," Pam says, "The way they cut through the dust. They're like pillars, aren't they? Aren't they, Wendy?"

A catafalque of skeletons encircles the room; Wendy nervously taps steel forceps onto a stainless steel tray and she feels extremely old. "Yeah," she says. "They are."

Karen meanwhile limps and hobbles up the rock mountainside lit by the sky which is committing suicide above. She'll reach the top.The walls of her heart are as thin as rice paper and her breath as frail as dandelion puffs. From there she'll once more leave the waking world.

She speaks out loud to herself, unaware that the others will also hear the words. She looks down from the slope at the burnt forests and the lost suburbs.

"You guys just wait and see. We'll stand taller than these mountains. We'll bare open our hearts for the world to grab. We'll see lights where before there was dimness. We'll testify together to what we have seen and felt.

"Life will go on—all of us—crawling; stumbling, falling perhaps. But we will be the strong ones. Our hearts will shine brightly. We will forever be crossing the goal line."

Down in the canyon, Richard's heels sink into mud and loam and fungus and mouse holes as he crumbles down the hill. His body falls and lunges the same as always, like the times as a child he carried sockeye salmon sandwiches down to the salmon hatcheries for lunch. The soil is soft and warm, like an old shirt, like moist wedding cake. Focus ahead, Richard: jettison everything. Leap forward. You have a mission.

A bird's trill…

Quartz …

A green leaf …

A bruised knee …

His breath is a small wisp—a thought of a thought of a thought.

On the river he locates the spot where he sat on the rocks that strange November morning. He sits and rests his head on a smooth boulder. He lies there as Karen reaches the apex, where she finds a dusty rock onto which she hoists herself and Jane. The air is cool and scratchy. She breathes in deeply.