“I should go,” she said. “But do me a favor.”
“What’s that?” he said.
“Wake up. Your daughter needs you.”
I watched her walk to her Jeep. I could just make out the bumper stickers.MY OTHER CAR IS A BIKE, read one. Another said,COMPOST HAPPENS. A larger one read simply:GREENER PASTURES.
Grace rolled down her window and turned on the ignition. My father’s mouth was slack. Grace put the Jeep into gear, backed out of the driveway, and coasted down the road with her windows open. I watched her hair swirl around in the wind. And even after her car was out of sight, blocked by a neighbor’s hedge, I could still see her red and white boat cutting a wake through the air.
5
Dear Jonah,
If you want the world to wonder if you have completely lost your shit, your best bet is to jump into a lake fully clothed.
That will get the job done for you pretty quick. It is also a great way to pick up a yeast infection, I’ve heard. I’ll keep you updated on that front should new details become available (about my vagina).
Also, in case you are in some afterlife with Wi-Fi, I just thought you should know that my plan to cut off communication with you has not only failed but also resulted in a temporary lockdown. In fact, as I write this, I am currently in a state of exile in the office/guest room with only a few of my father’s oldPlayboys from the late 1980s to keep me company.
Briefly on that topic: I can’t help mentioning that the amount of pubic hair I have seen in all of my existence hasjust gone up 80 percent in the last two hours. If I ever fall asleep again, I’ll probably see it in my dreams.
Sorry. I’ll move on.
You might be wondering, at this point, how I’m writing this at all. Especially since I told you (telepathically) I was chucking my computer into a lake. The answer is simple:
I have temporarily commandeered my father’s ancient PC, which looks suspiciously like the one I used to study “keyboarding” with Mrs. Hopkins in elementary school.
This computer is slow, but so is my brain, so we have found a kind of harmony. And now that I’ve found you again, maybe I should get to the point.
The point is this: When I haven’t been having a series of mini panic attacks and/or staring at the wall, I’ve been thinking about an article you sent me once from a tech magazine.
This article was about death. A subject I’ve been thinking a lot about recently. And it projected that someday, in the not-too-distant future, we will all be able to upload our minds to computers as a form of life extension.
Basically we’ll create an e-us, made of virtual DNA, and then, as long as the power doesn’t run out, we will neverever die. We will live on, alongside cat videos and the mean comments at the bottom of celebrity profiles.
At the time, this idea gave me the creeps so bad I had to watch videos of baby sloths falling off things for a half hour just to cleanse my thoughts. Now I’m not sure what to think. Maybe it’s not so crazy to have a backup copy in case something happens to the original.
Maybe we’re too careless with our first lives.
Let me state for the record that there are a number of questions I would like to ask you regarding your recent nonexistence. But to start listing all of them at this point would make this message at least a hundred pages longer. You see, you have effed me up in a number of significant ways. So, maybe I’ll just ask this one:
Is this your backup copy, Jonah? Or am I truly just talking to myself?
Awaiting answer,
Tess
6
It was two in the morning when I finally gave up on sleep.
I had spent the last half hour listening to my father toss and turn in his huge bed across the hall. Another, kinder me might have tried to convince him that I wasn’t completely losing my mind and that everything was going to be all right. Unfortunately, I am not another kinder me. I am just regular shitty me. And, even in the best of times, I have serious doubts about my own sanity and whether anything can ever truly be all right.
Also, my dad sleeps in the nude.
So, there you go.
It had taken him two full hours to come up to my room after Grace was gone. From what I could tell, he just sat in the driveway before that, talking on his phone. Probably with my mom. My back-assward life is the only thing that keeps them in contact anymore. If they didn’t have my many problems to discuss they probably wouldn’t even speak to each other.
