All This Life

It’s poetic, Albert, I’ll give you that, it makes sense to trigger me with the scattering of ashes since our mission is to keep the world uncremated, and once I see the man throw the ashes up into the wind, I know I need to move to that precise spot. It’s where the portal will open, this woman will move away from this world and once she’s gone, you will materialize. I’m so curious to see what you’ll look like. I’m excited to shake your hand. This woman doesn’t seem to know what’s coming, she moves next to me, clutching her purse. I steer her with a hand on her forearm, but she’s not squawking or fighting me at all and the greenhouse gas of human sadness is almost over.

I’m so curious to see what you’ll look like.

23

There’s the issue of Jake’s bit rate. How many bits of his pathos can be processed per second. How it can be compressed to travel faster. How he is inflamed with anger and betrayal, how he feels so dumb for expecting to see a congregation of his followers. They said they’d be here. They told him that. They promised. But the only guy standing at the railing holds some dusty bag and he is crying and Jake wants his people, his friends. He hates being lied to and he’s stupid for thinking his followers were real. They were like him, sitting in front of their computer or phone, and they never wanted to meet the real Jake. They don’t care. He’s alone and he’s so tired of believing and being let down. He just wants one follower to show, one real breathing human to care.

All these compressed emotions and he needs to express them, needs to jettison some of the spam coursing through him, delete it, throw it away. How can he get rid of all the noise?

Jake needs a multimedia projection of his sadness, including audio and video, meaning motor control, meaning breathing, meaning facial expressions, meaning talking, meaning corresponding body language, then he needs to make sure his veins — those Ethernet cables under his skin — are capable of transferring all that data quickly enough.

Like how an HD DVD has 29.4 Mbit/s. That would be ideal.

Because now there is one follower standing in front of him: his dad. Jake needs to interact with his dad, seeing as how Paul screams at him, “What are you doing?”

Jake keeps near the edge.

“Will you step away from the railing?” a guy says, someone even fatter than his dad, someone in a cheap suit.

“Are you another therapist?” Jake says.

“I’m a police officer.”

“Am I in trouble?”

“The opposite,” Esperanto says.

Jake pauses, wondering what exactly is the opposite of trouble. Pleasure? Happiness? Peace? Siri would know.

“Stay away from me,” says Jake. “I have to do something.”

“LET’S STOP,” SAYS Wes.

There are so many people around them that Kathleen can’t figure out why she’s not screaming. Someone would help. That’s what happens. People help each other. Get out one syllable, one simple noise. Yell like Felix did over the phone. Talk like Rodney. Choke out any sound.

Instead, she does as she’s told, stopping.

“Your hand,” he says.

“Huh?”

Finally, she makes a noise. That wasn’t so hard. Make another. Make the same. Do it louder. Save your life.

“Give me your hand,” says Wes.

•••

THIS IS WORSE than falling off the balloon because at least Rodney did that to himself. This is his mom. This is his mom who needs his help but his foot can’t go more than a mile per hour and he’s embarrassed and she needs him and he’s letting her down and he’s trying, Mom, he’s trying his best, he trudges on with his broken foot, every now and again he tries to run but the pain is too much.

Balloon Boy is a bone, and a bone is a bomb, and its ignition in his foot blasts through him, up his leg like a chimney, ringing through his chest cavity, blazing in his guts.