(And maybe that, finally, is it –)
(Maybe that’s what this has all been –)
(Maybe he never stopped drowning –)
The Driver effortlessly pulls Seth’s hands away from the wound, and though Seth’s brain is telling him to resist, to fight back, he doesn’t have the strength to do anything at all –
He is at the Driver’s mercy –
And the Driver has none to offer –
It leans over him now, raising its arm above Seth, its hand clenching into a fist –
Seth wishes so many things were different, wishes he knew that Regine and Tomasz would be okay, wishes only that he could have stopped the Driver for them –
A line of spikes shoot out from the Driver’s knuckles, sharp and needle-like –
Seth sees sparks start to flash between them, small arcs of electricity casting from one to the other –
This is it, he finds enough strength to think –
This is it –
No –
Bolts of electricity shoot from the Driver’s fist –
For a split second, the pain is worse than should be humanly possible –
And then there is only nothingness.
79
“Eat up,” says his mother, setting the dish in front of him. “It’s not your favorite, but it’s what we have.”
The table where he’s sitting is absurdly long, too long to fit in any normal room, and the clink as she sets the plate down echoes into the milky whiteness beyond. This is no place. No place he’s ever seen. No place that ever existed.
“It’s my favorite,” Owen says, reaching across the table with a spoon and dishing out the steaming hot food onto his own plate.
“Tuna-noodle casserole?” Tomasz says, sitting next to Owen. “I have not heard of this.”
“It’s great!” Owen says, serving some to Tomasz.
“Isn’t that the food you hate most, Seth?” H asks, in the chair next to him.
“Is it?” his father says, down at the end of the table.
“It is, I’m afraid,” Gudmund says, leaning forward on Seth’s right. “I mean, he really, really hates it. Cooked tuna is about the worst taste in the world. And then you mix it with onions –”
“He’s right,” Monica says as Owen spoons some casserole onto her plate, too. “It’s disgusting.”
“And that’s what the Internet age has done for us,” his mother says, sitting down. “Anything you don’t like is automatically disgusting and anyone who may like it themselves is an idiot. So much for a world full of different viewpoints, huh?” She takes a bite. “I think it’s delicious.”
“Taste has become opinion,” his father agrees, picking up a newspaper and opening it. “When any fool knows they’re two different things.”
“Still,” Tomasz says, frowning at his plate, “neither my taste nor my opinion of this is either of them very positive.”
“You can have some of mine,” Gudmund says to Seth, offering his plate, which has the chicken mushroom pasta that’s Seth’s favorite.
“Or mine,” H says, offering the same thing.
“I want to get in on this action,” Monica says, lifting her plate across the table and offering it to Seth as well, the tuna-noodle casserole replaced on her plate with the same pasta.
“I do not have that,” Tomasz says, his own plate now filled with a red savory-smelling mixture of meats and vegetables, “but this is my favorite from when I was a little boy.”
His mother shakes her head. “Everyone thinks they know what’s best. Everyone.”
And then a voice behind him says, “Sometimes you need to find out that you don’t, though.”
He turns. Regine is there, a little away from the table, the light behind her making a silhouette. She is different from the others. Apart. He senses that she’s waiting for something.
Waiting for him somehow.
He squints into the light. “Is that what I’m supposed to find out?” he asks her, his voice raspy, as if it hasn’t been used for years and years and years. “Is that what all of this means?”
Regine steps out of the light and it dims behind her, becomes a swath of stars against a night sky, the Milky Way blazing. She stands in front of him, the same big, awkward Regine he knows her to be.
Except she’s smiling. It’s a don’t-be-an-idiot smile.
“Don’t be an idiot,” she says as the voices behind him fade.
“This isn’t a memory,” he says. “Not like the others.”
“Well, obviously.”
He looks back to the quiet dinner, everyone still eating and talking around one table. All the people he knows. Gudmund glances back at him. And smiles.
“It doesn’t feel like a dream either,” Seth says, his heart aching.
“There you go again,” Regine says, “expecting me to have all the answers for you.”
“Is this death?” He turns to her. “Have I died? At last?”
She just shrugs.
“What am I doing here?” Seth asks her. “What has all this been about?”
“Hell if I know.”
“But haven’t you been leading me somewhere?” He gestures to the room, to the guests at the table again, Gudmund still watching him carefully, a look of concern crossing his face. “What does it all mean?”
Regine chuckles. “Are you serious? Real life is only ever just real life. Messy. What it means depends on how you look at it. The only thing you’ve got to do is find a way to live there.”
She leans down until her face is close to his. “Now, make hay, dickhead. While the sun still shines.”
80
He opens his eyes.
He’s still on the pavement. The Driver is still over him. The sparks still coming from the needles on its fist –
But they’re dying down, dampening, receding.
Stopping.
Seth takes in a breath.
He can take in a breath.
He coughs up some blood and has to spit it messily out –
But he can breathe. His lungs feel wet and heavy, like he has a terrible cold, but they’re working. He breathes again. And once more.
And it’s easier.
“What’s happening?” he asks. “Am I dead?”
The Driver remains motionless. The needle-like protrusions disappear back into its knuckles, but it stays looming over Seth. He tries to scoot away and pain shoots through his rib cage. He puts a hand on the wound –