“I think that is the last of it,” Tomasz says, winding the metallic tape around Seth’s bare stomach, taking care to avoid putting too much pressure on his scar.
It’s taken them some time to get to this point. They cleaned themselves up with the block of dishwashing liquid and cold water, then they’d gone to the supermarket to get some expired painkillers, which they all took in rather too-large quantities. Next, they went by the outdoor store to pick up some boxes of the metallic tape Seth had seen there, and also some scissors, which Regine used to cut off the remaining bits of Tomasz’s hair.
Seth had then started up his coffin. It didn’t seem to be broken like Regine’s. He powered it up and it came to life, asking questions on its screen, some of which even made sense. Seth programmed it in the very basic way he could guess, achieving – after some frustration and with help from Tomasz – a box that read RE-ENTRY PROCESS READY.
He’d changed into shorts, and they’d put bandages around his legs and upper body, agreeing they would only try a test run, “for a count of no more than sixty,” Tomasz had insisted, to see where Seth went in the other world. Brief enough so he wouldn’t need tubes shoved into him and brief enough, too, for him to survive if the worst happened.
Seth doesn’t feel like the worst will happen, though. For once.
“This may not even work, you know,” Regine says, also for the hundredth time. “In fact, it probably won’t.”
“This is an encouraging sign,” Seth says, tapping the light on his neck, which has been blinking a regular green ever since they started up the coffin. “But you’re right, we don’t know.”
“There is only your head left, Mr. Seth,” Tomasz says, holding up the bandages.
“I’ll do it,” Regine says, taking them. She starts to unroll them, then stops. “Seth –”
“Nothing might happen,” he says. “I might never leave here.”
“Or you could wake up at the bottom of the sea and die before we can save you.”
“Or not.”
“Or Tommy and I might not be able to get you back even if it goes all right.”
“But you might.”
“Or you could just want to stay there and forget all about us –”
“Regine,” he says gently, touched beyond words by her concern, “I don’t know what’s going to happen. But I want to find out. And that’s the first time that’s been true in a really long time.”
She looks as if she’s going to keep challenging him.
But she doesn’t.
“Mr. Seth,” Tomasz says, solemnly taking his hand, “I am wishing you very, very good luck. But I am also wishing very, very much that you come back to us.”
“So am I, Tommy,” Seth says, then corrects it to, “Tomasz.”
“Ah,” Tomasz smiles, “this is where I am supposed to say that you can call me Tommy. Except I like the way you say Tomasz and want you to keep on saying it. For many, many years.”
Seth nods at him, then he nods at Regine.
“You’re sure?” she asks, for what he can tell is the final time.
“I am,” he says.
She waits another moment, then she begins to wrap his head in the bandages, placing the first edge on his temple.
“See you soon,” she says, and covers his eyes.
83
Here is the boy, the man, here is Seth, being laid back gently into his coffin, the hands of his friends guiding him into place.
He’s uncertain what’s going to happen next.
But he is certain that that’s actually the point.
If this is all a story, then that’s what the story means.
If it isn’t a story, then the exact same is true.
But as his friends begin the final steps, pressing buttons, answering questions on a screen, he thinks that what is forever certain is that there’s always more. Always.
Maybe Owen died, maybe he didn’t, either way, it had affected his parents more than he ever considered, and maybe it was nothing to do with him.
And there’s Gudmund, too, and H, and even Monica. They’re weak and strong and they make mistakes, like anyone, like he has. And love and care have all kinds of different faces, and within them, there’s room for understanding, and for forgiveness, and for more.
More and more and more.
Sometimes in the shape of other people, surprising people, with unexpected, unimaginable stories of their own. People who looked at the world in a completely different way and by doing so, made it different.
People who could turn out to be friends.
And he doesn’t know what will happen when those friends press the final sequence. He doesn’t know where he’ll wake up. Here. Or there. Or some third place, even more unexpected than this one. Because who can say in the end that any one of these places is more real than any other?
But whatever happens, whatever comes, he knows he can live with it.
And now it’s time. There’s a silence he can tell is expectation.
“Are you ready?” his friends ask him.
He thinks, Yes.
He thinks, Go in swinging.
And he says, “I’m ready.”