Girlfriend in a Coma by Douglas Coupland

Author:Douglas Coupland
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Canada, Fiction
ISBN: 9780061624254
Publisher: Regan
Published: 1997-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Karen jokes with Richard that her bedroom is a jail cell with Lois as warden. "It's her dream situation, Richard. I'm her dietary lab rat. No chance of escape." She bites her knuckles. "There must be something karma-ish about this. I might as well be a newborn."

"We'll break you out of here soon enough."

"As if."

"Don't be so negative."Richard is happier than he's ever been, juggling Karen and his TV

work. Hamilton and Pam are happy enough, too, juggling work with Narcotics Anonymous meetings and clinic visits. They live in a bedroom cocoon of un-rewound VCR tapes, rancid yogurt containers, empty prescription bottles, color-coded vitamin jars, half-eaten meals, lipsticked napkins, stained blankets, and half-read magazines and books. Wendy oversees their recovery.

Richard, looking at all of their lives from a distance, sees the recurring pattern here, the one mentioned on a rainy poker night months ago - a pattern in which the five of his friends seem destined always to return to their quiet little neighborhood. Karen notices this, too. What she doesn't tell Richard, though, is that in a strange way her old friends aren't really adults - they look like adults but inside they're not really. They're stunted; lacking something. And they all seem to be working too hard. The whole world seems to be working too hard. Karen seems to remember leisure and free time as being important aspects of life, but these qualities seem utterly absent from the world she now sees in both real life and on TV. Work work work work work work work.

Look at this! Look at this'. People are always showing Karen new electronic doodads. They talk about their machines as though they possess a charmed religious quality - as if these machines are supposed to compensate for their owner's inner failings. Granted, these new things are wonders - e-mail, faxes, and cordless phones - but then still . . . big deal.

"Hamilton, but what about you - are you new and improved and faster and better, too? I mean, as a result of your fax machine?"

"It's swim or drown, Kare. You'll get used to them."

"Oh, will I?"

"It's not up for debate. We lost. Machines won."

After life has calmed down somewhat - after the initial flushes of wonder have pulsed and gone, Richard waits until he and Karen have the house alone - a cold gray overcast afternoon day hinting at snow but unwilling to deliver."Karen," he gently asks, "do you remember the letter you gave me?"

"Letter?"

"Yeah. The envelope. That night up Grouse. I was supposed to give it to you the next day unless something happened - which it obviously did."

"Yeah." She mulls this over. "I remember. You never mentioned it. I thought you'd left it unopened, that it was forgotten."

Richard pulls Karen's letter from its envelope where it has lived for nearly two decades, removed every so often for confirmation of its existence. "Here." He hands it to Karen.

December 15 ... 6 Days to Hawaii!!!

Note: Call Pammie about beads for corn-rowing hair. Also, arrange streaking.

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