Eunice’s gaze had weakened, and the light had gone out of her eyes, those twin black orbs usually charged with an irrepressible mandate of anger and desire.
“Are you following all this?” I said. “Maybe we should stop.”
“I’m listening,” she half-whispered.
“But are you understanding?” I said.
“I’ve never really learned how to read texts,” she said. “Just to scan them for info.”
I let out a small, stupid laugh.
She started to cry.
“Oh, baby,” I said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to laugh. Oh, baby.”
“Lenny,” she said.
“Even I’m having trouble following this. It’s not just you. Reading is difficult. People just aren’t meant to read anymore. We’re in a post-literate age. You know, a visual age. How many years after the fall of Rome did it take for a Dante to appear? Many, many years.”
I blubbered on like this for a few minutes. She went to the living room. Alone, I threw The Unbearable Lightness of Being across the room. I wanted to tear it to pieces. I touched my chin, still wet with her. I wanted to run out of the apartment, into the impoverished Manhattan night. I missed my parents. In times of trouble, the weak seek the strong.
In the living room, Eunice had opened up her äppärät and was concentrating on the last shopping page stored in its memory before communications collapsed. I could see she had instinctively opened a LandOLakes Credit Payment stream, but every time she tried to input her account info, she ended up throwing her head back as if stung. “I can’t buy anything,” she said.
“Eunice,” I said. “You don’t have to buy anything. Go to bed. We don’t have to read anymore. We don’t have to ever read again. I promise. How can we read when people need our help? It’s a luxury. A stupid luxury.”
When the morning light was at full blast, Eunice finally curled up next to me, covered in sweat, defeated. We ignored the morning and we ignored the day. We ignored the following day as well. But when I woke up on the third day, the heat raking its way through the opened window, she was gone. I ran into the living room; no Eunice. I ran to the lobby. I asked the loitering old people about her whereabouts. I could feel my heart stopping and the blood draining from my feet and hands.
When she finally showed up, twenty hours later (“I went for a walk. I needed to get out of here. It’s not that dangerous, Lenny. I’m sorry if you were worried”), I found myself on my knees in my usual position, begging her to forgive me for some ill-defined sin, praying for her real smile and her companionship, pleading for her never to leave me again.
Aican, aican, aican.
23 OH MY GOD, I’M SUCH A BAD GIRLFRIEND
WAPACHUNG CONTINGENCY EMERGENCY MESSAGE:
Sender: Joshie Goldmann, Post-Human Services, Administrative
Recipient: Eunice Park
Hello there, my darling Ms. Eunice. How’s tricks? Okay, I’ve got to admit, I can’t stop thinking about our little time together last week. I am so totally HOOKED on you. Those twenty-four hours we spent drawing with Monsieur Cohen (ho ho ho, color theory, here we come!), rifling through what’s left of Barneys, oysters at the Staatling canteen, a little, um, fun in bed, and then doing those stretches together, holy moly, that was like the perfect date. You were so cute when you walked into my apartment. I can’t believe how your hands were shaking. I’m still picking up the glass shards off the floor (how did you manage to break TWO glasses?), but that’s okay, because it just shows how real you are. Thank you, Eunice, for making me feel FINE and limber and ready to hit the ground running. And thanks for picking out all those clothes. You’re right, there was something a little hippie-ish about the way I used to dress, and my mustache HAD to go. Over and done with. My only prob is that I miss you sooo much already. Can we do this again soon? Can we do this again like permanently? I can’t seriously see my life go on without the little patter of your feet by my bedside. And I’ve got a lot of living to do, ha ha.
Well, it IS a big relief to know that your parents and sis are alive and doing as well as anyone else under the circumstances. I’ve passed on the relocation request to Headquarters, but the problem is that, even if they do get your family out of Ft. Lee, where are we going to put them? We’re working out future arrangements with the IMF and I think the idea is to rebuild New York as a kind of “Lifestyle Hub” where wealthy people can do their thang, spend their money, live forever, blah blah blabbity BLAH. So every inch of space is going to be accounted for, and the prices are going to be absolutely PREMIUM. And the rest of the country’s going to be carved up between a bunch of foreign sovereign wealth funds, with Wapachung Contingency taking over what’s left of the National Guards and the army and doing security support (yay for us!). I’m not sure if the Chinese are going to be “in charge” of New Jersey, or if that’s going to go to Norway or to the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency, but in either case I’m sure things are going to be a lot better and safer than they are now. Tho maybe your sis can learn to wear a burka. Totally kidding. It’s not going to be like that. They just want returns on investment.
Sigh. I miss you. I miss the very SCENT of you. I miss your sweet smiling face and your tight embrace. God, listen to me. Anyway, I might send Lenny on a weekend trip to visit his parents on Long Island (don’t tell him yet, but according to Wap Contingency they survived), which means more quality time for us!!! Mwah! as you like to say. Mwah, my dear, dear Eunice, my brave young love. Isn’t it exciting to be ALIVE these days?
WAPACHUNG CONTINGENCY EMERGENCY MESSAGE:
Sender: Eunice Park
Recipient: Joshie Goldmann, Post-Human Services, Administrative
Joshua,
I got your message. Thanks. Yes, Monsieur Cohen is very interesting. Is he gay, or just French? I’m sorry if I seem to be holding us back in class, I’m such a perfectionist and I really don’t think I’m very good. And if I’m as good as you and M. Cohen say then it’s just a fluke and I’ll come shattering back down to earth pretty soon, you can bet your bottom yuan. My father always said my hands were too weak to be an artist anyway.
I know we spent some good times together and I will remember those hours, but I also feel like a very bad girlfriend to Lenny. And that’s what I am, I’m Lenny’s girlfriend and I love him, and I’m really not able to explore anything more than friendship with you right now.
Thanks for finding out about my parents and sister. I miss my family very much and I wish there was some way to get them to Manhattan or even back to Korea. That’s what I’m concentrating on right now. I’ve been reading some of the old messages from my friend Jenny Kang, the one who disappeared and who you can’t seem to be able to find in Hermosa Beach, and one of the last things she wrote me was “I’m sorry I’m a bad friend and can’t help you with your problems right now. You have to be strong and do whatever you have to do for your family.” See, you don’t have a family. And you never really wanted one from what I can gather. But throughout this whole Rupture thing I guess that’s what I found out about myself, that my family matters the most to me and it always will.
Yours,
Eunice