The lights go out, come on again. The bulbs start to flicker like strobe lights in a disco. Then, it’s black as night. The kids scream inconsolably in the darkness. We are in the depths of hell. I have no choice anymore. Either we wait to die here or we go back down to the restaurant. I don’t hesitate for long, it’s too awful to stay put.
“Come on, sweethearts, we’re going back downstairs.”
They cry even harder. I grip their hands tightly and we stand up. Lourdes shakes her head, she prefers to stay here. We hug her for a long moment. She takes off her Windows on the World lapel badge and proffers it like a relic.
“See you; if not here, then somewhere…”
“Bless you, Carthew. With your two little angels beside you.”
“You sure you don’t want to come back down?”
“Pray for me. When they come open the door and I’ll come get you. Go on, now, git!”
And we leave her, sitting in the dark, beautiful as the world.
Passing the offices of Windows, I find an iBook hooked up to the Internet. I make the most of it to type an email to Candace as fast as I can without rereading or correcting the typos. “Canda, you cheated on me because you thought I wasn’t serious. So what? It’s not important you body doesn’t beloing to me. The only thing that belongs to us is our loneliness, and you interrupted mine with your cheeerfullness, your pink lips, your sadness, your shaved vagina. I was scarend to say ‘I love you.’ But I wasd a poor schumk not to take you seroiusly. I’ve found my only memeories are of you. Candae, try to forgibve me. I am going to die here, I’m getting weaker every minute and you can save me, when I rememerber us, I can see that I was trying to eb someone else, I was playing a part, I don’t know what I wanted frmom you, for you to touch me, but you aved me, you came into my life to late, I’d already done everything, I didn’t give you the space you deserved, I don’t know where to start, but I’ve gotan excuse it’s because I was dying, Don’t forget your Carthe.” Okay, that’s what I should have liked to write if I’d had the time. The email she received was shorter: “I loved U. C.Y.”
I step over an upended pile of CD-ROMs, a shelf has collapsed and the office craft knives are scattered over the linoleum.