Free Girlfriend in a coma by Douglas Coupland

attention to the main subject. I think we thought daily of avoiding tribulations - and of avoiding loss.
    The train passed. Our ears throbbed with the silence. We stood up and somberly walked out to the tunnel's entrance and into the rain.We climbed into Linus's van and drove over to see Megan. I hoped Lois would be gracious and permit four new godparents to share in Megan's adoration.
    Linus asked, "Three months old - does she speak yet?"
    "No, goofball," said Hamilton, "she's too busy generating random numbers to speak." I nodded. "I do hate to say this, but poor little Megan really is going to grow up to resemble me wearing a Bumhead wig."
"I didn't know you and Karen were, uh, doing it," said Hamilton. "I mean, if you were, it was one heckuva secret."
"Go figure," I said, then we drove off, everybody yacking and except for me catching up on life. I was remembering Karen saying, "Are we gonna do it or what?" Remembering the delicate birds and butterflies and flowers that passed between our bodies. I was remembering her determination that last day that she was awake. Would she have been like that always? Or had she known time was running out? Was she trying to squish as much into a day as she could?
    That month I had read a science fiction story, Childhood's End. In it, the children of Earth conglomerate to form a master race that dreams together, that collectively moves planets. This made me wonder, what if the children of Earth instead fragmented, checked out, had their dreams erased and became vacant? What if instead of unity there was atomization and amnesia and comas? This was the picture posited by Karen: She saw something in her mind - in between the smaller bikini and the itty-bitty bits of Valium, in between putting on a down coat or a ski boot one cold winter day, or maybe turning a TV channel or rounding a corner in her Honda. She saw a picture, however fragmentary, that told her that tomorrow was not a place she wanted to visit - that the future is not a place in which to be. This is what haunted me - the thought that maybe she was right.
    9 Even More Real Than You
    Half a year after giving birth to Megan, Karen was moved permanently to a room of her own in a local nursing home then called Inglewood Lodge. On her bedside table sat moisturizers, costume jewelry, a wooden hair brush, Kleenex in a pink ruffled box, birthday cards rigorously kept up to date, framed family photos, stuffed animals (one Garfield cat, two teddy bears, one polar bear), books for visitors The Best of Life and JonathanLivingstonSeagull - plus a dieffenbachia vine that eventually colonized the entire room. Her radio was frequently left on for hours at a time. Karen's "day" would technically begin near midnight when her body would be turned over by lifting her up from her "intermittent pressure" anti-bedsore mattress. At this same time, her garments would be inspected to see if they required changing. Karen would be rolled over two more times between midnight and 6:00 A.M.; as well, her mouth would be brushed with a soft toothbrush then swabbed with a flavored sponge; Vaseline would be applied to her lips.
Twice a week in the morning Karen would have a proper bath, during which time she would have "range of motion" exercises shoulder, arm, extensors, abductors, and all joints flexed by a nurse's aide. On other days she had sponge baths and motion exercises.
During Karen's awake cycles, food from inside a suspended bag would be gravity-fed into her stomach through a J-tube (jiugiostomy tube) that was permanently attached to a valve near her belly button.
After being clothed in special front-only garments, Karen would be placed into a geriatric wheelchair with a buttocks pad and a device to hold her head up straight. She would attend all breakfasts, lunches, and dinners held at the lodge, as well as special events such as films and birthday parties and even a church service that was usually, but not always, held on Sunday. In between meals