Free Zero K by Don DeLillo

that they were street anarchists of an earlier era, quietly dedicated to plotting local outrages or larger insurrections, all shaped by their artistic skills, and then I found myself wondering if they were married. Yes, to sisters. I saw them walking in a wooded area, all four, the brothers ahead, then the sisters ahead, a family custom, a game, the distance between the couples coolly measured and carefully maintained. In my half-mad imagining it would be five meters. I made it a point to measure in meters, not in feet or yards.
    Lars dropped his arms, the pause ended, the twins resumed speaking.
    â€œSome of you may be back here as well. To witness the passage of loved ones. And of course you’ve begun to consider what such a passage might be like for yourselves, one day, each of you, when the time comes.”
    â€œWe understand that some of the things we’ve been saying here today may act as disincentives. This is okay. This is the simple truth of our perspective. But do this. Think of money and immortality.”
    â€œHere you are, collected, convened. Isn’t this what you’ve been waiting for? A way to claim the myth for yourselves. Life everlasting belongs to those of breathtaking wealth.”
    â€œKings, queens, emperors, pharaohs.”
    â€œIt’s no longer a teasing whisper you hear in your sleep. This is real. You can think beyond the godlike touch of fingertip billions. Take the existential leap. Rewrite the sad grim grieving playscript of death in the usual manner.”
    This was not a sales pitch. I didn’t know what this was, a challenge, a taunt, a thrust at the vanity of the moneyed elect or simply an attempt to tell them what they’ve always wanted to hear even if they didn’t know it.
    â€œIsn’t the pod familiar to us from our time in the womb? And when we return, at what age will we find ourselves? Our choice, your choice. Just fill in the blanks on the application form.”
    I was tired of all this dying and stood away from the viewing slot. But there was no escaping the sound of voices, the brothers reciting a series of Swedish or Norwegian words and then another series of Norwegian or Danish words and then again a series, a list, a litany of German words. I understood a few but not others, not most, nearly none, I realized, as the recitation went on, words in most cases beginning with the syllables welt , wort or tod . This was art that haunts a room, the sonic art of monotone, of incantation, and my response to their voices and all the grave and soaring themes of the afternoon was to drop into a crouch and execute a series of squat-jumps. I jumped and squatted, squatted and jumped, arms thrust upward, five, ten, fifteen times, and then again, down and up, sheer release, and I counted aloud in muttered grunts.
    Soon I developed a parallel image of myself as an arboreal ape flinging long hairy arms over its head, hopping and barking in self-defense, building muscles, burning fat.
    At some point I became aware that someone else was addressing the audience. It was Miklos, whose surname I’d forgotten—the blinking man in neutered translation speaking now on the subject of being and nonbeing. I kept squatting and jumping.
    When I returned to the slot the Stenmark twins were gone, Miklos was still speaking and the woman in the headscarf was positioned as before, seated upright in the chair, hands flat on the table. Her eyes were still closed, everything the same except that now, as I watched, I knew her name. She was Artis. Who else would she be but Artis? That was her name.
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    I stood in the locked compartment waiting for the sliding door to open. I knew it was wrong to think of it as a sliding door. There had to be an advanced term in use here, a technical word or phrase, but I resisted the implied challenge to consider possibilities.
    The escort was waiting when the door slid open. We went along a corridor and