Free Before We Go Extinct by Karen Rivers Page A

movies, it’s always the charity kid that comes out on top. So that’s you. You get to be the underdog. A real-life heeeee-ro. Savin’ everyone. Even maybe me.” But because it’s a dream, that’s where it stops being real and where he turns around. And then I see the hole on his back and blood coming out and suddenly he has gills and he’s flopping around on the floor and I can’t save him and I can’t save him and then I see that we’re on the sidewalk and there is a stupid river, after all. I nudge him with my foot so he can flop into it, and even though he can’t swim, the current takes him faster and faster and then he’s out of sight and I’m crying instead of following. And then I wake up, sweat pouring from my face, and Dad is still talking like nothing has happened and I roll down the window and take great greedy gulps of air.
    â€œOH MAN,” says Dad. “WANT ME TO PULL OVER? ARE YOU GONNA PUKE?”
    I shake my head no.
    I breathe slowly.
    I take out my phone and I text The King. Dude , I type. I am so freaking sorry. I love you. I hope you found the river. Don’t let anyone piss on your pants. Then I delete it without sending it because even though he’s dead, I don’t want him to read that and I don’t know why I don’t and I don’t know what I’m sorry for and the things that I don’t know that I should are so big they are crushing me into the seat like too much gravity and for a minute I let myself sink, finless, drowning and …
    â€œTHE BOOG IS GOIG SO WELL! YOU HAB DO READ ID!” Dad suddenly shouts, snorting loudly to clear his nose. “IT HAS TIME TRAVEL. YOU CAN BE MY BETA READER! THAT’S THE GUY WHO READS IT FIRST. I’M IN ONE OF THOSE READING GROUPS ON THE INTERNET BUT I DON’T LET THEM SEE IT IN CASE THEY STEAL MY IDEA. MAYBE YOU CAN MAKE SOME NOTES FOR ME, LIKE ABOUT WHAT YOU KIDS SAY NOW, LIKE … NOOB.” I stare at him in the mirror and shake my head at him but he isn’t looking, he’s watching the road. I like looking at his face when he isn’t looking back. I feel like he’s a mystery and if I solve him then I’ll understand me. The mystery is how much of a buffoon he is, how round-edged and slow-witted. His face is mine, but older and softer. His beard and eyebrows are threaded with gray. The skin flakes around his nose. He rolls down the window and pays the woman in a booth. We’re here. The ferry.
    â€œHey,” he says out the window. “We make it?”
    She nods, bored. “Lane thirty-two,” she says flatly, like she’s actually putting effort into layering each single syllable with ennui.
    â€œHave a great day,” Dad says, oblivious, turning his eyes to me in the mirror. “I know the kids say ‘noob,’ the kids at the beach say it all the time. You’re going to have the best summer of your whole life. You love the ocean, right? Well, this island is … It’s amazing. You’ll die. I mean—” He hesitates. “Not, like, die . Bad choice of words, eh. God, I’m sorry, kid. That must have been…” He does look sorry, his eyes crinkling up until his face looks as puckered and weathered as a piece of fruit that’s been left in the bowl for months too long. “I’m really sorry,” he says again. I nod, to let him off the hook.
    He looks a little too relieved.
    â€œAnyway, maybe you can have some adventures for me to write about,” he says. Then he laughs too hard—he’s been eating potato chips like a starving man—and oily crumbs glisten around his mouth and are stuck between his teeth, like some kind of chip apocalypse.
    â€œChip?” he asks.
    My stomach contracts. I shake my head no.
    TIME TRAVEL , I type on my phone.
    The phone accepts it.
    The phone accepts everything.
    Swoop, swoop.

 
    15
    Somehow when something happens and