Peter hadn’t been surprised when Dr. McCarthy had told them all that they were going to die. More than anything, he was expecting it, since he was the one with the gaping holes in his memory and mental function, as though someone had replaced his brain for a block of Swiss cheese, one where the baker or whoever it was that makes cheese, decided to make the holes extra-large and random.
He, of course, couldn’t die. The same amount of death and despair that was happening with the likes of Kent was not happening to him.
But his mind was going. Sometimes he forgot who he was, what the names of certain things were. His thoughts felt muddled, as though someone had peeled back the top of his skull and poured molasses into his brain. He was having trouble in school, which his parents were starting to notice. They expected him to keep having high ranks since he was expected to go to college the coming fall. Colleges looked at the senior year very carefully, and if he didn’t get his act together, his parents wouldn’t be happy.
“It’s because of the people you hang out with,” his mother had said. “Can’t you find anyone else her to spend time with, except for all these stupid kids?”
“Most likely not,” his father had said. “The coolest thing to enlightenment out there is anyone who didn’t manage to get pregnant before they graduated high school, or who actually tried to do their work. Most of the people around here are farmers, and as much as we might wish them to adopt a more sophisticated lifestyle, that’s just the one they have.”
You’re wrong, Peter tried to say but didn’t. He didn’t like it when his parents talked like this. Everyone else in town thought that they hated them, and this sort of talk was just playing right into that preconceived notion.
He wanted a cigarette too. Largely, he wished he hadn’t started. So many of his friends and neighbors smoked that he wanted to see what the craze was, what was it about that nicotine riding through your veins that seemed to make everything easier. He, of course, hadn’t planned on getting addicted. No, that was the sort of thing that only stupid people do. No, not Peter, no, he was a smart little boy, and so he planned on only doing it for a week before stopping. Besides, smoking was only really enjoyable in the beginning, or so every D.A.R.E. councilor and health teacher had ever told him. After that, it sort of became a chore, and you had to smoke to feel normal again.
Peter didn’t want that. He wanted to see what it was like.
He still got addicted to smoking. His lungs were healthy, and his teeth didn’t yellow, thanks to the all-powerful and mighty good NaU that was stealing his mind, of course. That kept him healthy but still allowed him to get addicted. Go figure.
But there was no real addiction to it, not really. Every cigarette tasted as good as the first. He could stop whenever he wanted to, but it tasted good. The only way for Peter to die, or at least come back from a wound that couldn’t be healed, was if his head was separated from his body. That was the running hypothesis that Dr. McCarthy had, and as much as Peter liked to test things out, he wasn’t all that excited to have someone cut his head off.
Danni didn’t like smoking. She had always hated it, but he only recently shared that frustration to Peter a few weeks ago, after the shocking news was given to everyone at the McCarthy house.
“Don’t you dare smoke,” Danni had said when Peter brought out the package.
The two of them had made a quick exit of the McCarthy house. Inside, they could hear Mr. McCarthy and Nigel yelling at one another. It wasn’t a good place to be, and besides, they had more than an ample excuse to get away from that house. They were dying, after all.
“It won’t hurt my lungs,” Peter said.
“It’s not your lungs that are dying,” Danni said. “It’s your brain. No need to quicken the process.”
Peter flipped a match with his fingers and brought it up to the cigarette in his mouth, maintaining eye contact with Danni as he did so. His girlfriend snarled.
“God, why do you have to make things so difficult?”
“I make things difficult?”
Danni turned away and was gripping the side of the car. The metal was bending slightly in her hands.
“You just had to run into the house,” she said, not looking at Peter. “You had to run into the house that night. If the two of us had left like I wanted, or stayed by the car, none of this would have happened. Instead, you had to be the hero again, springing into action like you always had to do.”
Squirrels jumped to and fro in the trees. The fisher cats had either moved down south or had gone hibernating, since Peter hadn’t seen one of them, much less heard one, in quite some time. He wasn’t an expert on hunting and killing animals, though.
That was Danni’s specialty.
“You’re only saying that with the benefit of hindsight,” Peter said, exhaling into the air.
The nicotine riding through his body made him feel good, made him feel alive.
“So, I’m right,” Danni said. “You didn’t have to go; you didn’t have to leave—”
“What?”
“You are going to leave,” Danni said.
Peter tried to get more out of the man that day, but he wouldn’t budge. Nigel stormed out of the house a few minutes later, heading for his car.
