February 15, 2036 Peter took me to dinner to last night, to the little Chinese restaurant in Davis Square. We sat on the second floor and watched some musicians who were playing on the island. It had been a long time since we'd gone out together just to spend time, and it was really good. A couple times, I thought I was going to cry, I was so happy to realize that we could still /have/ times like that together. I think things are just going to get better. He gave me this journal because I gave him such a hard time about on-line journaling. The label said it was Nepalese, or something like that, but I guess it's already fallen off. evening, 2037-04-04 That's the whole first entry. I read it a million times. Over and over. It doesn't make any more sense to me than it could to anyone else. Barely a year after that, but here we are. Peter doesn't know why she's gone. Obvious. She left. The real question: why leave? If I listen hard at night, I can hear him crying upstairs. Some nights, anyway. Sometimes I listen. Is that why people always stop and look when there's an accident? Can't help it. Sometimes I listen, but usually I do something else. Once I even banged on the ceiling with a broom, but he didn't stop. Probably didn't notice. Since then, I figure that's best. He'll have to come to understand, eventually. Makes me wonder, too, though. They had a lot, upstairs. Jobs, family, good stuff. She cooked, he ate, everything worked the way it was supposed to. Probably better than I have it, but it's hard to say. Not sure what better is. So, now I am going to try and help. Her journal must say why. I figure, even if it doesn't give an explanation, it should explain things. If she was honest. I will be honest, for Peter's sake. He helped me, once, too. February 17, 2036 Home from work! Work's finally getting better. I'm not sure if it's just me, or if the work is really changing, but it's easier and easier to make it through the day without getting fed up. I think it must be at least partly the new campaign. Ok, let's face it: there's nothing earth-shattering about the new ads. Realistically, anybody could be doing them. Who decides to ride the T because of a poster they saw on the T? It's stupid, I guess, but it's a change, and it's so much /easier/. I'm back to thinking about the three C's, /color/, /concept/, and /connection/. It reminds me of being in school: pure textbook work from when all the work was pure textbook. The real benefit is getting away from the Voice contracts. If I never see another VA-stamped form in my cube, it'll be fine by me. I really wanted to do my part. I think everyone did, especially at first, but the longer I worked on VA, the more I felt like it was somebody's dirtywork. Jack Kulman got fired in November; just before he left, he had brought in a grainy printout of a poster that he said was from World War II. From a distance, you see a battleship, sinking. Faded into the sky is the face of a horrified young sailor. Caption, in icy blue letters: "Somebody talked!" Later that day, I found Cynthia being sick in the lav. She never said, but I know it was because of that poster. She didn't say anything, when she saw me there, but she gave me a big hug and cried on my shoulder a little. I hadn't thought much about that day until now, really, but it was awful. I don't know if that got Jack fired, or if he knew what was coming and just didn't care anymore. Voice was our number one customer for something like six years straight, last I checked. Maybe they finally got tired of us. Whatever! I was tired enough of them. The new campaign will be a good change. As part of the contract, we're all getting discounts on passes for the T, so maybe Peter and I can try and use the money -- and the passes! -- to try and do some more fun things. evening, 2037-04-05 This entry kept running through my head to and from work today. Looked at all the posters on the T, looking for Laura's company's mark. I don't know what it looks like, though. Just stared. Is there really a difference between one advertising job and another? I used to try to not see the ads outside. Too many, though; gave up. They're like a big song to me, now. Every one orchestrated to harmonize with its neighbors. No toys next to medicine. No Voice next to Welfare. The red line from Porter toward South runs about seventy miles an hour. View through the windows kept clear of clashing ads -- everything's moving too fast to read. Still, no see-the-scenic-sights ads near the windows: they'd hate to be contradicted. I had a twenty-five-inch screen when I came to college, but sold it. Have a fifteen, now: good enough for writing this and reading magazines. I don't watch video on it much. It's big enough, but why bother? Nothing good made anymore, and I never like the stuff people say are classics. Horror movies, sometimes. They can be OK, but everyone important always lives. Unrealistic, and who cares anyway? I never identify with the characters. Nothing new, there, though. Watched Voice/Learn/History tonight. Caught the tail end of a WWII docu. How the Japanese and Germans kept fighting long after they were beaten, just because they were stubborn. That makes me think, "Were they really beaten, then?" I guess. I never got my mind around how war ends -- but I still believe it does, sometimes. Watched the show carefully. Tried to understand what Laura meant, why the poster made her sick. Did she feel guilty? Was Voice of America making her say too much? Doesn't seem likely. This documentary was funny, though, because it cut both ways. Someone from University of Texas kept saying that the Japanese had "been dead but they wouldn't lie down", so we had to drop atomic bombs on them to make them see. But someone from AID/History said that we needed to bomb them because otherwise they could have killed so many hundred thousand Americans. Or he might have said Allied soldiers. Were they dead, or did we kill them? I'll have to read more on war. I wish I could ask Daniel. Almost tried to call him tonight. Old habits. I could ask Peter. He studied politics, I think, which might be related a little. Don't want to bother him, though. Don't want him more distracted than he is. (No crying tonight.) Haven't told him about this 'project' yet. He might not appreciate what I'm doing enough to not be mad. Might still get upset that I have the journal at all. Even I'm still not sure why I took it. I know Peter needs a friend, but I don't know how to help. Not that way, anyway. Better to do what I can. Like Laura said: do my part. February 18, 2036 I missed my train this morning, but it was /so/ cold that I decided it was better to wait for the next one and be a little late than to try and walk it. The heat down in Porter was great! It was a lot better than the apartment. I almost wanted to take off my jacket, but I knew that once the car was back above ground I'd be freezing. I was right, and before we'd even gone two stops up, the windows were covered in frost. It was the thick, icey kind. A little girl across from me had been pressing her hand against the glass to melt a palm-print into the frost, but it stopped working pretty quickly and she turned around and sat on her hand, half-smiling (because it was fun) and half-frowning (because now her hand was cold.) Peter gave me a book to read last night, and I tried to start into it this morning, but I couldn't stay focused on it. He reads a lot of crap, I think. Philosophy that doesn't make sense and fiction that doesn't have much to say. Maybe he gets all of the /content/ he wants from his philosophy books, but every time I pick up Spinoza (or anybody else from that box) I feel like I'm reading stereo instructions. Peter says that it's hard to like that kind of thing, but I think he wishes I would. I'm going to check out a reader from work, I think, and just read something from the library. Maybe one of the books we were supposed to read in school that nobody did. Dickens, Tolstoy, Hardy: one of them. I feel like there's a haze lifting from my brain, and I feel like I should really make the best of it while it lasts. I make fun of the TV, but what good does that do me unless I do something better? Honestly, I don't know what I've been doing with my free time the past year. Has it all been staring at the screen or at the walls? Maybe I'm better off not knowing! Peter's playing chess against his brother again. There's another thing I almost wish I liked. It's like his philosophy books: I'd like the kind of intellectual gratification I'd get from knowing I knew and cared about that sort of brain-heavy activity, but I just don't think it's worth actually /reading/ the book or /playing/ the game. I think I'll find a happy medium, though. In the end, the point is to be happy. night, 2037-04-06 Long day at work today. Just got home -- walked. The weather's getting better, and the ACI's been low enough that I can go maskless for long exposure, especially at these temps. My first month in this neighborhood, I saw two muggings on my way to the apartment. Just two in the month, which was a lot, but not unheard of, but now when I come home and don't see anything bad happening, I always feel nervous. Like maybe it's going to happen to me, this time. Or maybe it's saving up to be really bad tomorrow. Nothing bad coming home tonight. Caught a glimpse of an RPU responding, though. Big, navy blue van rolling through the street, engine whizzing. Thick white letters, stencil-style: "BPD RPU", and smaller, "CALL 911". Maybe they were inconspicuous at first, but with nothing in the street but bicycles and RPUs, they become a moving warning: "trouble here!" It didn't stop until it was way down Oxford, out of sight. Got home and upstairs, checked my mail. Didn't want to eat, but made myself. Oatmeal. Perfect meal for times like these. Didn't want to work on Journal, but made myself. Put notes in my calendar: read Spinoza. Maybe I should try to play go with Peter, too. Has he been socializing at all, since? I never hear him come or go. Hear furniture moving, a lot. He doesn't have enough, but tries to make it look like he does. Empty things are depressing, he says. I think I agree. Laura thinks she spent too much time doing nothing. Was she doing nothing all the time? Always seemed busy. Most people do. What is there to keep them busy? And, why keep busy, anyway? If I have nothing to do, I think. Now I read and write, working on the journal. Still, I try to think a lot. Was 'sitting and staring' thinking? Or was she just staring. Maybe when the stupid stop doing, they just sit. No thinking, no wondering, nothing else. Was Laura stupid? Don't think so. If so, would she have wanted to not just sit? Do stupid people want to be better than stupid? If so, why do they remain stupid? Laura wanted intellectual gratification without working for it. I don't know if that's stupid or not. I'm not even sure what that means. Intellectual gratification. Maybe that's what happens when you find answers. I'm too busy finding questions. Answers not forthcoming. Must put intellectual gratification on calendar. Also, try sitting and staring at walls. February 22, 2036 Well, I spent the morning looking for a new book at the libraryzone. It was pretty surprising how expensive the 'classics' are! I always thought that they'd be cheaper, because they're old, but they were more expensive than Welles' last book! Anyway, I decided on _The Idiot_, because it was cheap and the summary made it seem like it might be funny: naive boy comes to big city from the country and attempts to get used to the fast life. I got my license to the book, and I'll try to start reading it tonight, after I finish this entry. Mom called today, checking in on me. She asked (as usual!) whether I had heard from Dad recently. I swear, she just is never going to give up on him! Even worse is that I didn't have anything to tell her, and she decided that she had to worry about him. If there's anybody who doesn't need to be worried about, it's Dad. I think he's still in Tokyo, working with that old woman from the Department of State. Higgins, Hewick, something like that. He's probably at least as safe there as he would be back in Silver Springs with Mom. She asked about work, and I said everything was OK, and so she asked about grandchildren! Honestly, does she think we could afford it, even if we had the time or the inclination? She's always going on about how better life is than when she was my age, but I can't see it. I don't think life will be better for my children than it was for me. Maybe I just need to take the long view. The neighbors on the first floor changed /again/! The Muslim couple that had been there moved out, yesterday I guess, and two black guys were moving in this morning. They looked like college students, maybe a couple. Sometimes I feel silly trying to be neighbors with the other people in the house. The ones that are here long-term are pretty distant, and everyone else isn't here long enough to make friends. It's like none of them can be bothered, either because they're about to leave or they think we are. But I'm not going to be defeated by that! Tomorrow morning, I bake a cake for mister and mister college-student, and see if we don't finally have some normal neighbors. That's tomorrow, though. I didn't hear the truck leave, so they're probably still unloading their things. (That's promising! More things should mean a longer stay!) Tonight, I'm going to pour some vodka (to match the book) and get to reading. evening, 2037-04-07 She's right. People downstairs move in and out too much. Landlord joked once that it was easier to be moving all the time when you live on the first floor. I keep good records of who lives down there. It helps me remember what's going on. She wanted to bake the cake for Jake and Steve Maine. Not a couple, brothers. Twins. Notes don't say if they were identical. Probably not, or she should have noticed. Only remember them a little bit. Bought their air mattress when they moved. Mine had broken. I don't think she ever made me cake. Hard to say what she thought of me. She think I was too distant? Fair assessment. Dealing with people like her and Peter is too troublesome. So unpredictable, unstructured. No rules. Peter and I talked about that, sometimes. "Go with your instinct," he said. I said, "I don't have those. I don't know how." He laughed. Must have been over a game of go. He beats me, sometimes. Haven't read _The Idiot_. Will try. I should really make a shopping list for Xiao: books relevant to this research. What she was reading, etc. Should ask for books on war, WWII posters. He still owes me: helped him get his translator running. Probably won't be free, anyway, though. Lots of data, probably. At least I have some blank cubes for it. I remember Laura talking about her father, once. Treaty lawyer. Peter said that was a bad job. "If loopholes are a big issue, it means people aren't interested in making the peace work, and there's no point in the treaty." Didn't make sense to me. If they want the treaty to work, they need to make it specific. "Spirit of the law" doesn't make sense. Why isn't the law enough? High school government classes said that the government was formed by a contract among the people. If a spirit was enough, they wouldn't need a contract. If the contract needed a spirit, wasn't it just too ambiguous? Voice likes to say that we (the people) have entered into a contract with the government, and that we all must do our duty to preserve it. That doesn't make sense, either. If the government comes from a contract among people, why would they enter into a contract with it? Was it created and then set free, like Adam? Peter invited me to go to church with him. Saint John the Evangelist. Evangelist means 'bringer of good news.' Is Peter going to get good news from Saint John's church? What kind of good news can a church give, anyway? That 'God loves me' can hardly be considered news. I hear it all the time, especially getting on and off downtown. Crazies with pamphlets: "GOD LOVES YOU! AVOID HIS WRATH!" Are they crazy? I don't know. I told Peter I would go with him, Sunday. Will ask him down for dinner tomorrow. See how he's doing in the real world before I see how he's doing, relating to the next. Realized now that yesterday was month's first Tuesday. Missed beginner night at the go club. Still getting a new face or two every week, but most don't stay. Even if they only come for one night, though, they're new faces. Playing against people I don't know is always good. Like making new friends, but better. The moves are unexpected. I don't know their style, their abilities. The rules are always the same. I know what to do when they make their move. Nothing inconceivable can happen, only unforseen. Worst case scenario, I lose the game. Maybe we play again. Understanding grows better as time goes by. How many games before you understand your opponant? Not like that with being a neighbor. How many conversations before I understand my neighbor? And what happened in his game with Laura? Seems like worse than losing the game. Or is that all this is? February 23, 2036 We had a good day, today. It wasn't the easiest thing in the world to convince Peter about the cake, but I managed. (OK, it wasn't the hardest thing, either. He knew he'd end up with some cake, after all!) We bought some 'Moist Yellow' cake mix and chocolate icing. I don't know where the flavor comes from, but it's good, especially warm and especially with chocolate icing. Peter wanted to decorate the cake, so we drew the house number in the frosting. He said we should write something more specific, but I thought it would be a good idea to hold off, since they might not even speak English! But they did! They seemed pretty nice, and we all sat on their floor and drank their milk and ate our cake. They (their names are Jake and Steve, they're brothers) had some inflatable furniture, but they hadn't unpacked a pump yet. It was funny, I said they could just blow it up, and Jake got this great look, like the idea was disgusting. I don't know where they're from. I guess that they might have that thing about germs. Wally at school had that -- his parents died from the sweats when he was in middle school. Well, now I feel bad about even suggesting it. But it was funny to see that look on his face. We talked about what it was like in the building, and about the other tenants. I felt a little bad about talking about the other tenants behind their backs, but if they wanted to be represented, they should have brought cake of their own! (Or coffee. That would've been perfect.) We played a couple of Peter's video games on their screen, and that was that. Peter left them our messenging address, but now that I think about it, I'm not really sure that we'll hear from them again. The whole thing kind of reminded me of being in school again. Living in a dorm, you know your neighbors, you spend time with them, you drink with them and party with them. You have a real community, I guess. Why does that end once you get out of school? I guess it could be that there's so many people out here in the 'real world' that never lived in a dorm, but I would think that they'd be converted pretty quickly to dorm-style life! Not only would they have more friends, but their friends would always be close by. Instead, I'm stuck with friends either back in Ohio or scattered to the four winds. How do grown-ups make friends, anyway? Maybe that's the problem. Maybe we just don't. It stops at adulthood, like getting taller or being able to learn new languages. evening, 2037-04-08 Expecting Peter very soon. Just finished transcribing above. Makes me wonder if Peter is my friend. If so, how did that happen? Have to put this away before Peter comes in. He's knocking. after midnight, 2037-04-08 Peter just left to go home, sleep. He had too much to drink. I let him win anyway. Three out of four. Started out by watching the news. I hoped he would have done that before he came down. Don't like watching the news. He watched while I thought about new project at work. We both drank beers. I keep good beer on hand for when he visits. Otherwise, I drink water. But he won't drink water, and he won't drink beer if I don't. So he gets thirsty. And leaves. These are the kind of rules that make sense. The news was the news. More troops coming home. (I think they meant the Ninety-ninth Mechanized.) Probably more Rubes, too, but they wouldn't say that. Swelling ranks of Rubes only reported if tacked onto reports of new violence. Infections down, vaccine production up, stocks down, bonds up, and so on. Too much irrelevant information. "Peter," I said, "why do you watch that crap? What does it have to do with your life, anyway?" He must have thought that was a stupid question, because he looked at me like I was an idiot. "That's the world I live in," he said. "How am I supposed to understand it if I don't know what's going on in it?" He watches the news a couple times every day. It hasn't helped him understand why his wife emptied her heart into the bathtub. I decided not to say anything about that. We were both finishing our second beer by the time the program ended. I put on some Rachmaninov, which we both like, and took the go set out of the living room closet and put it on the storage rack we use for a table. I'm better at the game than Peter, but he won't admit it, so we threw odds to pick colors. Him odds, me evens. He won and played black. Got back to thinking about friendship while we played. Peter and Laura and I moved into the building on the same day, August 30, 2034. Bad time to move because of all the students moving into school or new apartments. There's actually traffic on the roads, and it's hard to get movers reserved. We both ended up with our haulers parked in front of the house, half on the curb, loaded up with our things. Made a deal. I helped them move up to the third floor, then we sent away the hauler and moved me into the second. Figured we both ended up saving a little money by moving in faster than we'd planned, so we ordered in some Japanese food and ate together. Upstairs, because my tables all had to be put back together. Peter had noticed my go set, and was excited to have someone to play. Laura seemed friendly and interested, and said that at their old apartment all the neighbors had been very unfriendly. I suppose, looking back, that she thought I was an opportunity to have a friendly neighbor. I never felt that she liked me, though, for as long as I knew her. Always got the impression she felt that I was dangerous, that I had to be approached very carefully. I think Peter just thinks I'm naive. Felt better to be underestimated than overestimated. (Is that the right way to think about it?) So, we started playing go once or twice a week, sometimes going up the street to the club. Some days we would talk about philosophy, or the government. Peter got worked up a lot about how the government didn't care about the well-being of the people. I'm not sure what the point of all that was. Personally, I don't care about the government beyond the salary it pays me. He took it all at a more personal level. Seemed scandalized, though, when I let him know that I had a samiz cube. Never talks about that anymore, though. But still doesn't understand: if you don't agree with the rules, don't follow them. Nobody gets hanged for having an unlicensed copy of Moby Dick. See, he wants life to be like the game: he wants the rules that people wrote down to really dictate things. But they can't, because everybody knows that they can change. Why follow a law that you can break? It doesn't make sense. If you could always win the game by breaking the rules, who would follow them? Peter didn't understand that the rules in the law aren't the rules. Well into his fourth beer, Peter gets to talking about eating alone. I'm mostly focused on the board, but I hear most of what he has to say. "I didn't realize until recently that I really don't know how to cook. I used to be able to, at least a little. But now I've barely touched the stove in years, and all I know how to do is boil water. I'm going to end up like the rest of this pathetic world, getting all my food from cardboard boxes and plastic wrappers! You are what you eat. Ever hear that? I don't want to be a fabricated block of flavored nutrient-slurry." Pretty typical of Peter's diatribes, but he wasn't after the intelligence department, here. Wasn't clear with whom he was angry. Laura, for leaving him alone? Himself, for being helpless? Briefly considered that he might be angry with me just for being unaffected by everything. Realized that I eat food from cardboard boxes and plastic wrappers. Decided not to bring it up. Laura died about a month ago, now. Got home a little late that day, but everyone was still there. The police, the CDC, her. Can imagine how it went. Peter takes the train home from downtown and gets off at Porter. Gets on the escalator. Never seen an escalator bigger than the escalator from the low level in Porter. Curves up around the inside of the station, over all four rows of trains. A hundred feet up, even longer than it is high. Slow ride, up from the dark, warm, smokey basement of the T to the cold, windy street. Cold that day, and windy, but no snow. Sky grey, like always. Color of tarnished silver. Lined with clouds. Sun down behind the buildings. Takes a few minutes to get from the top of the station to the house. Up the stairs, in the front door, up the rest of the stairs to the front door. Through the door, down the hall, into the bedroom to change. He wonders, where is she? Back to the front, glancing into each doorway, asking, "Laura?" To the bathroom, open the door, fall apart. When I got home, there were cars stopped out front, a sure sign of trouble. The police asked me who I was, and let me in once I showed them some ID. They said Peter was waiting for me. Went straight upstairs, started down the hall to the dining room. Halfway there, look left: Laura, pale, in the bath. Water grey, same color as the sky, run through with red clouds. Hair, arms floating on top of the water. Eyes closed. Only sign of violence a spatter of blood on the wall beside her. From the first heartbeat of the end of her life. Peter is in the kitchen, drinking coke from a plastic can. I take it from him and cut it with some whiskey. I hand it back to him and he goes back to drinking it. I don't know if he even noticed. I pull out a chair and sit down, but can't think of anything to say. Neither can he. He finished his coke. "Want another one?" "Yeah." I hand him another can, and a loud noise starts up in the bathroom. I walk over to look; two people in cleansuits are pumping the water out of the tub, into a ring of plastic canisters. One of the detectives comments to another, "I almost wish the vic's would pull the plug before they go. Waste of everyone's time to have to haul all that water downtown." He notices me but keeps talking. Just talks quieter. I go back and sit by Peter. They haul out the body and the bathwater and coat the tub with a green powder. "Wash this off after twenty-four hours. Don't touch it. We'll leave you some gloves." I tell Peter I'll take care of it, but it's done by the next evening. I didn't stay upstairs much longer. Invited Peter down for dinner and to stay as long as he wanted, but fell asleep on the sofa, and when I woke up, he was gone. No idea what he did, and still not going to ask. Later that week, Peter asked me to help pack some of Laura's things, so he wouldn't have to see them as much. Clothes, knick-knacks, things from the bathroom. In their bedroom, in her nightstand, under a ration book, I find the journal. Red, cloth-bound book. A little dirty, fingerprints on the pages. A look at the first page makes it clear what it is, and I slip it into my back pocket. I still don't know why I thought it was a good idea, but I don't know all the rules I follow, either. As we started our fourth game, I asked Peter, "Are we friends?" I'm not sure how to take the look I got. I think he was upset that I asked, because I should have known. I don't know what I should have known the answer was. "It's your move," he said, and tapped the stone he just played. "Atari." I'll have to ask him again, later. Maybe when he's less drunk. Or more.