That night we had friends over for dinner and the talk was swift and funny, flying cross-table well past midnight, and when they were gone but also while they were there — they were still there when I felt the distance and stillness of that sprawled dawn like some endless sky waking inside me, flared against the laughter.
When they were gone we lay in bed. We slept in a bookwalled room with creamy shelves and deep carpets and lighting that had a halftone density, warm and whiskeyish. Marian looked at a magazine, turning pages with a crispness that might have seemed short-tempered to someone who didn’t know her habits. “The long day.”
“The long drive. The drive was oh boy,” I said, “a killer.”
“Is this the longest day of my life?”
“The drive was the screaming meemies. I hate those trucks, man.”
“I still feel the drive. But it was marvelous, all of it.”
“It was unmarvelous. It was marvelous because you slept.”
She turned a page.
“Did you notice how they finish each other’s sentences?”
“I drove, you slept.”
“She says, Da da da. He says, Dumdy dum.”
“It’s not the worst fate. I mean even strangers do it. Everybody does it to somebody.”
“And I didn’t sleep. I was one level down for ten minutes.”
“It’s the only way to get certain sentences finished.”
“They ate the roasted corn relish.”
“Of course they ate the roasted corn relish. The roasted corn relish was great. Speaking of maps. I’d like to get some old maps. I hate our maps.”
“Look at this. The Rapture is approaching. October twenty-eight. They give the exact date.”
“I saw that.”
“The mark of the beast. Did you see that? It’s on the universal product code. Every product.”
“That’s right. Every box of Jell-O they put through the scanner.”
Don DeLillo, Underworld
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