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inevitable.
    So we’re sitting at the airport, waiting by the gate for our flight to board, and I ask to go to the bathroom. In the men’s room I pretend to wash my hands so I can look in the mirror. My uncle asked me, one time, why I looked in mirrors so much, and I told him it wasn’t vanity so much as it was nostalgia. Every mirror shows me what little is left of my parents.
    I’m practicing my mom’s smile. People don’t practice their smiles nearly enough so when they most need to look happy they’re not fooling anyone. I’m rehearsing my smile when—there it is: my ticket to a gloriously happy future working in fast food. That’s opposed to a miserable life as a world-famous architect or heart surgeon.
    Hovering over my shoulder and a smidgen behind me, it’s reflected in the mirror. Like the bubble containing my thoughts in a comic strip panel, there’s a cardiac defibrillator. It’s mounted on the wall in back of me, shut inside a metal case with a glass door you could open to set off alarm bells and a red strobe light. A sign above the box says “AED” and shows a lightning bolt striking a Valentine’s heart. The metal case is like the hands-off showcase holding some crown jewels in a Hollywood heist movie.
    Opening the case, automatically I set off the alarm and flashing red light. Quick, before any heroes come running, I dash into a handicapped stall with the defibrillator. Sitting on the toilet, I pry it open. The instructions are printed on the lid in English, Spanish, French, and comic book pictures. Making it foolproof, more or less. If I wait too long I won’t have this option. Defibrillators will be under lock and key, soon, and once defibrillators are illegal only paramedics will have defibrillators.
    In my grasp, here’s my permanent childhood. My very own Bliss Machine.
    My hands are smarter than the rest of me. My fingers know to just peel the electrodes and paste them to my temples. My ears know to listen for the loud beep that means the thing is fully charged.
    My thumbs know what’s best. They hover over the big red button. Like this is a video game. Like the button the president gets to press to trigger the launch of nuclear war. One push and the world as I know it comes to an end. A new reality begins.
    To be or not to be. God’s greatest gift to animals is they don’t get a choice.
    Every time I open the newspaper I want to throw up. In another ten seconds I won’t know how to read. Better yet, I won’t have to. I won’t know about global climate change. I won’t know about cancer or genocide or SARS or environmental degradation or religious conflict.
    The public address system is paging my name. I won’t even know my name.
    Before I can blast off, I picture my uncle Henry at the gate, holding his boarding pass. He deserves better than this. He needs to know this is not his fault.
    With the electrodes stuck to my forehead, I carry the defibrillator out of the bathroom and walk down the concourse toward the gate. The coiling electric wires trail down the sides of my face like thin, white pigtails. My hands carry the battery pack in front of me like a suicide bomber who’s only going to blow up all my IQ points.
    When they catch sight of me, businesspeople abandon their roller bags. People on family vacations, they flap their arms, wide, and herd their little kids in the other direction. Some guy thinks he’s a hero. He shouts, “Everything is going to be all right.” He tells me, “You have everything to live for.”
    We both know he’s a liar.
    My face is sweating so hard the electrodes might slip off. Here’s my last chance to say everything that’s on my mind so with everyone watching I’ll confess: I don’t know what’s a happy ending. And I don’t know how to fix anything. Doors open in the concourse and Homeland Security soldiers storm out, and I feel like one of those Buddha monks in Tibet or wherever who splash on gasoline before they check to make sure