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their cigarette lighter actually works. How embarrassing that would be, to be soaking in gasoline and have to bum a match off some stranger, especially since so few people smoke anymore. Me, in the middle of the airport concourse, I’m dripping with sweat instead of gasoline, but this is how out of control my thoughts are spinning.
    From out of nowhere my uncle grabs my arm, and he says, “If you hurt yourself, Trevor, you hurt me.”
    He’s gripping my arm, and I’m gripping the red button. I tell him this isn’t so tragic. I say, “I’ll keep loving you, Uncle Henry…I just won’t know who you are.”
    Inside my head, my last thoughts are prayers. I’m praying that this battery is fully charged. There’s got to be enough voltage to erase the fact that I’ve just said the word “love” in front of several hundred strangers. Even worse, I’ve said it to my own uncle. I’ll never be able to live that down.
    Most people, instead of saving me, they pull out their telephones and start shooting video. Everyone’s jockeying for the best full-on angle. It reminds me of something. It reminds me of birthday parties and Christmas. A thousand memories crash over me for the last time, and that’s something else I hadn’t anticipated. I don’t mind losing my education. I don’t mind forgetting my name. But I will miss the little bit I can remember about my parents.
    My mother’s eyes and my father’s nose and forehead, they’re dead except for in my face. And the idea pains me to know that I won’t recognize them anymore. Once I punch out, I’ll think my reflection is nothing except me.
    My uncle Henry repeats, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me, too.”
    I say, “I’ll still be your nephew, but I just won’t know it.”
    For no reason, some lady steps up and grabs my uncle Henry’s other arm. This new person, she says, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me, as well…” Somebody else grabs that lady, and somebody grabs the last somebody, saying, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me.” Strangers reach out and grab hold of strangers in chains and branches, until we’re all connected together. Like we’re molecules crystallizing in solution in Organic Chem. Everyone’s holding on to someone, and everyone’s holding on to everyone, and their voices repeat the same sentence: “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me…if you hurt yourself, you hurt me…”
    These words form a slow wave. Like a slow-motion echo, they move away from me, going up and down the concourse in both directions. Each person steps up to grab a person who’s grabbing a person who’s grabbing a person who’s grabbing my uncle who’s grabbing me. This really happens. It sounds trite, but only because words make everything true sound trite. Because words always screw up whatever you’re trying to say.
    Voices from other people in other places, total strangers say by telephone, watching by video cams, their long-distance voices say, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me…” And some kid steps out from behind the cash register at Der Wiener Schnitzel, all the way down at the food court, he grabs hold of somebody and shouts, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me.” And the kids making Taco Bell and the kids frothing milk at the Starbucks, they stop, and they all hold hands with someone connected to me across this vast crowd, and they say it, too. And just when I think it’s got to end and everyone’s got to let go and fly away, because everything’s stopped and people are holding hands even going through the metal detectors they’re holding hands, even then the talking news anchor on CNN, on the televisions mounted up high by the ceiling, the announcer puts a finger to his ear, like to hear better, and even he says, “Breaking News.” He looks confused, obviously reading something off cue cards, and he says, “If you hurt yourself, you hurt me.” And overlapping his voice are the voices of political pundits on Fox News and color