A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

rolls into the spot on the bed I have been occupying. I step over to my mother. She is looking at me. I lean over her bed and touch her arm. Her arm is hot.
    “ Happy birthday, ” I whisper.
    She is not looking at me. Her eyes are not open. They were open a slit, but are not now open. I am not sure if they were seeing me. I walk to the window and close the curtains. Outside, the trees are bare and black, quickly sketched. I sit in the taut pleather chair in the corner and watch her and the light-blue suction machine. The light-blue suction machine, working rhythmically, seems fake, a stage prop. I sink into the chair and lean back. The ceiling is swimming. It is milky, stuccoed in sweeping half-circles, and the half-circles are moving, turning slowly, the ceiling shifting like water. The ceiling has depth or—the ceiling is moving forward and back. Or the walls are not solid. The room is maybe not real. I am on a set. There are not enough flowers in the room. The room should be full of flowers. Where are the flowers? When does the gift shop open? Six? Eight? I bet myself. I bet it is six. All right, it ’ s a bet. I consider how many flowers I can buy. I do not know what they cost; I have never bought flowers. I will see what they cost and then buy all the flowers that they have that I can afford, move them from the gift shop to this room. Fireworks.
    She will wake up and see them.
    “ What a waste, ” she will say.
    She stirs and opens her eyes. She looks at me. I get up off the chair and stand by the bed. I touch her arm. It is hot.
    “ Happy birthday, ” I whisper, smiling, looking down into her.
    She does not answer. She is not looking at me. She is not awake.
    I sit down again.
    Toph is on his back, his arms splayed. He sweats when he sleeps, regardless of the room ’ s temperature. When he sleeps, he moves and turns around and around, like the hand of a clock. His breathing is audible. His eyelashes are long. His hand hangs over the foldout bed. As I am looking at him, he wakes up. He gets up and comes to me as I am sitting in the chair and I take his hand and we go through the window and fly up and over the quickly sketched trees and then to California.
    Please look. Can you see us? Can you see us, in our little red car? Picture us from above, as if you were flying above us, in, say, a helicopter, or on the back of a bird, as our car hurtles, low to the ground, straining on the slow upward trajectory but still at sixty, sixty-five, around the relentless, sometimes ridiculous bends of Highway 1. Look at us, goddammit, the two of us slingshotted from the back side of the moon, greedily cartwheeling toward everything we are owed. Every day we are collecting on what ’ s coming to us, each day we ’ re being paid back for what is owed, what we deserve, with interest, with some extra motherfucking consideration—we are owed, goddammit—and so we are expecting everything, everything. We get to take what we want, one of each, anything in the store, a three-hour shopping spree, the color of our choice, any make, any color, as much as we want, when we want, whatever we want. Today we have nowhere to be so we ’ re on our way to Montara, a beach about thirty-five minutes south of San Francisco, and right now we are singing:
    She was alone!
    She never knew!
    {Something something something!}
    When we touched!
    When we {rhymes with “ same ” }!
    All (something something} !
    All night!
    All night!
    All I every night!
    So hold tight!
    Hoo-ld tight
    Baby hold tight!
    Any way you want it!
    That ’ s the way you need it!
    Any way you want it!
    Toph does not know the words, and I know few of the words, but you cannot fucking stop us from singing. I ’ m trying to get him to do the second All night part, with me doing the first part, like:
    ME: All night! (higher)
    HIM: All-ll night! (slightly lower)
    I point to him when his part comes but he just looks at me blankly. I point to the radio, then to him, then to his mouth,