Generation A by Douglas Coupland Page B

consider along with lifestyle changes. It can be taken for as long as your provider recommends. Until you know how SOLON CR will affect you, you shouldn’t drive or operate machinery or make major life decisions under the influence of the drug. Be sure you’re able to devote 7 to 8 days to sleep before becoming fully re-engaged with society. Sleepwalking, and eating or driving while not fully awake, with amnesia for the event, have been reported. If you experience any of these behaviours, contact your provider immediately.
In rare cases, chronosuppressive medicines may cause allergic reactions such as swelling of tongue or throat, shortness of breath or more severe results. If you have an allergic reaction while using SOLON CR, contact your doctor immediately. SOLON CR is non-narcotic; however, like most sleep medicines, it has some risk of dependency. Don’t take it with alcohol.
SOLON tablets are supplied for oral administration as 100-mg (goldenrod), 150-mg (canary) and 200-mg (sage) film-coated, sustained-release tablets. Each tablet contains the labelled amount of dihydride spliceosomic protein snRNP-171 and the inactive ingredients carnauba wax, cysteine hydrochloride, carboxymethylcellulose, magnesium stearate, microcrystalline cellulose, polyethylene glycol and polysorbate 60, and is printed with edible red ink. In addition, the 100-mg tablet contains FD&C Blue No. 1 Lake, the 150-mg tablet contains FD&C Blue No. 2 Lake and FD&C Red No. 40 Lake, and the 200-mg tablet contains FD&C Red No. 40 Lake.
    I opened one of the packets and took a sniff—this proved to be a dumb move.

HARJ
    My time in the neutral chamber was like The Night of a Thousand Craigs—relentless Craig-ish questions:
    Do you feel free inside your head?
    If I told you to repaint the inside of your head, what colour would you choose?
    I just stole all of your childhood memories. Does that offend you?
    In the end, we didn’t make it to Maryland. The impromptu mid-summer blizzard forced us to go to a different Centers for Disease Control facility, beneath a city called Research Triangle Park, in North Carolina.
    I am an adjustable fellow, so I forced myself to make my peace with visiting Research Triangle Park. But what sort of place could this be? My neutral chamber’s control voice, Morgan Freeman, told me in rich, God-like tones that “RTP is the largest research park in the world. It’s located in a triangle defined by Durham, Raleigh and Chapel Hill, and it’s often compared to Silicon Valley.”
    “Really?”
    “Yes, really . It was created in 1959 and covers 7,000 acres and hosts over 160 R&D facilities.”
    Imagine the voice of God coming through a speaker system of such good quality that you might find it in the Mercedes showroom in Trincomalee—a voice rich, forgiving and blunder-proof. I said, “Surely RTP must be home to some of the largest R&D facilities in the world,” and Morgan Freeman boomed back, “Yes—including those of IBM, GlaxoSmithKline, Google, Ericsson, Monsanto, Sumitomo, Krater and Wyeth.”
    “Excuse my inquisitiveness,” I said, “but why is there a North Carolina and a South Carolina?”
    “How do you mean?”
    “Are North Carolina and South Carolina so incredibly different that they merit North/South designations? It seems California might readily be divided into two or more states. But Carolina? What happened? Was there a civil war?”
    Morgan Freeman said, “Carolina was a land grant by King Charles the First to a subject, Robert Heath, one of his court favourites. It is said that King George the First liked Carolina so much that he bought it back in 1721 and then, nine years later, split it into two colonies—North Carolina and South Carolina.”
    I said, “And for that reason alone they are individual states? I think Texas ought to be cleaved into several states. Texas is far too large.”
    “Perhaps.”
    “And why are there two Dakotas? Why was your country’s map-making and state building