BZRK: Reloaded (BZRK 2)

She didn’t answer at first. They dodged around street vendors selling cheap copies of designer bags, and vendors selling cheap copies of designer watches, and tourists buying same.

“Costa Rica,” Plath said at last. “The Pacific Coast. I could learn to surf.”

It was his turn to fall silent now, brooding.

“Or Africa,” she said. “What is it?”

“What?”

“Your name.”

“Noah.”

“No? Why not, do you think it really matters?” she snapped.

“Not ‘no.’ Noah. Like the old Hebrew with the big boat full of animals.”

“Oh. Noah,” she said. “That’s a strange name for a footman.”

He sighed.

“The thing is . . .” he began, then cut himself off.

“The thing is what?” she demanded.

“The thing is, sometimes I get myself through something with a story. You know, a fantasy.”

“Yes?”

“A fantasy. Imagination.”

“Yes, I know what a fantasy is,” she said, irritated again. “What’s yours?”

He made a bitter laugh. “I haven’t worked out the details, but somehow you and I end up together. And not in a mental ward, but like, together. Like I say: I haven’t worked out the details. There’s a house. Nothing grand. You know. Just a place.”

“You’ve moved straight to marriage? You’ve only known me a couple of weeks.”

“Fantasies don’t have to make any sense,” he snapped. “That’s what makes them fantasies. They aren’t meant to be logical, they’re meant to keep you from losing your mind or panicking or wanting to kill yourself.” He noticed the way she was looking at him and said, “No, for God’s sake, I’m not bloody suicidal. And I’m not proposing, either. Forget I said anything.”

They were walking slower now. Both had decided they wanted to extend this time, not cut it short.

“I have a fantasy, too,” she said. “It’s that this is all an elaborate dream and I wake up and I’m only seeing through one pair of eyes and I’m not noticing that it’s time to move away from that lymphocyte.”

A bike messenger barely missed running them down. They were both city kids, London and New York, so neither missed a step.

“So, all a dream, eh?” Keats asked.

“A dream. Yeah. Everything goes back to normal.”

“And I’m not there.”

She stopped. He stopped.

“Oh my God: you are there.” She made no effort to hide the surprise in her voice. It was true and it startled her: even when she imagined everything going back, no Vincent, no Caligula, no biots or Armstrong Twins, no terrible plane crash killing her father and brother, Keats was still there.

“I assume I’m your footman.”

“You’re the guy who saves up his pennies to take me to a movie,” she said, shaking her head as the truth of it came home to her. “I buy the popcorn. Large, of course, because I’m rich.”