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Chapter Ten

Nick


It was Margo's idea to try one of the cars to see if we could drive it. We carefully moved coffee and cell phone guy out of his BMW and put him on the grassy hill beside the roadway. "I'm sorry, dude, but if I'm right about how all this is workin' you'll never know we stole your car anyways," I said as we put him down and climbed into his car. I turned the key in the engine so that it was off, then turned it back on and the engine hummed to life. I grinned at Margo.

It was tedious, weaving between paused cars along the freeway. But we had a lot of ground to cover and not a lot of time to get it covered in. I drove about twenty miles an hour along the interstate until Margo pointed. "That's the exit there," and I veered off into the country side.

It felt weird, being so far away from where this had all started, like being lost or... stretched out... or something. I can't quite explain it. Like I could feel the proximity to -- to something and I knew I was far off from it, whatever it was.

Margo waved toward a side street and I put my blinker on, even though there wasn't anyone around to see it, and the car made it's way through a labyrinth of back roads until she finally said, "Oh my God, there it is."

I came to a stop in the middle of the road and we sat there staring at a small house. Margo undid her seatbelt and climbed out of the car and as I turned it off and got out, too, she was already halfway across the lawn. It was her house, she said, where she lived with her mother and father. I left the keys in the car. I was more likely to lose them than anyone was to steal them. I walked across the lawn. Margo was already inside the house, the front door wide open.

"Things have changed!" she was yelling as I walked in the door, "When you came... things changed... I was here jus a couple days ago... Nick, look. My mom, she's cooking... she's cooking!" I followed the sound of her voice past displays of school photos and a couch that smelled like other people and into a kitchen where a woman with short blonde hair that reminded me of Mrs. Brady was cooking what looked like a pot roast. Oh what I would've given for that to be completely cooked already and unpaused. Damn.

Margo was staring up at her mother's face. Tears filled her eyes, "Momma, I miss you," she gasped.

"This house is really nice," I said. It was homey. It reminded me of my gramma's house.

"I grew up here," Margo said.

"It's nice."

"The walls in here used to be pale yellow and this weird green color. My mom hated the old paint, she always threatened to repaint it." Margo looked around. The walls were red and cream colored now. There was an assortment of rooster things around, including a teapot shaped like a rooster.

"How old were you?" I asked. "When everything -- you know, paused?"

"Twenty-three," Margo said.

I studied her. She didn't look twenty-three.

"So how do you think this works?" Margo asked, "Like do I need to figure out where I am and like... I dunno, walk into myself? Do you think we'll be able to see ourselves?"

"I dunno," I replied. I tried to think if I'd ever seen anything like this happen in a movie, but I didn't think I had. I shrugged, "Let's see if we can find you, I guess." I looked around. "Where do you think you'd be?"

"Probably my room," she said.

"Okay then, let's go."

She led the way to the stairs and I followed and we moved through the dark upstairs hallway quietly. "I can't believe I have a boy coming in my room right now, she'd kill me if she was moving," Margo said as she reached for the door handle on the second door on the left.

I smirked in the dark. "Well it's not like it's like that," I pointed out as she pushed the door open and we stepped inside.

Her bedroom was... well, it was empty. She stood in the doorway, jaw dropped, looking around. "Where's... where's all my stuff?" she choked. She swiveled, looking around, desperate. "My records... my books... where's my lamp? And my diploma always hung right here.. and..." her face turned red, "I had a shelf with like every beanie baby ever over here."

"You collected Beanie Babies?"

Her face was redder.

"Dude I ain't makin' fun, I got 'em all in a big trunk back at home," I said, "I even had Humphrey the Camel, man, but I got him before I was smart and I ripped all his tags off. Mother fucker went from being worth $950 to being worth like $5." I shook my head.

Margo stared at me. At first I thought she was, like, I dunno, confused or something, but then she blurted out, "YOU RIPPED THE TAGS OFF HUMPHREY THE CAMEL?"

I nodded.

"Oh my God, why am I even associating with you?" she turned around and paced around the empty room.

"Well I bet you didn't have Humphrey the Camel at all," I grumped.

"If I did, it would still have the tags on it," she said.

"If mine still had the tags on it, I would've sold it by now," I said.

Margo stopped and stood in a corner and frowned, "This is where my bed was," she commented. She looked at me. "My parents got rid of all my stuff. She painted the kitchen and she got rid of all my stuff." Tears filled Margo's eyes. "They really don't think I'm coming back, do they?"

It didn't look it.

"Maybe... maybe they just... put it in storage or uh moved it to another room."

Margo shook her head.

I sighed. "I'm sorry," I said.

Margo stepped out into the hallway and left the empty room behind. "I'm not here," she said, trotting down the stairs. She reached the bottom and moved into a living room, "I'm not gonna be here anywhere." I followed after her.

An old man was sitting on the couch in the living room, a remote control in his hand, raised and aimed at the TV set. Margo moved to his side and gingerly sat down on the couch. "Hey Pops," she said, and she hugged his frozen arm.

I snuck over and peered down at the remote. "Just for the hell of it..." I said, and I reached down and hit the pause button on the remote control he held.

Nothing happened.

"Well it was worth a shot," I said.

Margo was staring up at his face.

"This your dad?" I asked.

"My grandfather," she replied. "He has Alzheimer's." I stared at the old man all paused and old and staring at the TV set through squinty eyes. "He probably doesn't even know I'm gone," Margo said. "He probably doesn't remember me. He barely remembered me when he saw me everyday."

I didn't know what to say really. One of my grandmothers had a touch of Alzheimer's once but she'd died before she got too bad so I didn't really know what it felt like to be one of the people left behind. I shuffled my feet.

"We should go," Margo said. "I'm not there."

I nodded. She stood up reluctantly and ran a hand over the old man's hand as we ducked away and out of the house. We walked back to where I'd left the BMW sitting and Margo climbed in and looked away from the house. I climbed in, too, and put my hands on the wheel, though the car wasn't started yet, and I took a deep breath.

"Okay so you've been... gone... awhile, right?"

Margo shrugged, "Apparently. I mean, it's felt like years and years, and maybe it has been, but... you might've noticed, time kinda moves different here. It's hard to tell what is what and how long I've been where..." She twiddled her thumbs, "Especially when I'm alone. I mean it's been... how long since you've been here?"

It felt like days or even weeks, but it's not like the sun had come up or nothin' so maybe it was still the same night. I couldn't tell. She was right, time moved different here.

"I'm not sure," I said. "Is it always dark?"

"Always," Margo replied.

"Then I'm really not sure," I said.

Margo nodded. "See?"

I nodded back.

Then, "Okay so... like... Where do they take people who are paused?"

Margo rubbed her hands on her jeans, "Well. Most people in comas are in the hospital."

Until she said the word, I hadn't even thought of being in a coma. I know we'd been suggesting that the two of us were paused in another world, but I'd kind of envisioned it more like it was here, where people were suspended in mid-action driving, talking, eating, sleeping... getting cremated by eighteen-wheelers. I hadn't thought about it being something that seemed like a natural phenomenon in the Real World.

"So where's the nearest hospital?" I asked, turning the key in the ignition.