The Ministry for the Future

7

He was having panic attacks whenever he got hot, and then the panic attacks made him hotter still. Feedback loop for sure. When he was stabilized enough to move him, we flew him to Glasgow. He had spent a year abroad there, he said, and we thought that familiarity might help. He didn’t want to go home to the States. So we took him to Glasgow and kept him cool, and took walks with him around the neighborhood at night. It was October and so the usual rain and raw sea air. That seemed to comfort him.

One night I was out there walking the streets with him, letting him take the lead. He hardly ever said a word, and I let him be. On this night he was a little more talkative. He pointed out to me where he had gone to school, theaters he had frequented. Apparently he had taken an interest in theater, done some work backstage with lighting and sets and costumes. Then when we found ourselves on Clyde Street, he wanted to walk out onto the pedestrian bridge that ran out over the river to the south bank.

Out there in the dark the city looked foursquare and massive. It’s low for a city, not much different than it must have appeared a century or two ago. A little uncanny somehow, like a city in some dark fantasy. He stood there and looked down at the black water, elbows on the railing.

We talked about various things. At one point I asked him again if he would be going home.

No, he said sharply. I’m never going back there. It was the blackest look I ever saw on him. Never, he said.

I let it go. I didn’t want to ask. We stood there leaning against the railing. It looked like the city was slowly floating in toward the hills.

So why did I survive? he said all of a sudden. Why just me, out of all those people?

I didn’t know what to say. You just did, I said. Probably you were the healthiest person there. Maybe one of the biggest, I don’t know. You aren’t that big, but maybe bigger than most Indians.

He shrugged. Not really.

Even a bit more body mass would help. You have to keep your core temperature under about 104. A few pounds could help with that. And a lifetime of better food and medical care. And you’re a runner, right?

I was a swimmer.

That probably helped. Stronger heart, thinner blood. That sort of thing. Ultimately I think it just means you were the strongest person there, and only the strongest survived.

I don’t think I was the strongest person there.

Well, maybe you were better hydrated? Or you stayed in the water more? They said they found you by the lake.

Yes, he said. Something I said had troubled him. He said, I did stay submerged as much as I could. Just my face up there to breathe, all night long. But a lot of people were doing that.

It added up to survival, I said. You made it. You were lucky.

Don’t say that.

I don’t mean lucky. It was chance. I mean there’s always an element of chance.

He looked at the dark low city, spangled with its night lights. It’s just fate, he said. He put his forehead on the railing.

I put a hand on his shoulder. Fate, I agreed.