Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

Part Two
1999: Jason
You won't see me in any of the photographs after the massacre - you know the ones I mean: the wire
service shots of the funerals, students felt-penning teenage poetry on Cheryl's casket; teenage prayer
groups in sweats and scrun-chies huddled on the school's slippery gym floor; 6:30 A.M. prayer
breakfasts in the highway off-ramp chain restaurants, with all the men wearing ties while dreaming of hash
browns. I'm in none of them, and if you had seen me, I sure wouldn't have been praying.
I want to say that right from the start.
Just one hour ago, I was a good little citizen in a Toronto-Dominion bank branch over in North Van,
standing in line, and none of this was even on my mind. I was there to deposit a check from my potbellied
contractor boss, Les, and I was wondering if I should blow off the afternoon's work. My hand reached
down into my pocket, and instead of a check, my sunburnt fingers removed the invitation to my brother's
memorial service. I felt as if I'd just opened all the windows of a hot muggy car.
I folded it away and wrote down today's date on the deposit slip. I checked the wall calendar - August
19,1999 -and What the heck, I wrote a whole row of zeroes before the year, so that the date read:
August 19, 00000001999. Even if you hated math, which I certainly do, you'd know that this is still
mathematically the same thing as 1999.
When I gave the slip and the check to the teller, Dean, his eyes widened, and he looked up at me as if
I'd handed him a holdup note. "Sir," he said, "this isn't a proper date."
I said, "Yes, it is. What makes you think it isn't?"
"The extra zeroes."
Dean was wearing a deep blue shirt, which annoyed me. "What is your point?" I asked.
"Sir, the year is nineteen ninety-nine, not zero zero zero zero zero zero zero one nine nine nine."
"It's the same thing."
"No, it's not."
"I'd like to speak with the branch manager."
Dean called over Casey, a woman who was maybe about my age, and who had the pursed hardness of
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