Hey Nostradamus! By Douglas Coupland

* * *
Okay, I know I'm using both the present and past tenses for Jason and me. Is he alive or dead? I have
no choice but to hope he's somewhere and breathing. He's been gone a few months now. Not a peep.
He went down to buy smokes at Mac's Milk and never came home. He walked - no car involved - and,
well, the thing about people vanishing is that they've vanished. They haven't left you a clue. They're
gone. A clue? I'd kill for a clue. I'd sell my retinas for a clue. But "vanish" is indeed the correct verb here.
It's . . .
The phone. I have to answer it.
* * *
That was Reg, calling from his apartment over near Lonsdale. He just wanted to talk. Jason's
disappearance has left him as bewildered as it's left me. And I must say, it truly is hard to imagine Reg as
the ogre Jason's always made him out to be.
Okay, Heather, be honest. You know darn well why Reg changed: losing Jason was the clincher. He
also got royally dumped, just after Jason disappeared - by Ruth, this woman he'd been seeing for years.
And not only was he dumped, but she really laid into him when she did the dumping. The essence of her
farewell speech (delivered in a Keg steak restaurant as a neutral space) was that Reg was the opposite of
everything he thought he was: cruel instead of kind; blind instead of wise; not tough but with skin as thin
as frost. I didn't like Ruth much the few times we met; she had judgment written all over her face. In real
life, it's always the judgmental people who get caught robbing the choirboys' charity raffle fund.
I think I'm the sole mortal friend or contact Reg still has, which is odd, as I'm not at all churchy. He sure
doesn't have friends at work; the day Ruth dumped him, he was rummaging in the plastic spoon drawer in
the coffee room, and found a voodoo doll of himself covered with pins made from straightened paper
clips; the head had been burned a few times.
"Heather." The sound of his voice just now - his soul was sore.
"Reg. How're you doing?"
Pause. "Okay. But just okay."
"I haven't heard anything from the RCMP today."
"I doubt we will."
"Don't be so glum. Don't. And you know what? Chris has mapped Jason's face from an old photo. So at
least he's in that index now."
Page 86