Jeanine watched the fire-dances and the torch-lighting with eyes likesaucers, and picked daintily at her spare ribs with one hand, never avertingher attention from the floor show. When they danced the fast hula,her eyes jiggled. I chuckled.
From where we sat, I could see the spot where I’d waded into theSeven Seas Lagoon and breathed in the blood-temp water, I could seeCinderella’s Castle, across the lagoon, I could see the monorails and theferries and the busses making their busy way through the Park, shuttlingteeming masses of guests from place to place. Dan toasted me with hispineapple and I toasted him back, drank it dry and belched insatisfaction.
Full belly, good friends, and the sunset behind a troupe of tawny, halfnakedhula dancers. Who needs the Bitchun Society, anyway?
When it was over, we watched the fireworks from the beach, my toesdug into the clean white sand. Dan slipped his hand into my left hand,and Jeanine took my right. When the sky darkened and the lightedbarges puttered away through the night, we three sat in the hammock.
I looked out over the Seven Seas Lagoon and realized that this was mylast night, ever, in Walt Disney World. It was time to reboot again, startafresh. That’s what the Park was for, only somehow, this visit, I’d gottenstuck. Dan had unstuck me.
The talk turned to Dan’s impending death.
“So, tell me what you think of this,” he said, hauling away on a glowingcigarette.
“Shoot,” I said.
133“I’m thinking—why take lethal injection? I mean, I may be done herefor now, but why should I make an irreversible decision?”
“Why did you want to before?” I asked.
“Oh, it was the macho thing, I guess. The finality and all. But hell, Idon’t have to prove anything, right?”
“Sure,” I said, magnanimously.
“So,” he said, thoughtfully. “The question I’m asking is, how long canI deadhead for? There are folks who go down for a thousand years, tenthousand, right?”
“So, you’re thinking, what, a million?” I joked.
He laughed. “A million? You’re thinking too small, son. Try this on forsize: the heat death of the universe.”
“The heat death of the universe,” I repeated.
“Sure,” he drawled, and I sensed his grin in the dark. “Ten to the hundredyears or so. The Stelliferous Period—it’s when all the black holeshave run dry and things get, you know, stupendously dull. Cold, too. SoI’m thinking—why not leave a wake-up call for some time aroundthen?”
“Sounds unpleasant to me,” I said. “Brrrr.”
“Not at all! I figure, self-repairing nano-based canopic jar, massenough to feed it—say, a trillion-ton asteroid—and a lot of solitude whenthe time comes around. I’ll poke my head in every century or so, just tosee what’s what, but if nothing really stupendous crops up, I’ll take thelong ride out. The final frontier.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Jeanine said.
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