War of the Encyclopaedists (14 page)

15

Of course, the essay could be postponed. And Corderoy was given the perfect excuse the instant the dot next to
Sylvie
's IM handle (bytheseashore) flicked from gray to green in his contact list and a message popped onto his screen.

bytheseashore:
sorry i disappeared

bytheseashore:
i missed you

bytheseashore:
but i was in the hospital

rogue7:
Are you OK? What happened?

Nothing that hadn't happened before, apparently.
Sylvie
had cystic fibrosis. Last week she'd coughed up blood and was rushed to the emergency room. They'd done X-rays and CAT scans of her lungs, and she was now on an additional antibiotic, ciprofloxacin, in addition to the four she took on a regular basis, even in periods of relative health, vancomycin, meropenem, tobramycin, and piperacillin.

Corderoy immediately Wikied “cystic fibrosis” to learn that it was an inherited disease that affected the entire body, with lung infections being the most serious complication. The minimized chat window was flashing, and before clicking back to her, Corderoy finished reading the first paragraph of the Wiki article: “Most individuals with cystic fibrosis die young—many in their 20s and 30s—from lung failure.” Holy shit.

bytheseashore:
i like u hal

rogue7:
I like you, too. Are you feeling better?

bytheseashore:
a little

bytheseashore:
now that im talki

bytheseashore:
ng to u again

rogue7:
Why just a little?

bytheseashore:
u make me feel so special

rogue7:
Thanks.

bytheseashore:
but still just a little

bytheseashore:
i have a check up

bytheseashore:
tomorrow

bytheseashore:
for my crohn's

rogue7:
What?

Sylvie also had Crohn's disease, an autoimmune disease causing inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract. Two horrible diseases. What were the odds? But of course, that was probably why Cystic
Sylvie
, as he would later think of her, had to depend on MySpace for her social life.

This revelation didn't scare Corderoy off; paradoxically, it knocked him into a spiral of infatuation, a fact which may seem incommensurate with reality, but when the threads of circumstance that led to it are traced back sufficiently far, its inevitability is apparent. The most constant circumstance responsible was his immersion in the suffocating academic pretensions of Cambridge, Massachusetts, where
Sylvie
's whimsey was like oxygen. The most distant circumstance, though also the most profound: the image of Mani in traction, in a hospital room on July 3rd, unconscious, moments from abandonment by her de facto boyfriend, soon to awake in a city suddenly cold and alien, absent of a single friend. The most trivial, and the most evil, and the most suppressed of these circumstances was the Get Out of Relationship Free card, similar to the one he'd used when leaving Seattle, that came with
Sylvie
's terminal diagnosis.

bytheseashore:
still want to go ghosthunting

bytheseashore:
its totaly on

bytheseashore:
this friday

bytheseashore:
if not we can bake funfetti

bytheseashore:
cupcakes or something because

bytheseashore:
thats always wonderful

bytheseashore:
maybe we can cuddle at the house

bytheseashore:
this palce i know

bytheseashore:
but wear boxer shorts

bytheseashore:
briefs are icky

bytheseashore:
gotta go by cutie hal

She was practically throwing herself at him. And for a moment, he was tempted to disbelieve the illusion. But luck, both good and bad, was all about relative perception. In the grand scheme of things, he reminded himself, the universe was indifferent to our fortunes. When looking through a small enough window, it sometimes seemed designed to thwart you. But through that same window, it could also seem to be rewarding your very existence.

Dear Hal,

Have some pussy. Don't question it.

Your friend,

The Universe

Corderoy threw on a pair of pants and left the house like he had a plane to catch.