Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer(125)

> Is your dad cheating on your mom, or something?



Suddenly, back in real unreal life, Eyesick stumbled away a few yards. He limped a bit, walked with a stutter. After making circles around nothing—like a planet around no sun, or a bride around no groom—he picked up the fossil of a bird from one of the earliest generations of Other Life, maybe three years before: the Twitter logo. Eyesick looked at the rock dumbly, then put it down, then picked it up again, then motioned as if to throw it, then tapped it against his head, as if testing his own ripeness.

> Are you seeing this glitch?

> No glitch. I started the transfer.

> Of what?

> Resilience fruit.

> I told you not to.

> You didn’t. And if you had, I would have ignored you.



A flood of digital images, each blooming on the screen and then receding as soon as it could be processed: some were stored moments from Samanta’s other life, conversations she’d had, experiences; others were more impressionistic. He saw screens that he’d looked at, mixed with screens Noam must have looked at: a contrail in a blue sky; crocheted rainbows on Etsy; the shovel of a bulldozer making contact with an old woman; cunnilingus, from behind, in a changing room; a thrashing lab monkey; conjoined twins (one laughing, one crying); satellite photos of the Sinai; unconscious football players; nail polish color wheels; Evander Holyfield’s ear; a dog being euthanized.

> How many are you transferring?

> All of them.

> What?

> 1,738,341.

> HOLY FUCKING SHIT! You have that many banked?

> I’m giving you a total transfusion.

> What?

> Listen, I have to get myself ready to go.

> Where?

> Jerusalem. My unit was mobilized. But don’t tell my father, OK?

> Why not?

> He’ll worry.

> But he should worry.

> But his worrying won’t help him, and it won’t help me.

> I don’t even need all of this. I only had 45,000 when my dad killed me.

> Make yourself great.

> My avatar.

> Your great-grandfather.

> This is too much.

> I should let it rot? Make resilience cider?

> You should use it.

> But I won’t. And you will.



The images came more quickly, so quick they could enter only subliminally; they overlapped, blended, and from the corner a light, bleeding from a few pixels to stain the screen, and spreading, a light like the darkness a broken pipe leaves on the ceiling, a light flooding the perpetually refreshing images, and then more light than image, and then an almost entirely white screen, but brighter than white, vague images as if seen through an avalanche.

In perhaps the purest moment of empathy of Sam’s life, he tried to imagine what Noam was seeing on his screen at that moment. Was a darkness like light spreading? Was he receiving warnings about low levels of vitality? Sam imagined Noam clicking IGNORE to those warnings, over and over, and ignoring the annoying alerts, and clicking CONFIRM when finally prompted to confirm his ultimate choice.

The lion walked to the old man, knelt beside him, laid his immense and proud paws on Eyesick’s stooped shoulders, licked at whatever one calls a white five o’clock shadow (a five o’clock brightness?), licked him over and over, as if to will Eyesick back to life, when in fact he was willing himself back to what comes before life.

> Look at you, Bar Mitzvah.



He rested his massive head on Eyesick’s sunken chest. Eyesick hid his fingers in the lion’s streaming mane.

In the middle of his great-grandfather’s funeral reception, Sam started to cry. He didn’t cry often. He hadn’t cried since Argus returned from his second hip replacement, two years before, his back half shaved to reveal Frankenstein stitches, his eyes lowered in his lowered head.

“It’s just what getting better looks like,” Jacob had said. “In a month, he’ll be his old self.”

“A month?”

“It’ll pass quickly.”

“Not for Argus, it won’t.”

“We’ll spoil him.”

“He can barely walk.”

“And he shouldn’t walk any more than is necessary. The vet said that’s the most important thing for his recovery, to keep him off his leg as much as possible. All walks have to be on-leash. And no stairs. We have to keep him on the first floor.”

“But how will he come up to bed?”

“He’s going to have to sleep down here.”

“But he’ll go up.”

“I don’t think so. He knows how weak his leg is.”

“He’ll go up.”

“I’ll put some books on the stairs to block the way.”

Sam set his alarm for 2:00 a.m., to go down and check on Argus. He snoozed once, and then again, but with the third buzz, his guilt was awakened. He plodded down the stairs, only half aware of being out of bed, nearly paralyzed himself with the help of the stacked Grove Encyclopedia of Art, and found his father on top of a sleeping bag, spooning Argus. That’s when he cried. Not because he loved his dad—although in that moment he certainly did—but because, of the two animals on the floor, it was his dad he felt more sorry for.