The Egg Code by Mike Heppner Read Free Book Online

that—a free fall, and even one of the stewardesses utters a tiny scream as a food tray clatters inside a storage closet. The taste of peanuts is strong in my throat, and the striped pattern on the seat in front of me is making my temples throb. Despite the nausea and the frantic activity, I somehow know we will land safely. That settled, I allow myself a little fantasy, a vision of a quick, unexpected death, with the plane pitching over in an unnatural spin and the lights of the earth now over our heads where they most definitely don’t belong. I turn to my wife, who is sitting first-lady-like to my right, protecting me from the fandom that has been crowding the aisle ever since St. Louis. I somehow know that in eight seconds, it will all be over. Our life together, our marriage. I have seven seconds to collect one last glimpse of my wife, my Madonna. Her knees? Not very respectful, staring at her legs at a time like this. This is the moment when the black-box device finally succumbs, and when the feds recover the tape, they will hear nothing, only a quick interruption as the engines fail and the cockpit tears apart from the rest of the plane. Donna has risen from her seat, taking her purse with her. This is how she has chosen to end our marriage. By leaving. Convinced that this disaster is somehow my fault, she now wants to flee. Her loyalty may be severed by less than eight seconds of fear.
    This fantasy having come to an unsatisfying conclusion, and with the plane still looking for a runway, I pull out the in-flight magazine and flip through the pages. Under the heading MOTIVATIONAL MASTER STRIKES A NEW PATH, I notice a picture that stops me short. The man in the picture looks familiar, even though I’ve never seen him before: blond mustache, band of hair hugging the back of a bald head, deep eyes spraying coldwater blue through two chiseled cracks. I recheck the cover, and when I see the April ’99 publication date, I realize what has happened, and that my wife is no longer my wife, and I am no longer a young guru, neither young nor a guru but rather a middle-aged crank, and this is just the kind of publicity I need, x-million travelers per day and they all think they know what Derek Skye’s all about, and even the poor girl from the features department seems a bit unsure of how to phrase her questions, but I am patient with her, having already survived a year of threats and intimidations, late-night phone calls from the Gloria Corporation, and I know that quite possibly most or maybe even all of my former followers will hate me when they see what I’ve done. The reporter conducts her business as another woman takes pictures, and while I find this all a bit distracting, I have been assured that this method is in keeping with the informal tone planned for the article. I’m speaking like a maniac, fast and garbled. The photographer asks me to lean forward so she can adjust the folds of my collar. Her fingernails scratch the back of my neck.
    “I am tired,” I tell the reporter, and she writes it down. “That’s the theme of this book. My fatigue. My need to jump up and scream— enough with the excuses! Enough with the, ‘Well, it happened to me.’ ” The photographer pats my shoulder and I sit back up, passing gas as my belt presses into my stomach. The reporter scrunches in her seat, pretending not to notice. “As long as it happened
to
you, there’s nothing you can do about it. Whatever misfortune you may have encountered in your life, ultimately you brought it upon yourself.”
    Having these women in my tiny apartment feels odd to me. I’ve been here by myself for so long now that I find it hard to interact with any company, no matter how polite or well-meaning. My apartment is nearly bare. White walls. I eat from the same plate every night, even though I own a set of four. I wash the plate after every use and set it back on top of the other three. Me and my habits. Well, I haven’t been entirely