A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius by Dave Eggers

nailing foothold after foothold, and for a second it looks like he ’ ll make it, because Striker is so far below, two people-lengths easily, but then the accountant pauses. He cannot see his next move. The next grip is too far to reach from where he is. So then he actually hacks up, goes down a notch to set out on a different path and when he steps down it is unbearable, the suspense. The accountant steps down and then starts up the left side of the wall, but suddenly Striker is there, out of nowhere— he wasn ’ t even in the screen! —and he has the accountant ’ s leg, at the calf, and he yanks and it ’ s over. The accountant flies from the wall (attached by rope of course) and descends slowly to the floor. It ’ s terrible. I won ’ t watch this show again.
    Mom prefers the show where three young women sit on a pastel-colored couch and recount blind dates that they have all enjoyed or suffered through with the same man. For months, Beth and Mom have watched the show, every night. Sometimes the show ’ s participants have had sex with one another, but use funny words to describe it. And there is the funny host with the big nose and the black curly hair. He is a funny man, and has fun with the show, keeps everything buoyant. At the end the show, the bachelor picks one of the three with whom he wants to go on another date. The host then does something pretty incredible: even though he ’ s already paid for the three dates previously described, and even though he has nothing to gain from doing anything more, he still gives the bachelor and bachelorette money for their next date.
    Mom watches it every night; it ’ s the only thing she can watch without falling asleep, which she does a lot, dozing on and off during the day. But she does not sleep at night.
    “ Of course you sleep at night, ” I say.
    “ I don ’ t, ” she says.
    “ Everyone sleeps at night, ” I say—this is an issue with me— “ even if it doesn ’ t feel like it. The night is way, way too long to stay awake the whole way through. I mean, there have been times when I was pretty sure I had stayed up all night, like when I was sure the vampires from Salem ’ s Lot —do you remember that one, with David Soul and everything? With the people impaled on the antlers? I was afraid to sleep, so I would stay up all night, watching that little portable TV on my stomach, the whole night, afraid to drift off, because I was sure they ’ d be waiting for just that moment, just when I fell asleep, to come and float up to my window, or down the hall, and bite me, all slow-like... ”
    She spits into her half-moon and looks at me.
    “ What the hell are you talking about? ”
    In the fireplace, the fish tank is still there, but the fish, four or five of those bug-eyed goldfish with elephantiasis, died weeks ago. The water, still lit from above by the purplish aquarium light, is gray with mold and fish feces, hazy like a shaken snow globe. I am wondering about something. I am wondering what the water would taste like. Like a nutritional shake? Like sewage? I think of asking my mother: What do you think that would taste like? But she will not find the question amusing. She will not answer.
    “ Would you check it? ” she says, referring to her nose.
    I let go of her nostrils. Nothing.
    I watch the nose. She is still tan from the summer. Her skin is smooth, brown.
    Then it comes, the blood, first in a tiny rivulet, followed by a thick eel, venturing out, slowly. I get a towel and dab it away.
    “ It ’ s still coming, ” I say.
    Her white blood cell count has been low. Her blood cannot clot properly, the doctor had said the last time this had happened, so, he said, we can have no bleeding. Any bleeding could be the end, he said. Yes, we said. We were not worried. There seemed to be precious few opportunities to draw blood, with her living, as she did, on the couch. I ’ ll keep sharp objects out of proximity, I had joked to the doctor. The doctor did