Exquisite Corpse by Poppy Z. Brite, Deirdre C. Amthor Page B

after
that
…
    Tran saw his life stretching away before him, measured out in half-year increments, discrete pockets of time. Each pocket became a glass vial capped with a circle of red plastic. On each cap was a tiny label, and Tran’s initials neatly lettered there. Each vial was three-quarters full of dark blood. Hecould shatter them one by one, waste them all in a blind search for the poisoned vial. But when he found it, it would contain nothing but his death.
    So what do I do with the rest of my time?
he thought.
Live rent-free with my parents, write in my notebooks, go outdancing, catch a buzz, get laid? It doesn’t sound so bad. But what if I only have, say, five more years to live?
    The life he had known up to now would not be enough. This unfortunate scene with his father had only hastened a decision Tran knew he had to make. It was the next step of his adventure, the step that would keep him alive. How could he die in the middle of his great adventure?
    He wondered if Luke had ever thought the same thing. Then he reminded himself that he did not care, could not care what Luke thought.
    â€œI’m negative,” he said again. “I don’t have AIDS, and I haven’t been screwing the twins. Now get out.”
    â€œVinh, if you—”
    â€œDad.” Tran went to his father, took the letters from his hand. “You don’t know me. This is who I am. Here. In these letters.” He waved the ragged sheaf of paper in T.V.’s face. “Now leave me alone.”
    His father looked at him a moment longer. His dark eyes had a regretful but faintly impassive cast, as if he were looking at his son’s corpse already in its coffin. Tran could almost see a miniature of himself reflected there, a wan and wasted image in a mahogany box, propped on a trestle in the Catholic church, surrounded by white flowers and grieving relatives. If he died in five years, if he died tomorrow, that was how it would be.
    For several seconds Tran felt himself falling into his father’s eyes, into that future. Then TV. turned and left the room, and Tran was free.
    Luke’s letters were still crumpled in his hand. He stared at them for a moment, then put them on the nightstand atop a pileof books. For a long time the very sight of Luke’s handwriting had made his flesh crawl with loathing. That purple scrawl looked exactly like Luke’s voice sounded, thick with whiskey and self-pity, on the phone at three in the morning. Ziggy Stardust after the band broke up, rubbing his face in broken shards of gutter glass, swearing he could see the stars. Cockteasing death, courting and seducing it at every turn, but never going all the way as long as he had a choice in the matter.
    Tran looked around his bedroom, wondering what to take first, and felt a fresh wave of helplessness sweep over him. There were clothes everywhere, clean and dirty; there were notebooks, sketches, random books and papers.
    Prioritize,
he told himself.
Start with the important stuff
. He went to his bookshelf, took down a large glossy volume on death and dying. He knew his parents had seen plenty of mangled corpses up close in Vietnam—neighbors, teachers, family. They’d never take such a book off the shelf. Tran flipped through full-page color shots of humans in various stages of mutilation, decay, and general disrepair until he found the Baggie he’d stashed there, which contained fifty hits of LSD and five crisp green portraits of Ben Franklin.
    He sat on the edge of his bed holding his ready assets, silently cursing the name of Lucas Ransom and every word the man had ever committed to paper. When he was done with that, he cursed himself for a while, until he was sick of it. Then he got up and started packing.

4
    Remember, remember, the fifth of November, Gunpowder, treason, and plot!
    I n 1605, the celebrated traitor Guy Fawkes and assorted ruffians in his sway conspired to blow up London’s Houses of