The Cormorant by Chuck Wendig

uncertain chuckle tickled up from the depths of his belly, but then it’s like each chuckle brings a laugh and each laugh brings a whoop and next thing they know the both of them are gasping because laughter has replaced breathing. The sheer hilarity is going to kill them and neither one of them minds.
    It doesn’t really kill them, of course.
    But this is Aidan’s last day on earth.
    She knows it. And he knows it, too.
    The laughter finally winds down – a toy whose batteries are empty of juice. And then they’re both sitting there. Silent as the gods.
    In the distance, the high school sits. Also silent. Saturday doesn’t see much going on around these parts, which, she supposes, is why they’re here.
    Miriam rubs her eyes. Stretches. Runs her hands through her hair – currently pink like strawberry milk. “Damn, I like driving,” she finally says.
    “Glad to be your teacher,” Aidan says. His voice is – it’s not small, not exactly. But it’s quiet. A librarian’s voice, not a teacher’s voice. Which is too bad, seeing as how he’s a science teacher. And a part-time driving instructor. “Though I think you interpreted these lessons a little bit… liberally. Do not try any of this on the actual road.”
    “Blech,” she says, sticking out her tongue. “Whatever, Dad .”
    He has a father-like quality. She has to admit that. He’s twenty years her senior. Got kind of a hippie-hipster intellectual vibe about him. Maroon Mister Rogers sweater. Little gold-rimmed glasses. The facial hair is the twist, though: he’s got the handlebar ’stache and chin whiskers of a seasoned Wild West marshal.
    He laughs a little, pulls out a joint. It’s a fat one, too – thick as his pinky, a little bit crooked. Like a leprechaun’s shillelagh. He sparks a Zippo lighter and tries to pass her the weed, but she waves him off.
    “Blech again. I don’t like all the coughing. Besides, stuff tastes like a skunk’s taint.”
    “You know what a skunk’s taint tastes like?” he says, given over to childish giggles.
    “Funny,” she says. Then she pulls out her cigarettes and grabs her water bottle from the dashboard cup holder – a bottle that does not contain water but cheap-shit vodka. “I already have my two drugs of choice, dude.”
    “But this” – he gestures with the weed, then exhales a sputtering haze – “rounds all the edges. Bottoms you out. It’s slow like honey.”
    “They’re all just variations on a theme, Aidan. All different versions of stop and go . This is my brake pedal” – she holds up the vodka – “and this is my accelerator.” She shakes the cigarette pack at him. “And that’s all I ever need.”
    “Sounds simple.”
    “I like things simple.”
    “Your life is anything but simple.”
    She sighs. “You’re not wrong. But I’d rather talk about your life.”
    “What about my life?”
    “You’re still going to end it.”
    He pauses. Thinks. Takes another hit – holds it, releases it, coughs, eyes wet. Then he nods. “I am.”
    “Yeah. OK.” She chews the inside of her cheek. “I won’t tell you to do otherwise.”
    “Thanks. Anybody else would be telling me to live. To love life. To blah blah blah. You know, whatever. You know what Schopenhauer said?”
    “I don’t even know who Schopenhauer is.”
    “German philosopher. Atheist. Had two poodles.”
    “Poodles are weird dogs.”
    “They barely seem like dogs at all.”
    “I know, right?”
    “Anyway,” he says, “to quote him on suicide: They tell us that suicide is the greatest piece of cowardice, that suicide is wrong, when it is quite obvious that there is nothing in the world to which every man has a more unassailable title than to his own life and person. ”
    “I think I might kill myself some day,” she says suddenly. The words just fall out of her. Like rocks out of a sack.
    “Why?”
    “I don’t know. I’m young but I’m tired. I close my eyes at night and it’s just – my dreams are