You Shall Know Our Velocity! by Dave Eggers
Authors: Dave Eggers
Tags: Fiction, Literary, General, Humorous, Popular American Fiction, Philanthropists, Reading Group Guide, Death, Male friendship, Loss (Psychology), Grief, Bereavement, Fiction - General, Family & Relationships, Americans, Psychological, Foreign countries, Humorous fiction, Psychological fiction, Americans - Foreign countries
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half-broken. Hand shook the man's hand.
"What is your name sir?" he asked.
"Robby." The man was easily fifty.
"Robby, we thank you." Hand did a little bow.
We got on the shuttle.
I understood the Earth's shadow on the moon. I knew that the Earth was hiding most of the moon from the light this night, leaving a curved white blade. What I didn't know was why the moon and its shadow should be so clear, the lines so clean. The sun wasn't at all clear; its outline was debatable and changing. And though I know the sun is gas and the moon is rock, still I wonder why the moon's circumference would be so clear, its edges so crisp -- cut from cardboard with scissors.
The plane turned around and now the moon was behind us.
Our seats on the plane were first class and we didn't know why. We worried that we were white and in first class while the Senegalese people, better dressed and better educated and maybe even of aristocratic blood, were behind us in coach. Between Hand and me we had three years of college at UW-La Crosse and, until recently, nothing in the bank. We buried this shame in the drawer next to all the inequities, and ate. The flight attendant asked us to close our window shades; if we didn't we would disturb the people in the towns we were flying over --
"Is that really what she said?" I said.
"I think," Hand said,
-- then Hand fell asleep. I did shortly afterward, but woke up hourly and moved stiffly -- so stiffly even in first class - - as if my flesh had been mixed with gravel. I got up at about 3 A.M. and remembered I had to sign the traveler's checks. At the bank they'd told me to sign them all before I traveled. I'd forgotten the directive immediately, meant to do it at home, then almost remembered in the cab, then the airport, then figured I'd have time on the plane. I turned toward the window and hid my task with my back and arm, glancing around periodically to make sure no one was watching, no one who would tell their buddies in Dakar that there were these tourists made of money -- God I hated this money and this was why; it recast me and refracted my vision -- on the plane who should be robbed and stabbed and later dragged around by their penises.
The signing was endless. The cashier had run out of $500 checks after the first six and so the rest were $100s, two hundred and ninety of them total, in envelopes often. After each check was signed I let it drop to my lap; when each set of ten was done I gathered them, neatened them, stacking -- click-click on the tray table -- and inserted them back into their envelope.
Out my portal the plane wing was silver and shining like it would have fifty years earlier, carrying happier and simpler people. All of them smoking and speaking loudly -- musically barking every last word -- and wearing expensive hats. When did we start flying like this? So cavalier like this? I should have known, but didn't. Hand would know. Everything like that Hand knew, or pretended to know. So many questions. Did the floatation devices really float? Did planes actually float long enough for us to get out, jumping down those wide and festive yellow inflatable slides? And also: Would it be easier to kill someone who was beautiful, or someone who was ugly? What if you had to do it with your own hands, hovering above? I think there would be a difference. And why, when we see a half-broken window, do we want it all broken? We see the shards rising from the pane and we long to knock them out, one by one, like teeth. Questions, questions. Did Vaclav Havel have emphysema, or was I imagining that? Who had emphysema? Someone over there.
I wanted to be asleep on this flight. Too much time in my head would
"What is your name sir?" he asked.
"Robby." The man was easily fifty.
"Robby, we thank you." Hand did a little bow.
We got on the shuttle.
I understood the Earth's shadow on the moon. I knew that the Earth was hiding most of the moon from the light this night, leaving a curved white blade. What I didn't know was why the moon and its shadow should be so clear, the lines so clean. The sun wasn't at all clear; its outline was debatable and changing. And though I know the sun is gas and the moon is rock, still I wonder why the moon's circumference would be so clear, its edges so crisp -- cut from cardboard with scissors.
The plane turned around and now the moon was behind us.
Our seats on the plane were first class and we didn't know why. We worried that we were white and in first class while the Senegalese people, better dressed and better educated and maybe even of aristocratic blood, were behind us in coach. Between Hand and me we had three years of college at UW-La Crosse and, until recently, nothing in the bank. We buried this shame in the drawer next to all the inequities, and ate. The flight attendant asked us to close our window shades; if we didn't we would disturb the people in the towns we were flying over --
"Is that really what she said?" I said.
"I think," Hand said,
-- then Hand fell asleep. I did shortly afterward, but woke up hourly and moved stiffly -- so stiffly even in first class - - as if my flesh had been mixed with gravel. I got up at about 3 A.M. and remembered I had to sign the traveler's checks. At the bank they'd told me to sign them all before I traveled. I'd forgotten the directive immediately, meant to do it at home, then almost remembered in the cab, then the airport, then figured I'd have time on the plane. I turned toward the window and hid my task with my back and arm, glancing around periodically to make sure no one was watching, no one who would tell their buddies in Dakar that there were these tourists made of money -- God I hated this money and this was why; it recast me and refracted my vision -- on the plane who should be robbed and stabbed and later dragged around by their penises.
The signing was endless. The cashier had run out of $500 checks after the first six and so the rest were $100s, two hundred and ninety of them total, in envelopes often. After each check was signed I let it drop to my lap; when each set of ten was done I gathered them, neatened them, stacking -- click-click on the tray table -- and inserted them back into their envelope.
Out my portal the plane wing was silver and shining like it would have fifty years earlier, carrying happier and simpler people. All of them smoking and speaking loudly -- musically barking every last word -- and wearing expensive hats. When did we start flying like this? So cavalier like this? I should have known, but didn't. Hand would know. Everything like that Hand knew, or pretended to know. So many questions. Did the floatation devices really float? Did planes actually float long enough for us to get out, jumping down those wide and festive yellow inflatable slides? And also: Would it be easier to kill someone who was beautiful, or someone who was ugly? What if you had to do it with your own hands, hovering above? I think there would be a difference. And why, when we see a half-broken window, do we want it all broken? We see the shards rising from the pane and we long to knock them out, one by one, like teeth. Questions, questions. Did Vaclav Havel have emphysema, or was I imagining that? Who had emphysema? Someone over there.
I wanted to be asleep on this flight. Too much time in my head would
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