“Ah,” he says. “Here we are.” He grips his pencil and begins to examine the body, his look of admiration replaced by one of keen appraisal. He skillfully narrows his attention to focus first on one feature, then another. You realize Jollis is not blind to the details at all. If, for example, the body is in remarkably pristine condition, he notices.
“It’s in remarkably pristine condition,” he says.
“Thank you,” you respond proudly. “I took excellent care of it, at least up until—well, you know.”
“Did you?” Jollis peers at you quizzically. “How do you mean?”
“Well,” you say, “exercise, for starters. I did just about everything, at one time or another. Running, biking, yoga—you name it.”
Jollis carries on his inspection, occasionally looking over at you to show that he’s listening. Although he is almost halfway down the body, he has yet to mark a single item on his checklist. You find this puzzling. Surely, you deserve some checks. Maybe he’s not seeing what you’re seeing after all.
“Then there was my diet,” you tell him. “Pescatarian, vegetarian, vegan. No alcohol. No tobacco. I went gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, caffeine-free, soy-free, fat-free, carb-free. Virtually food-free.”
Jollis nods vaguely in your direction. His examination of the body is nearly finished now, but still no check marks. You grow nervous. Your voice speeds up.
“And I was very careful with it,” you say. “Stayed out of the sun. Never swam after eating. Always wore a helmet. Flossed . . .”
Jollis straightens. With one last glance at the soles of the feet, he moves back. He lowers his pencil. Coincidentally or not, the incandescent stream of memories slows to a trickle, then stops.
“That’s it?” you ask.
He nods.
“But you didn’t check anything on the list.”
“Yes,” says Jollis, a bit uncomfortably. “That is a bit unusual, but nothing you should worry about. It’s not a report card. I’m not here to keep score or anything.”
“But what’s on it?” you ask. “What are you tallying up?”
“Scars,” he says.
“You mean from injuries? Like if I’d stuck my hand in a blender or something?”
“Well, yes, and much more besides. The list includes every way in which a vessel can be marked by usage. Cuts and scrapes, certainly. But also wounded pride, tarnished reputation, guilty conscience—everything from broken bone to broken heart.”
“You can see the scar from a broken heart?”
“Sure,” says Jollis. “We’ve had cases where the heart was ripped out entirely.”
You look back at the body. It really is marvelous. You wonder why you never noticed. “And I have no scars whatsoever?”
Jollis double-checks his list. “Apparently not,” he says. “I admit that it’s rare. But, as I said, the body is in remarkably pristine condition.”
“But that’s good, right?”
Jollis looks at you softly. “Keep in mind,” he says, “the list is solely for our internal research. It’s not a scorecard. There is no grade.” He pauses, wrestling with something. “Still, it’s remarkable how often the most rewarding journeys are evidenced by the most check marks. A statistically significant correlation. Of course, a broken bone may result from a purely tragic accident—a traveler is hit by a car while standing at her mailbox, say. But more often it comes about from some daring push—she is scaling a mountain, for example, or riding a bicycle too fast down a hill, and she falls.”
“And the other scars?” you ask, though you already know.
“The same,” says Jollis. “A broken heart, for example, could be the tragic result of a lifetime of mistreatment. Statistically, though, it’s more likely to occur when a traveler loves something so utterly that it shatters him a little—or a lot—when he loses it.”
“So you get check marks for pain?”
“Not for pain. For striving.”
You stare at your former body. What had a moment before seemed immaculate to you now feels sterile, and the pride you felt in defending yourself from life turns to regret for failing to embrace it. It is too unscathed, this body, too unused. Only one thing mars its perfection. It’s your last hope, and you grasp at it.
“What about that final piece?” you ask. “At the end.” After all, you think, the body did die. You killed it yourself.
“No,” says Jollis gently. “I’m sorry.”
“But why not?” you ask. That’s a scar, you think. You deserve a check mark for that, if nothing else.
“You get marks for striving to live your life, not striving to leave it.”
Your dread swells into full despair. Despite Jollis’s proclamations—that there are no grades, no report cards—you discover that you want check marks now. Desperately. Even just one. One scar to prove your life. Without your body you are incapable of tears, but you want to cry, and you find it ironic that you spent your life telling yourself not to. The rest of you begins to unravel, dissipating until it threatens to disappear entirely.
Jollis’s look softens even further. “Tell you what,” he says. “I’ll go ahead and give you a half check for that last part.”
“Really?”
“I shouldn’t,” he says. “Technically, it will throw off our research, but it won’t be more than a rounding error. Happy to do it.”
You feel saved, as if Jollis has pulled you back from the edge of the abyss. “Thank you, Jollis.”
“It’s fine,” he says. “Honestly, I don’t see what the fuss is about. As I said, it’s not a report card, and I’m not here to judge. Check mark, no check mark. It doesn’t matter now.”
Elliot
(1982)
I love to sleep. It is one of my favorite things. That I can’t actually verify this—that, by definition, I cannot be conscious of my unconsciousness—doesn’t dissuade me from my belief. Some things can be taken only on faith. Besides, I have evidence, circumstantial though it may be.
Exhibit A, I hate getting up in the morning. Hate it. I’ve yet to see a dawn I wouldn’t rather turn my back on, head deep in the pillow, blankets pulled high. Even more so in winter. To save money, my parents keep the thermostat low, relying on a kerosene space heater in the kitchen. When most of me is nestled under the covers, the sharp chill on my nose and cheeks is actually enjoyable. But the prospect of facing it in nothing but my tighty-whities? That’s just grim.
Exhibit B, I am an Olympic-caliber napper—or would be, if napping were an Olympic event. I can nap anywhere and for any length of time, from the five-minute catnap on the bus to school (I call it the Blink), to the early-evening snooze that can last until the following morning (the Deep Out). My favorite is the traditional siesta. Many an afternoon finds me on the couch, eyelids drawn and breath shallow, gone from this world if only for a brief time.
Upon our return from vacation, I increase my self-prescribed dosage of slumber. Connecticut is still buried in winter. The front yard is white and deep and cold, making it clear that I won’t be practicing baseball with my father any time soon. The weather seems to encourage everyone to burrow even further into their own personal dens. Not that my family is one for games or shared philosophy in any event—our primary group activity is television. There is otherwise little to do but homework and reading, which can only fill so many hours. My mother abides my idleness for about a week, until her sense of duty kicks in.