By the time he gets to the dining room, Coop is lightheaded. He finds an empty table and takes out his ElderScreen so he can scroll and eat in peace. The others do not take the hint; they sit down next to him and attempt to chit-chat. Their presence sickens him. He can’t eat now. He pushes his breaded dinosaur nuggets around on the plate. He misses the dinosaur nuggets of his youth, when they were still made of chicken. Now they are made of dinosaurs, actual dinosaurs. In the old days, Coop would have been enthralled to learn about the advances in cloning technology that made such a development possible. Turns out, dinosaurs are just another bland creature on a bland planet. Dactyls, they’re called now, the way chickens used to be called poultry. It’s a joke, is what it is. Some trillion-dollar megaconglomerate reviving a lost species just to mash it into barely edible glop. All that scientific research, all that money spent, and this is the best they can do. Why not create something to alleviate human suffering? No, the shareholders are too busy cratering society into oblivion. Coop envies the extinct chickens and their blissful ignorance.
The next morning, he wakes up shivering. He’s wet the bed again. He long ago got over the embarrassment of it. Nowadays, he’s more concerned with the logistical nightmare it presents. He buzzes the nurses’ station for assistance. The phone rings and rings. Useless. It takes an hour for him to strip the sheets and change out of his clothes. He is dizzy. Life is dizzying. It could crystallize at any moment. The big unsurprising surprise at the end of everybody’s hallway. How will it be? Whoosh, like a magician waving his cape in front of Earth, making all the chickens disappear.
There are no extra linens in the linen closet. He will have to wash his wet sheets in the basement. It’s Wednesday, so the elevator is no help. He lugs his bundle to the stairwell, anchoring himself against the round steel handrail. It’s two full flights to the laundry room, with its moldy walls and rattling pipes, like a torture chamber from a horror movie. He starts the washer-dryer and lowers himself onto a dented metal folding chair. His poor tailbone.