The Living

Shy retires to his cabin and attempts to sleep, but his anxiety keeps him awake. He has vivid, nightmare-like visions of the man in the black suit breaking into his room to slit his throat with a machete, then of David Williamson dragging him off the ship and into the ocean. Finally, he remembers the bloody death of his grandmother, which he witnessed through the glass of her quarantine room. His grandmother died of Romero, an extremely painful and lethal disease that has recently developed into an epidemic in Mexico and the states that line the southern border of the United States.

Shy eventually gives up trying to sleep. He receives an email from his mother asking to Skype the next day, as she has “some possibly worrisome news she’d rather not share over email” (30). The email, on top of the stress from David’s suicide, Bill following him around the ship, and his resurfacing memories of his grandmother, begins to weigh heavily on Shy, and he leaves his cabin to “wander the halls and think” (30). He thinks about the difference between his life and the lives of the premier class passengers and imagines what it might be like to be so rich and successful. He finds himself standing on the deck where David killed himself, looking out at the water and feeling “incredibly alone. A tiny, insignificant human” (31). The sheer scale of the ocean and his comparative insignificance is overwhelming, and he sympathizes with David as “for a split second he understood how someone could be moved to jump” (31).

Eventually, Shy arrives at Carmen’s cabin and hesitates outside, wanting to see her but not wanting to wake her up at three in the morning. He and Carmen have been close friends since their first voyage: “They realized they were from the same area, went to rival high schools—though Carmen had just graduated. Then they discovered something else they had in common. Romero Disease” (33). Shy’s grandmother and Carmen’s father both died of Romero Disease, and this knowledge combined with their solidarity against the rich and self-centered passengers helps create a strong bond between the two. Carmen and Shy share a bottle of wine and talk about their families, then about Carmen’s fiancé—whom Shy is trying hard not to be jealous of—and then of David’s suicide again. As Shy and Carmen get drunker, Shy starts talking about space and the idea that there might be another version of their lives where they are together. He explains:

I think on one of those faraway planets there’s a space version of me and there’s a space version of you. And I bet our space versions met earlier in life. In junior high. On the swings at the park or something. And they probably hit it off in about two point five. Like love at first sight or whatever. And since that day they’ve been all about each other (41).

Shy and Carmen hold hands to “find out if their space versions are compatible” (41), and soon Carmen kisses him. They continue kissing until Carmen stops and turns away, upset, and Shy fears that “he’d messed up everything with the only girl who understood” (45).