Breathers Read Online Free Page B

considers me human. That's how I feel.
    But I can't say this to Ted. He wouldn't understand. And even if he did, he wouldn't care. So I erase the other words on my dry erase board and scribble down the word:
    Abhorred.
    “Good,” says Ted. “What else?”
    Discarded.
    “Yes,” he says. “Is that all?”
    Frustrated.
    Demoralized.
    Bereft.
    Anxious.
    Insignificant.
    I hesitate, then erase everything and scrawl out the word
Tired.
    I wait, expecting a response, but receive only silence.
    I know Ted hasn't snuck away because I see him over my shoulder. I know he hasn't fallen asleep because his eyes are open. And I know he isn't dead because I hear him breathing.
    On the wall above Ted's framed diplomas and certificates and letters of achievement, there's a digital clock that shows the hours, minutes, and seconds in a red LED display. I sit and watch the silence stretch out one second at a time.
    … thirteen … fourteen … fifteen …
    We have moments like this at every session. Ted sits there with absolutely no idea of how to help me and I sit there watching the seconds tick off one by one in monochrome. It's like watching the clock count down to the New Year, only in reverse. And the ultimate moment never comes.
    … twenty-five … twenty-six … twenty-seven …
    “When you say tired,” says Ted, “do you mean physically, emotionally, or spiritually?”

ita, Helen, Jerry, and I are on the way home from another meeting with a new group member, a forty-five-year-old surfer named Walter who wiped out and hit his head on his surfboard and drowned. They actually never recovered the body until Walter walked out of the surf in his wetsuit at the Santa Cruz Beach and Boardwalk two days later—his lungs filled with salt water and his hair tangled with kelp.
    “Dude,” says Jerry. “So what was it like being under water for two days?”
    “Don't know, dude,” says Walter, his voice a water-logged gurgle. “I just woke up in a kelp forest and couldn't figure out how I'd fallen inside my waterbed. Except I was wearing my wetsuit and I never wear my wetsuit to bed.”
    If I didn't know any better, I'd swear Walter and Jerry were related.
    “At first I figured I was dreaming,” says Walter. “Until I felt something sliding down the back of my wetsuit.”
    “What was it?” asks Jerry.
    “Sea slug, dude,” says Walter. “It was gnarly.”
    “Dude.”
    “Totally.”
    It's not like I can just walk away from them. At least if I keep them on my left I don't hear them as well through my disfigured clump of an ear, but somehow one of them always seems to end up on my right-hand side.
    We cross a parking lot and head down an alley, doing the Robert Frost thing and taking the road less traveled. Not from any desire for adventure, but because we're less likely to disturb any Breathers this way. It's one of the Undead Commandments:
    You will not disturb the living.
    You will not be out after curfew.
    You will not commit necrophilia.
    You will not covet your neighbor's flesh.
    There are a few more about honoring your host guardians and refraining from acts of civil disobedience, but for the most part they're just a bunch of rules we have to follow in order to coexist with the living. Breathers, on the other hand, don't have to follow any rules regarding the undead. Except for the necrophilia part. But that's just common sense.
    The alley runs behind several blocks of light industrial complexes, all of which are closed for the night. Helen and Rita walk ahead of us, probably sharing a nice conversation about something meaningful while I'm stuck in purgatory.
    “Dude, you wanna touch my scalp?” asks Jerry, removing his baseball cap. “It's, like, totally cool.”
    Helen suddenly stops and holds her hand up like a crossing guard.
    “Dude,” says Walter, running his fingers across Jerry's glistening brain. “That's awesome.”
    “Shush,” whispers Helen.
    At the end of the alley, in the darkness behind us, car doors