Page 147 of Johnny

“What do you think?” he asks. “Do you think I got this life because I was horrible? Or because I

kicked that last life’s ass and now I’m being challenged?”

He’s serious. He’s really asking me this question.

“Because I’d like to think,” he continues, “that I chose this life because I felt like I could do

something with it. Make something good from the bad.”

“There’s no dude handing out destinies,” I mumble. “And even if there were, what makes you think

we’d get a choice?”

“Because that’s the only way life makes sense. I mean… think about it. There’s no purpose to life.

None. There’s no way to win. We’re all gonna die. We work our asses off for years building

something up. Making something, looking for happiness. Whatever. And none of it matters, Megan.

Not one fucking bit of it matters because we can’t take it with us. We can’t take this life into the next.”

“That’s assuming there is a next life.”

“Exactly,” he says. “Exactly.” Then he pauses for a moment. “But if there isn’t, then it’s even

worse. Then this whole fucking thing is one pointless exercise in futility. And I don’t know about you,

but for me… I’d rather conjure up this fake-ass destiny dude and pretend it’s all a game of winners

and losers than fully embrace the fact that it might just be a whole bunch of nothing.”

I think about that for a moment while he stares up at the ceiling.

“On the other hand,” he says, “if it’s totally meaningless then what I do, what they do…” He looks at me, his face upside down. His frown looks like a smile from this angle. And he shrugs. “Doesn’t

matter. I could kill ten more labs filled with nerdy psychopaths and it won’t matter. There’s no one

keeping track. Not anyone who matters, anyway. Not anyone with the power to control your next

destiny. When I die, I’m just gone. Poof. Like I was never here. Like I never mattered.”

I realize I’ve been holding my breath and in the beat of silence after his last few words I let it out.

“Well, that’s fucking depressing.”

“Yeah,” he says, sitting up and resuming his hunched-over, head-in-hands posture. “Very fucking

depressing.” He looks over his shoulder at me and says, “I still hate the way you swear.”

“Fuck you.”

He looks forward again with a shrug. “If I were in charge of you, I’d expect more.”

“More what?”

“More everything.”

“Yeah, because that makes sense. You’re crazy, you know that?”