The Last Analects of Jasper James Kaufmann

6. Sunday

Jasper awoke the next day and had a hard time getting out of bed. He immediately wondered when he would see Petra again. Finally, he awoke from his slumber and found Abelard in the kitchen making breakfast.

"Hey, good morning," said his roommate. "How was... Das Buddhistische Haus, was it?"

"Oh, it's something, man," he said. "Petra said that if you didn't know you were in Berlin, you'd think you were in China. I think it's true."

Abelard nodded thoughtfully while cracking an egg. "I've never been there. But I've heard good things. I was at the university all evening. The study we're doing has to do with an experimental antipsychotic. I guess they want to make sure it doesn't give the rats tumors or whatever."

"Huh. Any chance you could snag me some? Nah, just kidding. Although I feel like I could use it sometimes."

"Psychiatry is coming a long way. Getting you the clozapine was a stretch—I'm afraid I can't spare any of this new shit."

"It's fine. As I said, I was joking."

Jasper went to the kitchen himself to make oatmeal. He maneuvered around Abelard, cooking the steel cut oats in a pot with apple, cinnamon and salt. He never put sugar in his food because Abelard had told him it shortens one's lifespan. Jasper wanted to live as long as possible, assuming that he didn't off himself young. That was his contingency plan. However, today the prospect seemed appealing. For whatever reason, he was feeling down. As the oats cooked he lit a cigarette. Usually that made him feel better, but today it wasn't helping much. After breakfast he retreated to his room. He opened his legal pad, or "Analects," and found the first empty page. He wrote, in English:

"If I had had a pistol before now, surely these words would not be read by any mortal soul. If you, dear reader, however the fuck you came across this, wish to read on, due so only if you happen to be fascinated by that which is tragically beautiful, that which is glorious but doomed. It's one of those mornings when synapses give no reason to go on firing but do nonetheless, playing their part in the grand dark film of the universe. I see no reason not to give up, but I am stuck on the conveyor belt that drearily pushes my life forward, for now anyhow."

"Hmm," he said to himself, reading it over. "Pretty fucking angsty, all right." He was interrupted by the phone ringing.

"Hello, Jasper speaking," he intoned, answering it.

"Oh, I'm so glad you picked up." It was Petra. "Listen, there's something I have to tell you."

"Yeah?"

"Um." She paused. "I just wanted you to know that it came back negative."

"Negative? What are you talking about?"

"The pregnancy test, Jasper. The one I just took."

Jasper froze.

"Jasper?"

"What the fuck, Petra? You're telling me you thought you might have been pregnant and you didn't tell me all this time? Why did you wait so long to take a test? And didn't we use protection?"

"No, we didn't. At least I don't think so. We were both kind of drunk, remember?"

"No, I don't fucking remember. And you didn't answer me. Why are we only finding this out now?"

"You have to wait a little while. That's how it works. I guess my cycle is just off a little. Anyway, I wanted you to know."

Jasper sighed. "So what would you have done, Petra? If you were pregnant? Would you have had the child?"

"Well... I don't want to offend you... but..."

"You would have aborted it. Don't worry about offending me. My own mother had an abortion when I was young. That's why I'm an only child."

"How do you even know that?"

"My dad told me. Don't ask."

"Do you believe abortion is wrong?"

"No, I don't. I've discussed it with Abelard. He says that people who are against abortion use loaded language. That there's no such thing as an 'unborn baby,' because babies aren't babies until they're born. Before that they're just fetuses. Also, he says anti-abortion folks use the slippery slope fallacy. The way he sees it is that it's absurd to say that life begins at conception, but at the same time, a fetus that's about to be born, maybe just before the mother goes into labor, clearly has some rights. So at some point, the fetus becomes something that should be protected. When does this happen? We don't know, so the best thing to do is find the best point we can to say that a fetus should be allowed to develop to term, even if it's a little arbitrary, and before that point, given that women, living, actual women, have rights too, allow them to get abortions."

"And you agree with him?"

"Yeah, I do. He's a very logical person. But the way I see it, the more salient point is to ask, do fetuses even want to be born? Being a fetus is a null state. It's not like they get a fucking application form to become people. Imagine all the trouble we both would have avoided if we hadn't been born. It's not like life is so fucking precious that we should assume that life trumps everything else in this vast universe of ours."

"Are you all right, Jasper? You're swearing a lot."

Jasper sighed. "I'm sorry. I'm just not in a very good mood right now. And learning that I just almost conceived a child didn't help anything. And with that, I must go. I'd like to finish my breakfast, which you interrupted, by the way." He hung up the phone.

Back in the kitchen, Abelard was eating his egg. He looked up and asked, "What was the commotion?"

"It was Petra. Apparently I almost fathered a child."

"Oh."

"I'm not kidding. Anyway, don't worry about it. Everything's fine."

"All right. If you say so."

The rest of the day was fairly calm compared to the morning. Jasper had been in a bad mood, but felt some kind of catharsis after his outburst on the telephone. Time went by. He had finished his homework for the weekend the previous day, so he spent much of the afternoon and evening listening to old records and making idle chatter with Abelard. Eventually it became time for a Pilsner Urquell and cigarettes. Another week was ready to rear its head.