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Daniel smiles. “See, Thomas? You can do anything. You can be anything you want!”
The choir launches into another song: “I can be whatever. You can be whatever. We can be whatever. Whatever, together.” They put their arms around Thomas and soon he starts singing along even though he’s still not smiling.
Daniel slaps me on the back. “Hey, Cameron, why don’t you give it a try?”
I’ve only been bowling twice and both times I sucked ass. I think I managed to hit one pin. “I’m a pretty lousy bowler.”
“You’ve never bowled at the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction and Snack ’N’ Bowl before,” Daniel says.
“It’s the bad thoughts that stop us. If you embrace the positive”—Ruth makes the hugging motion again and the other CESSNABers follow suit—“you’ll be fine.”
The ball pops up from its dark cave and glides around the silver tracks, stopping right beside me.
“You have to believe you can do it, Cameron,” Ruth says. “That you’re entitled to happiness—by any means necessary.”
Believe I can bowl. Right. I can bowl. I step up to the line, pull my arm back, and let it fly. Right away it starts heading for the gutter. But then, something miraculous happens: it corrects itself. The ball rolls straight down the center, and the next thing I know I’m listening to the crash of pins hitting the deck in a perfect strike, my first ever.
Ruth jumps up and down. “That was amazing, Cameron! See? See what happens when you embrace the positive? Go again.”
“Beginner’s luck,” I say. “Won’t happen again.”
“We’re all winners here in the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction,” she says softly, and I want to believe her.
“Okay, thanks for taking care of my amigo here. This looks like fun, and we wish you well and shit,” Gonzo explains to the crowd. “But we got, like, a mission of our own to get to. So if somebody could just give us a ride to the bus station—”
I pick up a second ball and let her rip. Bam! Right down the middle.
“That was awesome!” I shout, pumping my fist in the air.
Ruth throws her arms around my neck. “See? The universe doesn’t want us to be unhappy, Cameron. The universe wants you to be happy all the time!”
“Yeah,” I say. Yeah, why not? Why shouldn’t I have whatever I want when I want it? And what I want is to be happy and safe like these guys. I don’t want to think about prions and fire giants and Dr. X and saving the universe. I just want a smoothie.
“Cameron, we gotta motor,” Gonzo says.
“I don’t want to go yet.”
I march over to the next lane and roll another perfect strike followed by another. Everybody claps and makes some noise. They tell me I’m wonderful just for being, and that I’m increasing their happiness with my happiness.
Four lanes over, Thomas bowls another flawless game, but he doesn’t seem happy about it. At one point, he purposely throws the ball out of the lane and into the next one, where it sails down the center and knocks down every pin. Thomas stares at his feet. There’s a small, muscular, ebony-skinned girl with a shaved head standing next to him. Besides Thomas, she’s the only one who’s not smiling. Suddenly, Thomas starts to bawl, and the alarms go off again. Ropes drop from the ceiling, and the commandos shinny their way down. They make a beeline for Thomas and usher him toward the door. Someone wraps him in a big yellow CESSNAB blanket, covering every part of him but his head.
After my rousing victory in the Church of Everlasting Satisfaction, Daniel and Ruth take me to the CESSNAB Snackateria. They ask Gonzo if he wants to come, but he says he’s going to kill things in the arcade to “get the slime of happiness off.”
The Snackateria has everything you could ever want—chips, soda, candy, pizza, burgers, fries. Every table has ordering stations where you can look through catalogs of stuff and order whatever you want. The shipping times have been crossed out and now there’s an Instant button. When you push it, somebody rushes in from a back room and brings it right to you.
“Having to wait for things hurts your happiness,” Ruth explains. “Want some more fries?”
I say yes, and she gets me a new batch. They’re perfectly hot and crisp, like the first batch.
“I’m sorry you had to see that with Thomas earlier,” Daniel says, shaking his head. “Some people just can’t adjust to being happy all the time.”
“Omigosh,” Ruth says, midfry, her eyes wide. “When I first got here, I was a mess. Just a total and complete mess. Remember, Daniel?”
“Hmmm,” Daniel says meaningfully, though he seems way more into his fries than what Ruth is saying. He’s arranging them in straight lines and putting a thin string of ketchup directly over the middle.
“I used to do pageants and stuff, but then I developed an allergy to spray tanner and I couldn’t compete anymore? My whole world crumbled. I totally went into a depression, got all messed up on drugs and stuff,” Ruth explains. “I was hurting my happiness. So they sent me to CESSNAB.”
“Whoa,” I say.
