Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland

'What did Karen see that December night? What pictures of tomorrow could so disturb her that she would flee into a refuge of bottomless sleep? Why would she leave me?'

It's 15 December, 1979, and Richard's girlfriend Karen has entered a deep coma. She only took a couple of valium washed down with a cocktail, but now she's locked away in suspended animation, oblivious to the passage of time. What if she were to wake up decades later - a 17-year-old girl in a distant future, a future where the world has gone dark?