Twenty-Six
Ava
Time has ceased to exist.So hasplace. That doesn’t make sense. But none of it does.
It’s all just an incoherent, disorienting stream of different things that don’t connect.
It’s nurses, and pain, and suffocation, and Zoey, and Lucky, and more nurses, and pain, and suffocation, and Austin, and New Orleans, and the road between Louisiana and Texas, and Zoey’s worried face, and Lucky’s beautiful hands on ivory keys, and music, and nurses, and pain, and suffocation.
But mostly suffocation.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t breathe.
Nobody can live very long if they can’t breathe, and that’s me right now.
But what isright now?
It lasts for an eternity while simultaneously zipping by.
Time doesn’t exist.
I’m in the Jazz Manor. I’m wearing a dress covered in gold beads and crimson feathers, and I’m standing at the far corner of the big room, basking in glowing indigo lights. Lucky’s at the piano playing a Skeeter Davis song with his back to me, dressed in a black, finely-tailored, three-piece suit that shields him from the whole world seeing his scars, and a disembodied voice is crooning the lyrics.
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world? It ended when I lost your love.
Masked people are marching in the streets while everything burns.
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
The nurses are both faceless and looking at me through exhausted eyes flanked by skin that’s blistered and raw from equipment that’s supposed to protect them.
Don’t they know it’s the end of the world?
The people grieve and rage and worry.
Don’t they know? Don’t they know? Don’t they know?
I’m on a sidewalk in New Orleans, and Lucky tells me to rest in pieces.
It’s the end of the world.
It ended when I lost your love.
“Lucky.”
I’m standing right behind him now. He turns slightly, a smoldering cigarette between his lips, a curl of smoke wisping into the air, and he slides a coy glance at me. “There you are, Ava doll. How are you, sweetie? How was your flight?”
“I didn’t fly. I can’t fly. I can’t do anything. I can’t breathe.”
The piano and the big room are suddenly gone, and I’m in the room that we shared for thirty-five nights. A hurricane is raging, rattling the old house. He’s standing at the window, naked and with his scars on full display. I’m naked, too, and I can’t breathe. He can’t breathe either. He’s panicking, and I’m suddenly standing with him, my back pressed to his chest, his arms wrapped around me, and we can’t breathe, but we’re together.
Something is shoving its way down my throat, and that’s not going to help me breathe, and I need to breathe because he’s having a panic attack, and the only thing that makes him catch his breath when he’s panicking is my own breathing.
I’m dizzy, and there’s no oxygen.
