“Better at this point. Hotter,” he said. A little, apparition white hand showed up from underneath the sofa. “Hold my hand, will ya?” “OK, however that is it. No kissing.” The blanket shook with his chuckling. “Where have you been?” “I strolled to Pushkar.” “Forty miles?!” “42,” he rectified me. “Well. 42 there. 42 back. 82 miles. No. 84. Indeed. 84 miles in 45 hours.” “What the heck in Pushkar?” I inquired. “Very little. I just strolled till I got excessively cold, and afterward, I pivoted.” “You didn’t rest?” “No! The fantasies are horrendous. In my fantasies, she doesn’t look like herself any longer. I don’t recall what she looked like.” I let go of his hand, got a year ago’s yearbook, and discovered her image. Operating at a profit highly contrasting photo, she’s wearing her orange tank top and cutoff pants that stretch mostly down her thin thighs, her mouth opens wide in a frozen chuckle as her left arm holds Tanu in a wrestling hold. Her hair falls over her face barely enough to cloud her cheeks. “Right,” the Colonel said. “Better believe it. I was so worn out on her getting disturbed for reasons unknown. How she would get gloomy and make references to the cracking harsh load of misfortune or whatever however then never said what wasn’t right, never have any goddamned motivation to be dismal. Also, I simply figure you should have an explanation. My sweetheart unloaded me, so I’m pitiful. I got discovered smoking, so I’m annoyed. My head harms, so I’m sure. She never had an explanation, Pudge. I was simply so burnt out on enduring her show. What’s more, I just let her go. Christ.” Her touchiness had irritated me, as well, now and then, however not that evening. That evening I let her go because she advised me to. It was that basic for me and that dumb. The Colonel’s hand was nearly nothing, and I snatched it tight, his virus saturating me and my glow into him. “I remembered the populaces,” he said. “Uzbekistan.” “24 million 700 55 thousand 500 and nineteen.” “Cameroon,” I said, however, it was past the point of no return. He was snoozing, his hand limps in mine. I put it back under the blanket and scaled into his bed, a top-bunk man during the current night in any event. I nodded off tuning in to his lethargic, even breaths, his determination at long last liquefying away even with unfavorable weariness. six days after that Sunday,I got up following three hours of rest and showered without precedent for a drawn-out period. I put on my lone suit. I nearly hadn’t brought it, however my mother demanded that no one can really tell when you will require a suit, and sufficiently sure. The Colonel didn’t claim a suit, and by ideals of his height couldn’t acquire one from anybody at the Creek, so he wore dark pants and a dim catch down. “I don’t assume I can wear the flamingo tie,” he said as he pulled on dark socks. “It’s somewhat merry, given the event,” I reacted. “Can’t wear it to the drama,” said the Colonel, practically grinning. “Can’t wear it to a memorial service. Can’t utilize it to hang myself. It’s somewhat futile, as time” I gave him a tie. The school had contracted transports to ship understudies north to Rosy’s old neighborhood of Vine Station, yet Ayushi, the Colonel, Tanu, and I drove in Tanu’s SUV, taking the dirt roads so we didn’t need to drive past the spot on the thruway. I gazed out the window, looking as the rural spread encompassing Birmingham blurred into the lethargic inclining slopes and fields of northern Alabama. In advance, Tanu informed Ayushi regarding the time Rosy got her boob blared over the late spring, and Ayushi snickered. That was the first occasion when I had seen her, and now we were going to the last. More than anything, I felt the shamefulness of it, the inarguable foul play of cherishing somebody who may have adored you back yet can’t because of deadness, and afterward I inclined forward, my temple against the rear of Tanu’s headrest, and I cried, crying, and I didn’t feel bitterness to such an extent as agony. It hurt, and that isn’t doublespeak. It hurt like a beating. Meriwether Lewis’s final words were, “I’m not a weakling, but rather I am so solid. So difficult to pass on.” I don’t question that it is, however it can’t be a lot harder than being given up. I considered Lewis I followed Ayushi into the A-outline sanctuary appended to the single-story burial service home in Vine Station, Alabama, a town just as discouraged and discouraging as Rosy had consistently portrayed it. The spot resembled buildup and sanitizer, and the yellow backdrop in the anteroom was stripping at the corners.