I want to think of a metaphor. Gus had so many, and I want at least one. Why can’t I be insightful like him?
I chew slightly on the end of the unlit cigarette residing in my mouth, staring down at the blank piece of paper in my lap. It’s not there’s anything to do other than think up some metaphors. I bet this wasn’t how Gus came up with his, though...
“I tell you one thing, I didn’t sit around with a piece of paper for hours upon hours, Hazel Grace,” Augustus said. I look up to see him standing in my doorway in that Indiana Pacers Jersey of his [even though he hates basketball]. He walks towards me and plants a kiss on my forehead. I close my eyes and let out a small sigh. It’s been a rough past few days, and I’ve been without him for that long.
I scoot over slightly in my bed, setting the paper and pen down on a nightstand and let him lay beside me. We simply stay there for a few minutes, staring up at the ceiling silently.
“I swear, you have more tubes and machines here than I ever did,” he remarks. I focus back in to hear the breathing of the BiPAP and rumble of the mechanics around me.
I respond with a quiet laugh [turned cough, of course], and he doesn’t say anything for the next few minutes. Neither do I. But, after some more quiet, I blurt out, “Augustus, do you still fear oblivion?” He turns his head toward me, so I have a perfect shot at those crystal-clear blue eyes of his.
He smiles. “Do you fear oblivion?” My eyes flutter down for a second, then look back up at him. “I do believe it was you at Support Group who said to ignore the inevitability of human oblivion, Hazel Grace...”
I shrug, and my mouth forms a straight line. “I said that?” He nods. “Oh, the memories of the Literal Heart of Jesus...”
Augustus laughs for a second, but then dampens his bright expression. “You’re avoiding.”
“Am not.”
“Are too.” He shrugs, but then decides to answer my question. “I was, back when... about six or seven or eight months ago...” My face drops. Six months ago was when his funeral was. He glances at me for a second, and then grins. “Oblivion isn’t really oblivion, though, if you ask me. I mean, the definition of it is being forgotten or extinct. The way I see it- as long as there’s a web page, picture, or a school assignment, or even a name written on paper, there’s no forgetting. There’s always a chance of finding that one last representation of someone. No one is gone forever, I think.”
I purse my lips, and ask a follow-up question, “But finding isn’t necessarily remembering.”
“But there’s that part about being extinct, too. No one’s extinct until we all are extinct. Even then, though, whatever comes after human consciousness still has a chance of finding those aforementioned representations.”
“Goddamn,” I whisper with a smile creeping up on me, “Aren’t you something else?”
“Hazel?” I tear my eyes away from Augustus Waters to see a new face in my doorway. Polo shirt, blonde hair, glasses...
“Issac?” I say, surprised. I tried to hide the distaste that he interrupted my time with Gus. Then, I actually realize that Issac is there. “Hey!” I cough a bit, but still display a small smile.
The blonde sticks out his white cane and slowly navigates around the tubes and wires strewn across my floors. “It’s like a maze in here,” he remarks playfully.
“Not when you can see,” I add. We both laugh.
I would imagine that Issac would’ve rolled his eyes if he could. “Not that you’d know anything. Since you’re always in bed and all.”
I roll my eyes for the both of us. “Whatever.” I’m about to tell Augustus to scoot over so that Issac can sit on the bed with us, when I realize he’s not beside me any longer. Oh yeah. Dead, I think.
