Page 79 of Last Light

My eyes burn, and I don’t know why. It’s not like I ever cry over things that are lost anymore.

Travis’s hand moves so he’s holding mine, our fingers threaded together. “Yeah. Guess so.”

My throat aches, but I speak through it. “It’s horrible when you think about what’s just gone from the world now. The Eiffel Tower. Westminster Abbey. The Sistine Chapel. I remember going to the Louvre and seeing theMona Lisa. All of it... all of it’s just... gone forever.”

I’m crying now, and I never cry anymore. But the tears are squeezing out from my eyes, and my body shakes.

Travis reaches out and pulls me against him, wrapping his arms around me. He holds me without speaking.

“I’m sorry,” I mumble when I’ve mostly gotten control of myself. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. They’re just things.Things. Billions of people have died, and I can’t cry about them. I don’t know why I’m crying about this. About buildings. Aboutthings.”

“Nah.” Travis’s voice and his accent are thick. “They might not be people, but they’re not just things. Got an awful lot of meanin’ wrapped up in ’em. History. I dunno. Truth and beauty—like that other poem was talkin’ about. The confusin’ one about the urn. Whatever it is that makes art good.”

“Humanness,” I say, swiping away a few more tears as I land on the right word.

“Humanness.” It sounds like Travis is testing the word out. “Yeah. Somethin’ like that. Lotta humanness wrapped up in those things. Worth cryin’ over that we lost ’em.”

I do cry some more, and I don’t feel guilty about it now. I bury my face against Travis’s warm, bare chest until the emotion wears itself out.

“I wish I could cry about people too,” I whisper in the dark.

Travis strokes my hair very gently. “Maybe you will one day. But I get it. I feel that way too. Sometimes we gotta cry ’bout the smaller things because the big things are just too big.”

I sniff and wipe my eyes with the sheet and press my cheek against his chest. I can feel his heartbeat. It’s fast and steady. Alive.

When I’ve relaxed completely, Travis murmurs, “I bet they saved theMona Lisa.”

“What?”

“TheMona Lisa? It’s a painting, ain’t it? I never seen it, but it can’t be too big. They had a couple of months before impact. Someone must’ve thought about savin’ it. Someone must’ve been in charge of it. They wouldn’t’ve just let it burn.”

I’m smiling through a few sniffles at the graveness of his voice. “Oh. Yeah. Probably so.”

“We might’ve lost the Eiffel Tower. And the Sistine Chapel. And that place where all your poets were buried. But someone must’ve saved theMona Lisa.”

“Yeah. Yeah.” I stretch up to kiss his jaw. “I bet they did.”

“I know they did.” He nuzzles at me in the dark. “Maybe, long time from now, they’ll build the world back to what it should be. Maybe I can even go to see it one day.”

I hug him hard. “Maybe you can. I liked what you said. About truth and beauty and all that. It was really smart.”

Travis snorts. “Never said anythin’ smart about art before. Just read those poems and tried to figure ’em out. Since you like ’em so much.”

It sounds like he’s smiling.

I’m smiling too.

I feel better now. The ache in my chest has eased.

Perhaps it’s a strange, random sort of hope, but it helps me. That theMona Lisamight have made it through the destruction of Europe. That decades from now, maybe Travis will have the chance to see it.

When you’ve lost almost everything, you take hope wherever you find it.

The salvation of theMona Lisa.

A spark of humanness at the end of the world.

I fall asleep wondering where they might have put the painting to keep it safe.

---