Well, there’s not a great deal more, I thought, and I drank the rest, ending on fumes like gasoline and honey, vanilla and gin. For a moment, I tottered on the ledge, clever enough not to look down though not to have avoided putting myself in this position in the first place. When I got my legs back underneath me, my stockinged toes digging into the grating of the walkway, I bent over and smashed the bottle against the steel.
There was an almighty crash as shards of glass fell to the grass below, gleaming like stars in the streetlamps, and I found a large shard from the shoulder of the bottle, about half as wide as my palm.
“All right,” I said as authoritatively as I could. “You’re going to talk to me, aren’t you?”
I walked from one end of the billboard to another, the shard of glass digging into the paper glued to the wood backing. The paper split as if it was longing to do so, showing the wood underneath. Over the years, the glue had gone and the paper curled away, above and below. When I was done, it looked a bit like the lips of a drunk, lolling open and foolish. It was an ugly and careless job, and for a moment, I wished that Khai were there to show me how to do it properly. He would probably laugh at me for how badly I was doing, and I wanted him to close his capable hand over mine and teach me the way that I should have been taught.
Hey, where are you, anyway? I thought indignantly. I want to see you, I have to talk to you.
I sent the thought out of my mind, because I had always had to teach myself. I shook my head, continued.
When I was done, I dropped the shard of glass and clapped my hands.
“Talk,” I said, and then more insistently, “Talk.”
I felt it this time, my first bit of paper magic done only for myself. Daisy wasn’t there to want it to look a certain way or to need me to be a certain thing. Instead it was just me under a plain Willets Point moon, drunk on something I wasn’t sure people should be drinking at all, watching as a pair of painted paper eyes slowly, oh so slowly opened and loose paper lips started to flap.
What should I talk about? I am only paper.
I glared at Eckleburg’s coyness, crossing my arms over my chest.
“You’re paper with eyes,” I said. “You’re paper that sees, aren’t you?”
My eyes are closed, and I have no tongue.
The eyes tried to close, but I clapped my hands hard right in front of where a nose should be.
“Your eyes are plenty open enough for me, and I gave you a mouth so you can talk. What did you see? Tonight? What happened?”
The eyes blinked almost coquettishly, and then the paper lips spread to speak.
I saw a car, too fast. I saw a woman who needed to leave, and I saw her go flying. I saw the car stop, and then I saw eyes.
“Eyes. Wait. Wait … you saw eyes.”
I saw eyes, mistress, and then I saw no more.
T. J. Eckleburg lowered its lashes but I didn’t think it was being coy this time. I was suddenly possessed of an intense sleepiness as well, a feeling of weight on every limb of my body. I knew that I had to get down before I fell down, and with my luck, I might fall straight into the glass I had shattered all over the ground below.
“I … I have to go…”
I will sleep, mistress, and I will see no more. I am through.
As I watched, the eyes closed and the paper started to peel back from my cut, slowly at first, then faster. Soon enough, the old paper was peeling away from the billboard entirely, the top half staying to promote the optician, the lower falling off to reveal an advertisement for the Bonney Brothers’ Traveling Circus, featuring daring acrobats, the finest freaks, and the death-defying lion tamers.
I stroked the paper lion’s face as I went past, and somewhere, whether it came from the paper or from some deep place inside me, I heard a soft growl.