I – Morning
Mark hadn't slept. Again. Watching the sun rise was becoming a daily event. Unlike sunset, with its splashes of orange and red and pink, sunrise was subdued, black to grey to light blue. Mark thought it was a mixture of the drive to make his film, and his worry over Roger, that kept him up all night. Roger partying all night, Roger getting high or getting drunk, Roger and his devil-girl April.
Mark focused on his film in the long hours between twilight and dawn, focused on dialogue and camera angle. Mark tried not to think about Roger and April. Most of the time it worked; he'd scribble in his notebooks and not wonder where Roger was, if he was shooting up, if April was there too. He'd clean his camera with utmost precision and not contemplate why he cared so much if Roger was killing himself or not.
But when there was no more to do, no more he could think to do, he had no choice but to sit in front of the windows, look down onto the street, and wonder if Roger would come home before the sun rose today.
II – Noon
The midday sun shone bright and hot through the windows, making a grid of shadows on the floor. Mark scrupulously, meticulously, cleaned his camera with a soft cloth, wiping away he dust and working out the kinks. Trying to ignore the shouting downstairs, Roger's voice and Mimi's going back and forth like a ping-pong ball, accusing and defending and accusing. Mark wondered if it was the same thing this time, or maybe Roger had come up with some new suspicion or Mimi some new trespass. Or if it was just their way of working things through.
Mimi was dying.
Mimi was scared. Roger was terrified. So they fought: about spilled coffee, about past lovers, about mistakes and embarrassments and temptations. And then they made up, and then they fought, and then they made up…because Roger was petrified and he didn't know what to do, and Mimi was afraid and she didn't know how to comfort him.
Mark wished they would just stop shouting already, stop ruining a perfect afternoon. Finish the argument like they always did, one going a step too far, the slam of the door, the hesitant knock on his own. And he would comfort whoever was knocking—sometimes it was Mimi and sometimes it was Roger—as best he could, and when Mimi or Roger went back to their apartment, the other would be waiting and they would say sorry and make up until the next day, the next week, when there would be the slam of the door again. Mark was getting tired of it, and wondered why they couldn't just try and make the best of what time they did have.
But there was no slam of the door, echoing through the halls, and no hesitant knock on his door. There was silence, and then there was someone pounding on the door and Mark rushed to get it. Roger stood there, disheveled and wild-eyed with fear.
"She collapsed. She was yelling at me and then her eyes rolled up and she collapsed," Roger said quickly. Mark grabbed his coat and his cell phone, calling 911 and a taxi.
Mimi was dying. And Mark didn't know how he'd comfort Roger when she did.
III – Evening
Mark had always liked color. Sunset, with its red and purple clouds, the sun gracing the sky with a last splash of color before surrendering to the moon. Nighttime, with its neon glows in red, blue, yellow, orange, pink, any and every color possible. Mark wished he could be sitting on the bench by the windows and staring as the last of the pinks faded to purples faded to blues, and the redyellowblueorangepink neon lights blinked brilliantly into existence for yet another night. Mark wished he could be anywhere but here, in this wasteland of sterile white and silent noise.
Roger had cut his hair after Mimi's death, cut it and bleached it and spiked it. Now brown was showing at the roots, and the spikes were long gone. Roger's skin, once a healthy tan, was as pale as his hair. Around them, machines beeped, recording Roger's vitals. Machines that had beeped out Angel's and Mimi's death marches and were now steadily beeping out Roger's.
Hospitals were synonymous with death in Mark's mind. He knew the same was true of Roger. Roger had been on death's doorstep before Mark had managed to get him to the hospital. The doctors didn't say anything to Roger, who wasn't often conscious anyway, but they said things to Mark. I have bad news, Mr. Cohen. I'm very sorry, Mr. Cohen. Roger Davis is dying, Mr. Cohen. You better begin planning his funeral, Mr. Cohen.
Mark loved color, but he would have lived in the hospital forever if it meant Roger would get one more day. Mark loved watching the New York lights, but he would have given his sight if it meant Roger would smile just one last time.
Mark wished he could be anywhere but there, among doctors with drama masks playing their parts, giving their false condolences. Mark wished he could be watching night fall over the center of the universe. Mark wished Roger would wake up and smile at him one more time. Mark wished more than anything that he would not be the one of them to survive.