Victor Lavalle - Lucretia and the Kroons

The Unisphere was disappearing.

She could only see about half of it out in the field now.

Once more she heard the groaning, the steel beams being battered and, while she watched, the Unisphere disappeared even more. That’s when she finally understood.

“It’s sinking,” Loochie whispered.

The whole meadow had turned to mud under the tremendous rainstorm. The steel globe rose and fell now, bobbing as if it were a plastic ball in a pool. There was one more groan of metal and, just like that, the entire Unisphere, twelve stories tall, was gone. Sucked down into a sea of mud and lost.

Loochie tried to turn around but found that she couldn’t move. But this time it wasn’t because she was too tired or too scared. Her rain boots had sunk into the dirt. They were in the mud, all the way to her shins. The rain continued to fall. A deluge. Loochie strained and pulled one boot out of the soft earth. She stepped backward and barely got the second boot out.

She’d taken a step back but now the ground beneath her feet was already softening, too. Her boot soles sank into the dirt. If she stayed in place she’d be up to her shins in minutes. She had to run, out beyond the trees, into the next meadow. Get away .

She ran out into the open. Without the shelter of the trees the rain hit her as hard as a punch. She ran three steps and was knocked down, face-first to the ground. When she put her arms out to push herself up her hands sank down to her wrists.

Loochie scrambled to her feet. The rain fell and she could barely see a few inches ahead of her. Her face was slick. Her hair already soaked and heavy. Three more steps and she sank again, her legs lost below the knee. The mud surged around her. The meadow had become a swamp. Two more steps and she’d hardly moved forward, but she was sunk down to her waist.

Her breathing sped up. She paddled forward. But in a second the mud was up to her chest. How much farther did she have to go? She couldn’t tell, she couldn’t see.

When the mud was at Loochie’s chin she simply couldn’t keep going. She was stuck and the rain continued. Loochie had abandoned Sunny to save herself and now look what happened.

“I should’ve stayed with you, Sunny,” Loochie said, as if she was issuing an apology.

With her mouth open the mud flowed in. She spat it out and tried to move, but which way was forward anymore? The rain obscured the world. It overwhelmed her like grief. The worst thing in life was to be left all alone. That’s what Loochie felt. And yet that was how she found herself. Loochie desperately gulped in one deep breath.

Then she sank into the mud, all gone, nothing left, and she had no one there to save her.

Loochie floated in darkness. Using the technique Sunny had shown her while trying to smoke, she’d filled her lungs before going under. Now she held her breath. She couldn’t see anything. Not enough to tell east from west, north from south. She’d sunk down below the mud and found another layer. She kicked her feet and paddled her arms but couldn’t be sure if she was moving back up toward the surface or just swimming deeper down. It was darker than a starless night down here. This was the longest darkness, the shadow without end. This was death. She floated in death and didn’t know how she could ever find her way out. Her cheeks burned, her throat tightened, her lungs were already straining to hold on to the oxygen inside them. But how long could that last? In a minute or two, maybe a few more if she was lucky, she was going to have open her mouth. When she did she’d swallow all that death around her. She would drown in it. And that would be the end.

But Loochie Gardner wasn’t ready for her end just yet, thank you.

She kicked harder, swam upward — at least she hoped she was swimming upward — but she couldn’t tell and became confused. She changed direction, but that wasn’t any better. She might’ve just sent herself back where she’d been a moment ago. Loochie needed help seeing. She needed light. As her lips strained to open, as her lungs demanded air, she reached into her pocket and pulled out Sunny’s lighter.

It might sound strange, though in 6D this wouldn’t be the first time, but Loochie knew the lighter would work. Even though she was utterly engulfed by this void, though she swam in this death, she knew the lighter would still work. It had to. She flicked the little plunger though she couldn’t even see the lighter in her hand. She only felt it. She flicked again.

When the flame lit she nearly opened her mouth and cried out with joy.

She stopped kicking her feet and floated. She held the lighter in one hand and held its flame out. But what did it really help her see? Only more and more of the same nothing. It was like being trapped at the bottom of the ocean. What would you see with a light but more of the same? The darkness surrounding her went on too far, too long, for the lighter alone to show her some path to safety, to life. She needed a trail to follow, like a lifeline, back to the surface, but she hadn’t been sprinkling any crumbs on the way down. What to do? What could she follow? Her lips trembled and her throat burned. That feeling reminded her of smoking.

Loochie pulled the last cigarette out of her other pocket. She held it up to her clenched lips. When she and Sunny had been puffing away, hadn’t they watched the smoke curl up from the tip of the cigarette and go floating toward the sky? A gray ribbon you could follow with your eyes.

Loochie had been holding her thumb down on the plunger of the lighter this whole time. The flame flickered, the lighter fluid burning away. Quickly she brought it to her lips and, with what was left of her life, she inhaled until the tip of the paper glowed.

A trail of smoke appeared. It was wispy and thin but it was there.

Loochie’s vision began to blur, but she concentrated. She just needed to see which way the smoke would move, up or down. That’s all she needed to see so she could follow it. She strained to stay conscious, watching until she saw …

The smoke floated sideways .

She was disoriented that she’d been swimming east to west, not north or south. She held the cigarette between her lips and it remained lit in the darkness and the smoke trail that floated up from her mouth looked like the arm of a snorkel.

Loochie swam furiously. When the lighter died she let it go. By then she already knew the right direction so she just kept going, cigarette still between her lips. When she left the void her ears popped, a change in atmosphere. The void fell away and she was in the mud again and her heart strained so hard that it promised to burst. She kicked and kicked. Her arms felt like they’d break from all their paddling. She lost the last of her strength and her mouth opened wide.

Loochie broke the surface of the muddy water and saw the gray sky. The rain had stopped. She gasped. She inhaled. She breathed.

Thank God for cigarettes! she thought. That last one had saved her life. She laughed so loudly at this thought that Sunny probably heard all the way at Shea.

Without the rainfall the mud already felt more solid below her. She trudged forward through the mud. With each step the ground was drying rapidly, becoming firmer, solid under her feet.

Loochie spat out the last of the cigarette.

Loochie climbed out of the earth.

Loochie moved across the last of the meadow quickly. She found the living room wall and slapped at it like it was the side of a favorite dog. She reached the hole, the one Pit had bashed open when he first chased her. Loochie wanted to climb right through, but she was too big. Loochie tapped at the living room wall, making her way back toward the walkway that would lead around to the kitchen.