SOMETHING YOU LEFT TO ME

Abstract

7 2 Y S O M E T H I N G Y O U L E F T T O M E O W E N M c L E O D This box of apothecary vials with black rubber stops. A strip of masking tape runs the length of each vial. Scribbled on each strip, the name of a national park: Zion, Yosemite, Yellowstone, Redwood – nine bottles in all, but you wanted still more before the thing in your lungs finally killed you. The vials look empty, but I know they’re not – not because you told me, but because I was there. Each contains air from the park on the label, air the only stu√ you could steal without guilt. You’d hold the vial above your head and explain how no one can die while surrounded by beauty. Which is why it ended in a machine-filled room, stifling, falsely lit, encircled by a plastic curtain. Air was all you needed. I should have crawled in, unstopped the vials, and touched each mouth to your lips. ...