(For Lou Reed. The cover of NME. Courtney Miner. Scotty B. Jesse Lee Hofbauer. To all who stuck with the story. To those who gave me something to write about. Cheers.)
    
    I could feel it.

    Knew it before I had seen it or had evidence of it. I felt it as my filthy white Keds shuffled in haste down the carpeted corridor and my eyes scanned frantically for the room number-- until, finally, my legs told me to run-- RUN! LEE, YOU MUST RUN!!!-- and I spotted the bronze plaque on the painted cream door.

    302.

    I pounded on the door with the flat of my hand and called out her name into the crack where the door met the frame. I smacked it three times before, and without any effort from a force on the other side, the door gave a gentle click and swung open.

    The air was palpable. Heavy with it. Electric-- and all that was left to do was look for her body.


    There was a sliver of orange light that passed through a part in the thick curtains and painted the dark room with a sickening hue. I squinted to make sense of the black shapes in the gray as my hand felt up the wall for a switch.
   
    That one is a chair. That one is a desk. That one is a bed.
    Click.
   
    The glow from the lamp caused all objects in the room to be revealed as what they were in actuality-- while also causing more confusion as the room appeared to be empty.

    "Nin?"

    Her plaid suitcase sat upright and closed beside the desk. The bed was made. I poked my head into the bathroom. It, too, was in order. My shoulders dropped as though momentarily relieved that there was no body and perplexed as to where her person could have been.

    I wanted to leave the room but this feeling haunted me. All of my senses heightened. I could not leave the room because I was not alone in it. I could feel her presence there.
   
    I looked over my shoulder.
   
    "Nin?"
   
    I opened the cupboard.
   
    Nothing.

    I closed the cupboard.

    "Nin?"

    I looked over toward the window-- toward the orange light-- and took a few slow steps in its direction.

    My breath drew in sharply.

    Nin lay on the floor wedged between the bed and the wall. She was on her side, clad in her white dress slip.

    The bed seemed the only clear passage of access to her and I climbed upon it and reached down for her. Her extremities were turning to blue but there was still some warmth in her skin. She had not belonged to this death for long.
   
    I choked.

    She wheezed.
   
    My heart stopped with shock.

    She wheezed once again.
    "Nin."
   
    I braced myself with my foot planted firmly against the wall and hooked an arm beneath each of hers then pulled upward with all of my strength in order to drag her out of this space and onto the bed in a swift movement.

    I heard the melodic tinkling of broken glass as I moved her.

    There was a black pool of vomit on the carpet where her head had been, a similar substance of which trailed out the corner of her mouth and smeared across her cheek.
   
    Vomit.
   
    I glanced round. There was the cardboard box of sleep aid sat on the night table. 32 tablets, all of which had been individually wrapped-- all of which had been painstakingly pushed through the foil packaging one at a time and consumed. There was a similar, only half-empty packet, of paracetamol and codeine.

    This won't hurt a bit, baby.
    Vomit meant that she had taken too much.

    Suicide by the consuming of tablets is a delicate balance. Even I knew this and I was surprised that Nin didn't. Take too little and you'll wake up with a wicked hangover. Take too much too quickly and your body will try to reject the poison instead of processing it. It didn't necessarily mean life but it significantly decreased the chances of a timely death.

    For an insignificant portion of one second, I was hopeful in her blatant stupidity. 

    Simultaneously, I pulled Ian's mobile from my pocket and called for an ambulance while scooping Nin up from the bed and carrying her into the bath.

    The dispatcher had wanted me to stay on the line. I threw the phone to the carpet.

    I slapped Nin across the face.
   
    "Wake! Up! I need you to WAKE! UP! NIN?! NIN!"

    I climbed into the tub, dragging her on top of me and flipped the shower on cold.

    I gasped at the first sting of the frigid water. I had expected this to revive her.

    There was a gurgle emitted from her throat but she didn't stir.

    "Wake up! Wake up! C'mon! C'MON! Nin! Please! Please! WAKE UP!"

    I peeled her eyelids opened with my fingertips. There was only white. I leaned over her shoulder and breathed into her mouth. I knew nothing of resuscitation. Her sick tasted of whisky and chemicals. I gagged. I violently shook her. 

    The water cut like razorblades to the skin. Still she did not wake. She did not stir.

    Wake up, Nin... I need you to wake up... Please just keep breathing...

    She had ceased wheezing.

    I neared hysterics as what little life was left within her slipped away. She was becoming a corpse against me. I locked my arms around her. No one would take her from me. We would not be separated.

    "Help!" I tried to scream it but could not be heard, "Someone please help us!"

    Three medics stormed the bathroom.

    "Help us!" I pushed the words out on a gust of air.

    Someone stopped the flow of water.
   
    They struggled to prise her from my grasp.

    "You must let her go," The fat one insisted as he used great force to pull her away from me with the help of a woman medic at Nin's feet.

    "NO! YOU CAN NOT TAKE HER FROM ME!"

    I was being ignored as they carried her from the tiny bathroom. Soaked through, I tried to stand but was eased back into the tub by an older, thin medic. I thrashed out at him.
   
    "I must go with her," I commanded, "You can't take her from me."
    "Now, now, no one is taking her from you," He answered calmly, "What is your relation to her? What is she called?"
    "IamherhusbandandsheiscalledNin." I spoke the answer all as one word and was fortunate enough that I still had enough wits about me to know that if I had told him what my actual relation was to her they would not have allowed me anywhere near her. Again, I tried to rise. Again, I was pushed back down.
   
    How was I so weak?
   
    Every colour appeared pale and I swayed as though faint.
   
    "Nin. Okay. What happened to Nin?"
    "I found her."
    "How long ago?"
    "Fuck. I don't...twenty minutes," It seemed a lifetime, "She took...," I could not focus, "Where have you taken her?"
    "No one has taken her anywhere. They're helping her in the next room. What did Nin take?"
     "Sleep aid and... whisky... codeine???"
    "Alright, then. Do you know how much she took?"
    "Too much. There was sick."
    I pulled my right hand to my lips and touched the disgusting film that still clung to the dry cracks in them.
    He opened a gray plastic case of medical supplies. His gloved hands pulled my arm from my face.
    "And what are you called?"
    "Lee."
    "Lee. How old are you, Lee?"
    It was an odd question.
    "28. Why?"
    "We're taking you to hospital..."
    My head sort of involuntarily rattled, "I-I-I'm fine..."
    He tried to hide the shock that painted his face upon hearing my utterance.
    "It's procedure," he lied. Clearly he believed that I, too, needed some form of medical attention.
    "I won't be without her."
    "You won't have to be."

    I felt a sharp pinch and when I looked down in annoyance, I was surprised to find a great deal of blood.

    I panicked, "She was bleeding?!"
    "No," The medic shook his head in some confusion, "That's your blood, kid. You're bleeding. Cut yourself pretty bad. You'll need stitched up."
    I stared down at the wound. My skin was splayed down my forearm in two opposing directions. It only hurt once it had been brought to my attention. My eyes shifted up toward the medic's face.
    "Broken glass..." I murmured.
    "What was that?" He asked.
    "Glass. On the floor beneath her. Check her to make sure she isn't cut."
    "They'll check her."
    "Jesus Christ! Make sure they do it! NOW!"

    He could not hide his annoyance as he turned his head over his shoulder and yelled to one of his associates,

    "Joni! Check the girl for cuts!"

    My heavy head bobbed forward.

    The medic bandaged my arm so tightly that my fingers went numb. I clenched and unclenched the appendages as a means of gaining blood flow and feeling but the motion shot pain through my forearm. I winced. The medic helped me from the tub then wrapped a heavy blanket around my shoulders. I was guided through the bathroom door just in time to see the woman and the fat one wheel Nin from the scene.
   
    There were smells that hung in the air that I hadn't noticed when I had entered the hotel room. The strong odor of Nin's vomit, mixed with spilled whisky and the sweet aroma of rose incense. The incense was the most puzzling; if only because it was suddenly very familiar. It brought to mind church-- Mass-- or a funeral.
    I stared at Nin's body. The medics took the corner around the doorway too tightly and bumped the gurney against the frame. Nin's pale arm fell from where it had been tucked onto the cushion and dropped over the edge. This movement caused her hand to go suddenly limp, her fingers uncoiled and released to the carpet two items that she had been clutching in her fist.
   
    I reached down and picked them up as I followed the procession out of the room.

    It was a plastic glow-in-the-dark rosary and a laminate Catholic prayer card depicting a laying Jesus wearing the crown of thorns and the Virgin Mary looking over him. Across the portrait of Christ, in thick oily black eyeliner, Nin had hastily scrawled the words,
   
    "$50 EMERGENCY 
          CONTRACEPTION. 
          I DECLARED 
          LOVE. HE FORGOT 
          TO CALL."
   
    "Oh fucking hell, Nin."

    I flipped the card over to the prayer on the back:

    A Very Powerful Prayer to  
       Obtain A Favor
    O great Passion! O deep Wounds! O 
   Blood shed in abundance! O Meekness! 
  O God of meekness, O cruel death, have 
   mercy on me and grant my request if it 
           be for my salvation.