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Eternity is a long time.
Well, it’s not quite forever—turtles just live for a while—but to Polnareff, it feels like forever. Forever staring at four walls and the same ceiling. An infinity of pacing back and forth on the same floor, footprints on the same carpet. No, it’s not eternity. But every hour that passes feels like a fresh cut, a new gash on a scarred heart. Sometimes he wishes he could die, but he’s too proud to say it. So this must be what purgatory is like.
After all’s said and done, Giorno’s solicitations become less and less frequent. No one comes to visit afterwards. Polnareff doesn’t know what he expects.
Sometimes he thinks he can see Avdol. It’s fleeting. Maybe it’s his ghost, his spirit, but Polnareff wonders why exactly Avdol would leave heaven to come back to pay his pathetic self—or lack thereof, really—a visit.
If he could dream, though, then Avdol would be there. He can imagine the look he’s giving him. It almost drives him mad, picturing Avdol’s ethereal form looking back at him over and over again before dissipating into nothingness, that proud-but-wistful look, because after fourteen years, that final image still burns deep inside him. There are so many things he didn’t get to say. He thinks maybe there was something more than friendship.
Polnareff exhales, leaning back in the chair. It’s like they say—it’s only when something’s gone that he realizes exactly what’s missing.
He stretches out his hand, clenching and unclenching his fingers. There’s more than a subtle hint of melancholy as Polnareff wonders whether he can still swing a sword, or whether he’ll ever hold a rapier again. Chariot’s not there. For the thousandth time, he wishes he was. There’s never been a time where he’s felt more alone—he’s sure of it. Nothing hurts more.
The thing with Mr. President is that Coco Jumbo, being a turtle, was never really capable, intellectually, to form ideas any more complicated than hide and panic. Years pass before Polnareff discovers the influence of his mind on the stand—really, his stand—because one day the room’s door opens just because he wills it to.
Polnareff steps out into an expansive foyer. It looks expensive, ornate, like something straight out of French antiquity because, above all else, Polnareff is incredibly proud of his heritage. It’s a stark contrast to the bland minimalism of the hotel room. For once, as he steps around the statues and lightly touches the velvet curtains, he’s glad that he regained the use of his legs.
There’s a door. It seems almost artificial, the picaresque beauty of the thing, the way the wooden panels sit precisely upon the frame, but everything has that dreamlike quality at this point. Polnareff’s eyes are immediately drawn to it. He tugs on the ornate handles, but they don’t budge at all. He scoffs. It’s not like he expected it to be that easy, anyways.
But it digs at the back of his mind. It’s not like Polnareff really has a shortage of time—the slow but steady passage of it, the moments after moments, drag on ever more painstakingly each time he goes back to the foyer. So he sits there. Days roll by, then weeks, then months, and every day Polnareff laments over the door.
It doesn’t open.
Polnareff often wonders what the limits of the stand are. He hasn’t exactly come to terms with ownership; it’s not like Chariot, he doesn’t know every nook and cranny of it, but not for lack of trying. He can’t know. It doesn’t speak to him. It’s more of a prison than a friend, and for Polnareff, it runs opposite to everything he’s ever believed about stands.
But things change. They’re little things at first—Polnareff has a sudden, rash desire for coffee, and a cup appears on the counter when he turns around. Small items, mementos from his hometown show up in random places: the mug his father used to drink out of, brie from the supermarket, his sister’s hair ribbon. The last one is the worst.
So this stand must, Polnareff thinks, be linked to his subconsciousness. His desires? Polnareff isn’t sure. He chuckles as he rotates the cheese in his hand. It tastes just like it used to. He can remember something like this happening before, with Judgement. He’s not eager to repeat the experience. Has it really been so long since his journey to Egypt, since J. Geil, since DIO? It’s more like a distant memory now.
But Polnareff, despite his maturation, doesn’t learn very quickly when emotions are involved.
He focuses one day. He can barely remember anything about Cairo, but Avdol’s face is the one thing that still comes to him as clearly as daylight. Polnareff closes his eyes, hones in on that image, thinks of everything that he’s ever said and never said to him. People get third chances, don’t they?
A creak. Polnareff looks up. A silhouette in the doorway—it’s dark, but somehow, Polnareff knows exactly who opened the door.
Tears stream down Polnareff’s face almost immediately. “You’re here,” he breathes, “I don’t believe it.”
Avdol moves from the top of the stairs and, briefly, Polnareff feels like it’s fifteen years past and Avdol’s iridescent image is hovering, wistfully, in the sky. With it, that feeling of loss is renewed, and Polnareff thinks that Avdol can’t be here, shouldn’t be here. Not now—not at his lowest point like this. He can’t look. The guilt is almost too much, and as Avdol descends the stairs, the words crowd Polnareff’s throat until nothing comes out at all.
“Of course I am,” Avdol grins, pointing a finger at himself, “I’ve always been watching.”
Sobs rack Polnareff’s body as he falls to his knees, clutching Avdol’s robes like it’s the only concrete thing he’s ever held. Polnareff looks up at him. “It’s you? Here?”
Avdol blinks. “The real Avdol? No.” he states, with more than a hint of regret. “You brought this image of me into existence. I won’t last very long.”
Polnareff’s face contorts into an expression of pain, more than the visage of melancholy he was wearing beforehand. Somehow, he knows Avdol can’t be here. But he tries to overlook the fact because it looks too much like Avdol, feels just like him, to the point that Polnareff can believe that Avdol is truly there.
“If you can hear me in some way, then—I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. For you, and for Iggy—I can’t make it right again.”
Avdol places his hand on Polnareff’s head. He smiles. “I know. It’s all right.”
They stay like that for a while, partly because Polnareff doesn’t want to let go, and partly because he believes that if he puts enough into it, the real Avdol, somewhere up there, will hear him. He doesn’t need to talk anymore.
But things end. Polnareff knows this. It’s almost like plaster that the mannequin Avdol falls apart, with a smile on his face, because eventually, Polnareff can’t hold onto him forever. By the time the sun rises again, Polnareff is kneeling in front of a space where “Avdol” once stood, the only remnant of him a red patch of his robe. The tears dry up. They always do.
In the past, the passage of time, to Polnareff, seemed nothing more than a prison, forever locked in a room without an escape. But today, as Polnareff gets on his feet, a smile grips his face for the first time in too long. He’ll continue to live, continue to wait for someone to come—maybe for Giorno to come back—because he knows that’s what Avdol would have wanted for him. To live for others.
The pressure lessens day by day. There’s something, now, that Polnareff can look forward to—because at the end of the tunnel, someone’s waiting for him. Nothing gives him more hope.