سرزمین عجایب

WONDERLAND

AND IT’S THE wanting that pulls me back down to earth hard. The wanting scares me. It’s like a weed that spreads slowly, just beneath your notice. Before you know it, it’s pitted your surfaces and darkened your windows.

I send Olly a single e-mail. I’m really busy this weekend, I say. I need to get some sleep, I say. I need to concentrate, I say. I shut down my computer, unplug it, and bury it under a stack of books. Carla raises a single questioning eyebrow at me. I lower two nonanswering eyebrows back at her.

I spend most of Saturday suffering through calculus. Math is my least favorite and worst subject. It’s possible that those two facts are related. By evening I move on to rereading the annotated and illustrated version of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. I barely notice Carla packing up to leave at the end of the day.

“Did you have an argument?” she asks, nodding at my laptop.

I shake my head no but don’t say anything more.

By Sunday the urge to check my e-mail is acute. I imagine my in-box overflowing with subject-less e-mails from Olly. Is he asking more Fast Five questions? Does he want some company, refuge from his family?

“You’re OK,” Carla says on her way out the door that evening. She kisses my forehead, and I’m a little girl again.

I take Alice to my white couch and settle in. Carla’s right of course. I am OK, but, like Alice, I’m just trying not to get lost. I keeping thinking about the summer I turned eight. I spent so many days with my forehead pressed against my glass window, bruising myself with my futile wanting. At first I just wanted to look out the window. But then I wanted to go outside. And then I wanted to play with the neighborhood kids, to play with all kids everywhere, to be normal for just an afternoon, a day, a lifetime.

So. I don’t check my e-mail. One thing I’m certain of: Wanting just leads to more wanting. There’s no end to desire.