Chapter 1: The Return

DAY 1

I guess what's the point of all this? For me to clear my head, I suppose. I took this task to write down my thoughts; only to make it clear what I wanted to tell this girl every time I saw her. I feel I have to weigh my words, not to stumble and stutter, like I always do when she's around. I try to articulate something meaningful, or pay her a compliment, for they are truly truthful ones and not invented; but only weird words come out of my mouth or, when the right ones do come out, she doesn't get them. I'll tell you more about what I mean later. So, I said to myself: better write them down beforehand. This way I'll make sure the intended meaning gets to her and not some strange interpretation. Maybe a lot of what's going on with me has to do with my daily life and the experiences I'm currently going through, so, maybe, giving them a voice, as well, will shed some light on the difficult (why is it so difficult?) relationship with this girl.

I adore her. I simply adore her. I think it's important to establish this from the start. I have a strange combination of desires to hold her tight to my arms, telling her how beautiful she is, how everything will be alright, make her laugh and, when she's down, lift her to the skies and tell her I'm there for her. And then I belittle my good intentions with thoughts of kissing her feet while making love to her... press my lips against her big toe and then slide them down the sole of her feet, bite them softly, kiss them hard and then press the rosy cushions against my cheeks.

What's the image I'm trying to project to her? I don't know. I feel I'm hero and villain around her. The encouragement I get is that she wants me to be both. I just wish she'd stop running away from me all the time.

How did I get here in the first place? Well, I've returned home after an absence of many years. That's partly because my relationship with Ella had ended in failure. We had been together for seven years and she'd had enough of me. Maybe she was waiting for me to pop the question. But I couldn't. I felt I was having a relationship with a child and just the thought of having a child with a child scared me. I know women change when they become mothers but I just couldn't see it. Or maybe she got tired of my moods, my depression, and left. Words failed me to express what I felt with Ella then and fail me now with Audrey. I'm a mathematician not a linguist. There is as much beauty and poetry in science as there is in the written and spoken word, and the separation between arts and sciences, which is demanded by the organization of this world, is, partly why Audrey feels so terrible most of the time. I see so much in her; an entire universe, waiting to be unveiled. If given the chance, that is. The Universe is ninety-seven percent made of energy we can't see but feel, which is how I feel about this girl. There's ninety-seven percent of stuff inside her she's not even aware of, and that's the stuff I fell in love with. I simply live my life for her at the moment and she has thrown me out of my old ways.

I ran into Audrey the other day, and she was crying. I asked her what was going on and she told me she couldn't care less if any of her relatives died that very instant. I know I can help her. I can't help myself but I can help her. I know you can't have a great time alone and that's the key to what I believe, but she doesn't think the same. I understood why she was feeling like that: she has a lot more to offer than what's required of her. There is a lot more potential to do good and to be good and nobody's interested, but I couldn't tell her that because I knew she wouldn't relate. She would have to figure it out on her own. So I just gave her a hug and told her I was there for her. She looked at me afterwards and asked: 'who are you?'. I had no idea. Again, I felt a rush to tell her everything would be fine, that I will take care of her but I remembered how Ella had reacted in the past and stopped short of saying it. At the age of twenty-eight, which is how old Audrey is, women don't want promises anymore. They want good news and facts. And I can't just deliver that yet. I know she's waiting for Prince Charming to sweep her off her feet and take her away from all this shit, but for the time being there is no Prince Charming so she does all the running on her own.

I said earlier I was a mathematician, but feel a correction must take place here. I was a mathematician. Now I'm a Math teacher in primary school. I came back from New York in May, eager to live at one hundred miles per hour as I was doing back in the city. Life in the Big Apple is changing fast and, for someone like me, a restless hearted, it was exactly what I needed. But here, back in a small town in Northern California, nothing has changed. Life is as old as time and people move in slow motion, as if forgotten by God in these parts. The only thing left in them is the will to spread gossip about the return of the prodigal son, as if knowing somebody's had it worse than they have down here, is enough to fuel their engines for a while. I applied to the local Presbyterian school for a position and since Mr. McGready had just retired, I was asked to substitute as a Math teacher until they had sent a new one from Seattle. A sign I was on the right track: from a budding researcher into Non-Euclidean Geometry at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Science to teaching third graders in a run-down school which partly services as the local barn. Half of the population here is drunk most of the time, and the other half is made up of the wives who scold their husbands for drinking so much. There is innate racial and religious discrimination, as is always the case with remote communities, but nothing too obnoxious or violent as to make headlines. It is what it is, I guess. And it's awful. I feel like I'm trapped in the Dark Ages or some sort of Sloth World where everyone seems to wave your hand at you as if to say 'Calm the fuck down, what are you so anxious about?' And God knows I'm anxious.

My back hurts. It's been messed up for a few years now and it's always worse in the winter. I went to a chiropractor about three weeks before coming home and he asked me 'What do you want me to do?' "Perfect", I thought. "That's the kind of doctor I like". He shuffled his feet for a while in his office - looking for "stuff to make me better", I would've thought - before eventually flinging his arms up in the air and exclaiming: 'You and 90% of the world's population'. "Good. I'm happy we got this sorted." 'Go and have a swim every now and then, and avoid sitting on a chair for too long' he continued. 'If that doesn't work, we can always book you for some minor surgery, although...' and he stopped there, while filling out my medical file. 'Nah, it's not gonna' make any difference' he eventually added, as he signed the paper and stamped it. "That's a relief". I hate surgery. I hate doctors. I hate hospitals. I hate the smell, the inefficiency, the importance they give to themselves. At least, I had gone to see a chiropractor. My friend, Julia-Maria Cartwright, puffed when I told her about the encounter. 'Chiropractor! That's not even a doctor. Go see a proper one!' No. I went to see a professional and felt better for a few days after. That's good enough for the time being. And I hate that about myself. I take pleasure in things which are good enough for the time being - like when you give a kid a piece of chocolate and he stops crying. And for this reason I don't seem to do anything meaningful with my life. I eat the 'chocolate' which makes me feel better that instant, which is enough to fill up the emotional void. But I know I should somehow work towards a greater plan and that the suffering I feel at that instance of depression should spur me on to build something which will have value in the long run. I suppose you would have to take away all of one's comforts before they eventually realized they had hit rock bottom and had to take their life into their own hands and do something about it. Can't be worse than what I'm going through right now, though: I feel lonely and incapable of realizing a deeper, meaningful connection with another human being. And for all that others tell you, I feel it's my own fault. I don't live in the present. I live in the world of big ideas, the world of Math and science and the world of Utopia where all diseases have been cured, where love is the law and where we have reached a deeper understanding of the Universe and our role within it. Tough world, the one we're living in now. 'Yes, but the Huns, The Egyptians and the Mayans, had it worse!' - cried my father whenever I confronted him about it in my youth. 'Be glad we live into our seventies and eighties, as it is now. We have come a long way. 2000 years ago, you would have been happy not to get your head chopped off or be crucified for stealing a loaf of bread... And you're moaning about what? Now, think of that! That's a thought to give you comfort'. But it doesn't. I am just unhappy, and have been so for the last 10 years. I can't even remember the last time I laughed. I'm supposed to make my lessons fun for these kids - how the hell am I going to do that? I'm a researcher; I ain't no teacher.