say my chicken is being heated. They would have put me in there whether I agreed to it or not, but my falling in line pleased everyone because it was seen as personal progress. I expect to learn nothing. The class is being run by an English teacher who once called me lazy and foggy. She did not just call me that, she wrote it in my report. I said it over and over to myself: la-zy-and-fo-ggy. Mum and Dad said it over and over, too. Her name is Ms Tryst and she wrote: ‘Has potential she refuses to access. Less laziness and fogginess would be beneficial.’ I thought that was rude. Once she wrote a poem on the board and asked us to assess critically the literary references used therein. Used therein: that is how she talks. She wanted us to deconstruct it. It was a piece by John Donne. I could not understand it. I mean, I could read the words, but they spun off inside me and just disappeared somewhere, so I spent the time drawing a picture of Ms Tryst instead. I got detention for that. And I got la-zy-and-fo-ggy said to me out loud in front of everyone. And then said out loud in my report. When I got home that day, there was a note waiting for me in the window. It said:
—No man is an island
I pressed my palm against the window and felt sad.
I’d rather have detention than remedial reading. Remedial class will be just like detention, only withhumiliation thrown in. Just as well humiliation is an essential component of romance. That drawing I did of Ms Tryst was a good one. She was very angry about it, though. Remedial class will be during school hours. I am to miss one session of PE to attend remedial reading, which is fine with me because I am always looking for a reason to miss PE. I suppose they cannot make it after school in case it starts interfering with my detention. But for now I am suspended, stranded, adrift. An island.
No man is an island: romantic but untrue. Even when islands bump into each other, they only grind and groan before lumbering away from each other again. If they do get stuck together for a bit, it only serves to shove stress on the fissure between them. There is no crossing over into someone else’s country. Not even for a visit. We just yell across the divides. The thing is to pretend otherwise at all times.
I pretend with Nancy so she can pretend she is not pretending when she gives status reports to Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad pretend to be encouraged. School pretends to be interested and promises to take me back if the pretending sticks. The whole situation is one big remedial class. I always thought what you said to a doctor or a priest was private. That must only be on the telly. Psychiatrist, chaplain, teacher, parent. Island.
A few hours later, I put my own note in the window.It said:
—I AM AN ISLAND
Creepy looked at it for a long time, his elbows resting on his desk, his long fingers sunny and lithe. I did not wait for him to respond. I closed my curtains and turned away and went to get a drink out of the doll’s house.
I wonder how things might have been different if it had been me who went over the balcony. It occurs to me that no one would have shown much interest. I watched from inside my head that day: I could see people’s faces contorting, their mouths all square and wet, and I heard voices as if from a long way away, distorted growly vowels pulled and pulled the distance of miles until they snapped back with a bang. Mr Thornton was comforted, Stephanie was comforted, people just passing by were comforted—and I was treated like a Gorgon. People would not even look at me.
He wants me to take my mittens off again. I have not taken them off since they suspended me. It will be a new intimacy.
Coda: Our secret, veiled stories in fragments but whole at the same time.
TWENTY-TWO
And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you
—No man is an island
I pressed my palm against the window and felt sad.
I’d rather have detention than remedial reading. Remedial class will be just like detention, only withhumiliation thrown in. Just as well humiliation is an essential component of romance. That drawing I did of Ms Tryst was a good one. She was very angry about it, though. Remedial class will be during school hours. I am to miss one session of PE to attend remedial reading, which is fine with me because I am always looking for a reason to miss PE. I suppose they cannot make it after school in case it starts interfering with my detention. But for now I am suspended, stranded, adrift. An island.
No man is an island: romantic but untrue. Even when islands bump into each other, they only grind and groan before lumbering away from each other again. If they do get stuck together for a bit, it only serves to shove stress on the fissure between them. There is no crossing over into someone else’s country. Not even for a visit. We just yell across the divides. The thing is to pretend otherwise at all times.
I pretend with Nancy so she can pretend she is not pretending when she gives status reports to Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad pretend to be encouraged. School pretends to be interested and promises to take me back if the pretending sticks. The whole situation is one big remedial class. I always thought what you said to a doctor or a priest was private. That must only be on the telly. Psychiatrist, chaplain, teacher, parent. Island.
A few hours later, I put my own note in the window.It said:
—I AM AN ISLAND
Creepy looked at it for a long time, his elbows resting on his desk, his long fingers sunny and lithe. I did not wait for him to respond. I closed my curtains and turned away and went to get a drink out of the doll’s house.
I wonder how things might have been different if it had been me who went over the balcony. It occurs to me that no one would have shown much interest. I watched from inside my head that day: I could see people’s faces contorting, their mouths all square and wet, and I heard voices as if from a long way away, distorted growly vowels pulled and pulled the distance of miles until they snapped back with a bang. Mr Thornton was comforted, Stephanie was comforted, people just passing by were comforted—and I was treated like a Gorgon. People would not even look at me.
He wants me to take my mittens off again. I have not taken them off since they suspended me. It will be a new intimacy.
Coda: Our secret, veiled stories in fragments but whole at the same time.
TWENTY-TWO
And since you know you cannot see yourself,
so well as by reflection, I, your glass,
will modestly discover to yourself,
that of yourself which you
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