On Distance, Part II

The room is yellow and everyone in it is slowly going mad because of the hum of the lights, especially the ones that don’t know it yet. The teacher wears a long monochrome skirt and the kind of sweater that art school girls wear when they want to look like teachers. She lectures about William Blake, or William Wordsworth, or William Morris. I turn to speak to Sylvia, but she’s reading Dorothy Parker. I stare down at my paper for a few minutes, write, “Does this sentence remind you of Douglas Hofstadter?” next to “This sentence contains only one non-English kryxor” and “No language can express this thought without ambiguity.”

The teacher mentions cinnamon, and I cock my head. Supposedly, humans naturally look up and to the side when trying to recall an image. I wonder how one might try to recall a scent. I experiment with facial expressions and angles, exercising my futility muscles. Frustrated that I couldn’t call the olfactory sensation of cinnamon to myself, I turn the page of my notebook and list recognizable odors: cinnamon, lime, pennies, apple blossom, almond, Denver, grandma, yellow curry, old books, Appalachia, my car, Sylvia’s car, chalk, baby powder, banana, banana nut bread, pound cake, Puerto Vallarta, toothpaste (baking soda, not mint,) mint, butter, coconut, Rubber Gloves Studio, orange, Santa Fe, peach, plum, pear, the subway, blueberries, new shoes, cranberries, cantaloupe, chili, garbage bin, red curry, Austin, acrylic paint, oil paint, sawdust, rust, carrots, semen, clove cigarettes, cough drops, lavender, white wine, red wine, sunrise, noontime, cider, myrrh, oatmeal, nutmeg, oregano, Houston, pine, pumpkin, summer rain, winter rain, rosewood, Orlando, beer, strawberries, cookies (grandma’s?), dogwood, sycamore, oak, cigarette-soaked clothing, aspen, redwood, Paris, Milan, Zurich, playing cards, felt pen, basil, jasmine, socks, moist tortilla, damp stone, wet dog, leather, ex’s laundry detergent, cut grass, ammonia, chlorine, dog food, hospitals, cat food, airports, interstate gas stations, Mississippi River, moonshine, burning leaves, tires, singed hair, lemonade, camels, chapstick, sex, home, and coffee.

I try to coax each of them to leap up and into my nose. Then I dig in my backpack for a box of crayons. I’ve tried this before – but eleven years don’t vanish without some stubborn will of sorts. I open the box near my nose and draw it in. Drawn out. Draw! –up