Almond(35)

“I took cold medicine. I think I have a cold,” I managed to finish.

Dr. Shim straightened his glasses, his eyes fixed on my shaking legs.

“Well, I think you can explain in more detail.”

“More detail? What do you mean?” I asked, and he grinned.

“Well, I just thought, maybe there were some things you left out because you didn’t know how to accurately express them. How about you take time to go over the details, one at a time? When did you first start having your symptoms? Was there some kind of trigger?”

I narrowed my eyes and tried to think back to how it had all started.

“It was the wind.”

“The wind?” Dr. Shim narrowed his eyes to mirror my expression.

“It’s hard to explain, but will you still hear me out?”

“Of course.”

I took a deep breath and tried to recount the events of the day before with as much detail as possible. Once out loud, my story sounded rather dry and boring—that the wind blew and the leaves fell, and when her hair blew and touched my cheek, I felt as though someone were squeezing my heart. My story had no context; it wouldn’t even qualify as small talk. But as I rambled on, I noticed Dr. Shim’s face soften, and by the time I finished, he had a wide smile on his face. He held out his hand and I took it reflexively. He gave me a firm handshake.

“Congratulations! You’re growing. This is great news.” Beaming, he continued, “How much taller have you gotten since early this year?”

“Three and a half inches.”

“See? That’s a huge growth in such a short time. I’m sure your brain must have drastically changed as well. If I were a neurosurgeon, I would suggest you get an MRI scan and check the progress of your brain.”

I shook my head. Getting pictures taken of my brain was not a pleasant memory.

“I don’t plan on getting one yet. I want to wait until my amygdalae grow big enough. Actually, I don’t even know if this is something to celebrate. It’s uncomfortable. I also didn’t get enough sleep.”

“That’s what happens when you have a crush on somebody.”

“Do you think I have a crush on her?” I regretted asking him the question as soon as I asked.

“Well. Only your heart knows,” he said, still smiling.

“You mean my brain, not my heart. We do whatever the brain tells us to do.”

“Technically, yes, but we still say it’s from our heart.”

*

As Dr. Shim said, I was changing little by little. I had more questions, but I didn’t feel like sharing all of them with Dr. Shim as I had before. I babbled and got tongue-tied with even simple questions. I started doodling, hoping it would clear my thoughts. But somehow I kept writing down not sentences but the same word over and over again. When I realized what I had written, I immediately crumpled up the paper or leaped from my seat.

My annoying symptoms continued. No, they actually got worse with each day. My temples throbbed at the sight of Dora, and my ears pricked up when I heard her voice from however far away, among however many people. I felt my body had outpaced my mind, and that it was as unnecessary and bothersome as a long overcoat in summer. I wanted so much to take it off. If only I could.





57


Dora started coming by the bookstore often. The time of her visits was irregular. Sometimes she would turn up on a weekend and sometimes on a weeknight. But always around the time she was about to visit, my backbone would ache. Like an animal instinctively sensing an impending earthquake, like a worm squirming out of the earth before a rainstorm.

Whenever I felt my body itch, I would walk out of the bookstore, and there she would appear, the tip of her head rising into view from the horizon. I would scramble back inside as if I’d just seen something ominous, then I would go about my work as if nothing had happened.

Dora said she would help clear out the books, but when she found a book she liked, she would sit reading the same page for a long time. She was interested in encyclopedias of animals, insects, and nature. Dora found beauty in everything. She found nature’s magnificent work and incredible symmetry in a turtle’s carapace, or a stork’s egg, or an autumn reed from a swamp. How wonderful, she would often say. I understood the meaning of the word, but I could never feel the splendor it carried.

As fall ripened and the books were being sorted out, Dora and I talked about the cosmos, flowers, and nature—how big the universe is, how there’s a flower that eats insects by melting them, and how some fish swim upside down.

“You know what? We assume all dinosaurs are huge, but there were some as small as a double bass, called Compsognathus. They must’ve been so cute,” said Dora, a colorful children’s book spread open on her knees.

“I used to read this book when I was little. My mom read it to me,” I said.

“Do you remember your mom reading it to you?”

I nodded. Hypsilophodon were the ones as big as a bathtub, Microceratus were as big as a puppy, Micropachyce-phalosaurus was around nineteen inches tall, and Mussaurus were the size of a small teddy bear. I remembered all these long, strange names.

The corners of Dora’s lips turned upward.

“Do you go see your mom often?” she asked.

“Yeah, every day.”

She hesitated for a moment. “Can I come too?”