“Daphne Kintish! ” Mrs. Malarkey’s sharp voice cut shrilly through the air, piercing my intense focus on the complicated doodle that slowly spread across my notebook page. I squared my jaw and tried to block her out and delay the inevitable for at least another few seconds. Carefully, my pen continued to fill in small black triangles and extend lopsided circles and flower petals across the blue bars meant to confine my writing. The day was hot as hell, it being already late May, and while I didn’t mind talking back to the occasional teacher, I had been planning to spend this period finishing my ballpoint masterpiece.
The slightly uncomfortable girls behind me tittered weakly as I finally raised my defiant face from the desk. Mrs. Malarkey sighed. “I don’t suppose you could tell us the answer to the problem. ” “No, I don’t suppose I can,” I answered nasally, raising my voice to a high screechy pitch, not unlike the teacher’s. A few kids laughed, but most kept their heads determinedly on their pages, frozen in anticipation. Laughing was probably unwise in this case. While I liked to put on a good show for the class, and quite appreciated the audience response, Mrs.
Malarkey was definitely the queen bitch when it came to handing out detentions, not to mention giving insanely boring high pitched lectures, bordering on temper tantrums. I smiled slightly in the break of her shocked silence, mentally comparing her to a chihuahua. “Daphne! I’m shocked to hear such behavior from someone like you! I hope that in th-” She probably did not get the chance to finish her sentence, or indeed the whole tirade it was leading to. Even if she had, I wouldn’t have heard. In an instant, her voice disappeared, as if I had plunged my head underwater.
The room quickly faded around me until I was squatting in the place where my desk chair had been. I didn’t lose balance; I was standing up almost immediately, having learned from past mistakes. I breathed a long let out sigh of relief, and then, with a sigh, focused my eyes on the doodle I had left behind on my desk. It was a rather good one, but it would have to be redone another day. Stretching my cramped arms and legs, I nearly chose to focus my ears on whatever Mrs. Malarkey went on to say. It was always astounding to me what excuses the brain created to cope with my disappearance.
But I quickly decided I really didn’t care enough, and turned and walked straight through several muted classmates, and out of the wall. It was nice to be Gone. I had been using the power for nine years, ever since I turned six. I remembered the day with absolute clarity: Sarah Chesterman, third grader, following me home from school, hitting my back with peanut shells and pebbles; her laughter at my shoulder as I fought to hold back tears; wishing and trying so hard to just not be there, to disappear, to hide. And suddenly, I was Gone.
It had only been for a few seconds that time. The strange grey world had frightened me much more than the bully ever had, and I snapped back to reality almost immediately. but my few seconds Gone gave enough time for her to be walking away as I returned, as if nothing had ever happened. Over the years I began to realize that I could get away with anything by just becoming Gone. If my teacher asked me for homework I hadn’t done, all I had to do was disappear, and their mind would make up some logical explanation, like that I was sick and they had already excused me.
The minute someone found out that I had done something bad, I would go Gone, and it would be like nothing had ever happened. I began to use it as a little hidey- hole, a place to run when things went wrong. Sometimes when I just needed time alone I would go Gone, and stay until I was ready to return. Gone was heaven for a kid like me. Suddenly, it was as if stress couldn’t affect me. I was like a superhero, immune to negative consequences. Of course, sometimes things went wrong, and I left at inconvenient times. But I could usually solve those mistakes by just going Gone again. I was invincible.
As I grew older, my limits were slowly broken down. Going Gone used to tire me out. After I came back, I would collapse panting, and need to take a long nap. I stayed up at night when nobody was around practicing, going for extended stretches of time to build up my stamina, until I was able to stay away for days at a time. I never felt the desire to really stay out that long until one day I went with a pencil in my hand, and was surprised to discover that it stayed in my hand as I arrived in Gone. It really shouldn’t have come as a realization, as my clothes always remained colorful and intact.
After that moment, I began bringing objects into Gone to entertain myself. No longer did I pass through people, bored, or spy on innocent kids. I would have a picnic lunch, or play a game for as long as I wanted. Gone was where I was best, without a single other person in the world to bother me. I walked slowly through Gone, passing through doors and tables, students and teachers, until at last I slid through the school’s front door.
Everything around me was grey and ghostly, and sounds faded to a low buzz. If I ignored reality around me, it id not bother me at all to walk right through it, and in contrary, if I wanted to I could focus a sense on a particular sight or sound and just observe, like a camera with a good zoom feature. This time, I blocked the world from my consciousness and focused on the open expanse of Gone in front of me. As soon as I was out of the school, I broke into a run. I had never been a runner in school, or anywhere in the outside world. I didn’t find it particularly exhilarating or rewarding, and the exercise wasn’t really my thing. However running in Gone was a completely different experience.
The flat even ground provided the perfect surface, and there were no sounds or sights, or bumps in the sidewalk to serve as distractions. As soon as you picked up speed, an odd wind would begin blowing past you, cooling, but not disturbing, speeding, but not making any noise at all. In Gone, running didn’t even have to come with the hard panting, sweat, and leg cramps, that all too often accompanied it in the real world. The long runs gave me time to think, scheme, plan and rest. After planning my whole schedule for the week and taking time to daydream about shoving a pencil up Mrs.
Malarkey nose, I began to slow down. The wind stopped, and I opened my eyes. I hoped I hadn’t traveled too far. I wanted to be home by dinner, and near my house would probably be the best place to rematerialize, as it usually fit in well with whatever narratives my teachers’ and parents’ minds supplied to deal with my disappearance. Luckily, I knew where I was. It was the park, about three miles from the school, but closer to my house. I wasn’t surprised I had run that far. Time and speed in Gone could change quickly based on momentum.
The park, called Roger’s Park, consisted of a fenced in playground, a grassy hill, a baseball diamond, a ratty field, and small tennis courts. The Gone ground always remained flat to the touch, and it glossed over bumps in the landscape. However with significant hills or mountains, it would gently slope and bulge. I had run down the gently slope of the grassy hill, and stood at the bottom, near what would be small strip of paved sidewalks. If I focused, I could see several adults playing with their dogs, though mostly the park was abandoned.
I remembered that it was still in the middle of the school day, and the absence of people made sense. I had only been here a few times with my mom as a kid, and usually when I was Gone I would run the opposite direction. I sat down on the not-quite-sidewalk of Gone, and amused myself by trying to figure out how far I could see in the distance before grey fog clouded the horizon. The change that the empty atmosphere brought upon me were beginning to set in with full force, and I felt my heat and frustration from the school day wash away.
Kicking my legs out in front of me, I slid my hands under my head and lay back against the smooth surface beneath me. In my natural Gone state, the sky was simply a muted swirl of greys and whites, though I could choose to focus on it just like any other part of the environment. I stared upwards until I could see the pale blue highlighted against the blurry edges of trees. It would be very easy to fall asleep in Gone, I mused, if the ground was a little comfier.
In a crowded noisy room, Gone would dull the sounds to the incomprehensible murmur of a party in the apartment above you while you were trying to sleep. But in a calm peaceful setting, the near complete silence was unnerving, to say the least. I made sure to allow myself to hear the soft yelps of the dogs, and the rustling of leaves, which required enough concentration to keep me sufficiently awake. It was an exercise I had been practicing for years; the ability to control my senses and the environment around the, so the minute I heard a sound that I was not in control of, my mind jerked to attention.
