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Unnee met this boy named Scott in PreSchool. Unnee fell in love too much. He had brown eyes and blond hair and was just a boy. Unnee wanted to play with him all the time and I just rolled my eyes and stayed in my room with my pencils. One time, Chin Halbujee and Chin Halmunee came over to stay with us. I remember Chin Halbujee's movements, but not his face or his body or his voice or his smell. Unless you count the smell of smoke, which was not his own smell but the smell of the fire he held between his fingers. Chin Halbujee moved like he had no joints. He moved like he could only go on for a little while longer and he moved in silence. His head nod was his language. It could mean - change the channel, go get me coffee, sit next to me, sit still, more rice please, and yes.

Sometimes, Chin Halbujee would forget about us and lock us outside. Then, Unnee and I had to amuse ourselves for hours until Uma got home. Sometimes, we would make boobie traps out of jump ropes, hula hoops, baseball bats, kick balls, sticks, string, chalk, and rusty nails.

Unnee and I were sitting in our room and I grew tired of us. Let's go outside, I said. Okay, Unnee said. We tried to crawl down the stairs on all fours like dogs, but that only worked when you were going in the up direction and could propel yourself forward with your arms. Going down, you had to use all your arm muscle to support your hanging weight and soon, it all ended up badly with both our bodies piled on the wooden floor. Unnee and I grabbed our swishy jackets - hers pink, mine green before I stepped outside to the wind world. When I turned around to say something - I forget what - I saw Unnee turn the lock.
"What are you doing?"
"Locking the door."
"How will we get back in?"
"We won't need to."
"Why?"
"Scott is coming to pick us up."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
Unnee was holding onto a rubber ball and I was holding on to nothing. Chin Halbujee was inside watching old Westerns on television. I could hear the sound of the gunshots and his mucus-coughing when I pressed my ear an hour later against the cold metal door. He watched a lot of TV. Chin Halbujee liked to watch TV and smoke, even though he was a genius. As a genius, he should have known better. I learned about smoking in school one day when everyone got an aluminum ash tray, a needle, and markers. Draw happy things on the ash trays, said Mrs. Klindenst. I drew a girl - me - with long black hair and a green dress. I had a big smile on my face because we were supposed to draw something happy. After we were all done, Mrs. Klindenst told us to turn the ash tray upside down, take the needle and poke twenty-five little holes onto the bottom. I counted, even though it was hard. Twenty-five holes.
Alright, Mrs. Klindenst said after I sat there waiting for everyone else to finish. Take this gift to a friend or family member who smokes. Smoking kills. Everyone, repeat after me. Smoking kills.
"Smoking kills," we all replied.
I turned my ash tray right-side up and looked at my picture - my body and once-smiling face was punctured with tiny pricks everywhere, my eyes poked out into two gaping holes. This was not nice. It was the first time I was frightened of myself. But I gave it to Chin Halbujee anyways and he kept it by his real, stone ashtray.

Unnee said we had to wait on the street next to our mailbox, 1386 Doe Trail Road. Scott would come to pick us up.
"But he doesn't drive."
"His mother is coming too."
"When did you talk to them?"
"Before."

I sat on the curb for a long time. The world was light and then became darker. I did not know what time it was - only that my legs hurt and my toes were cold. I was getting very warm in my jacket, zipped up to my nose. I was very warm when the air began to glow around us. It smelled like the moment before rain, when two fractured parts of the day clasp together in dry upheavel. A thunder battle was about to occur. Though my sight told me that the crash had not yet happened, I knew in my mind that the battle was fully under way. The darkness so bright, and the light so dark - both were sharp and present - so completely present in every single vibrating molecule that the world shook in its fullness. I could feel the shaking. To this very day I can feel the shaking. That's how I know when to hold my breath, plug my ears, stand still, and only use my eyes and nose to sense everything, even the dust, outlined in glowing blue.

The concentration of these living colors made part of me want to bleed so I could see what blood would look like in this moment of the world. I wanted my eyes to never let go of the wet colors, of the shades of blue and white and light. But I also knew how the world felt - yearning to be deeper - so that I could contain and be a part of such things. Just as I was about to stand up because I could no longer sit, I heard a car approach.

"Is it Scott?" I thought, but Unnee had her head on the grass and her eyes were closed. Blades of green fell between her lips and shivered with each passing of breath that came from Unnee's mouth and moved deeply into the dirt below the stone, the street, and the roots of any living thing.

I looked into a face that leaned out the car window. He was not a boy. His skin looked pale and translucent and his hair looked so shiny-black that it turned blue - as if the night sky had transcended onto the yawn of morning. He saw me and knew what it was like to live a few hours of each day in dreams. We drew one breath. I did not blink- but in the next fracture of time - he was never there - and in that moment I found out that, at the age of six, my dream mind had found out how to escape the cage of sleep.