My Beautiful Mind

15.

Mathias returns to Evan just as I settle myself under the security of my soft comforter and the blanket Mom made me that very night. From my place curled up in bed, the yellowish light of the moon from my window flashes an ice blue for just a moment until the normal glow returns. Warmth, one that curls my toes and instantly calms, courses through my veins as I feel Evan get one step closer to freedom. Once again, his lemon-scented body wash swirls around my small form as he sends gratitude and love my way. Relieved that the trip to the Andes was a success, I finally allow my eyes to droop close, all the hiking taking a toll on my not so very athletically inclined body. Exhausted from the day's activities, the girls and I decided to return to my room right there in the forest as the sun was setting. When we nearly collapsed on my fuzzy, navy rug, I was amazed to find out while we spent the entire day in the Andean rainforest, and not even an hour passed by at home. Mom and Dad figured I was still sleeping in and were blissfully unaware that I left.

Mila, Cordelia, Adela, and Emy stayed with me for several hours once they returned to their homes to take much needed showers–baths for Cordelia and Emy, of course. I suppose their magic only stretched so far. While they can travel between worlds and produce whatever things they needed out of thin air, nothing could be done with our sweaty and filthy bodies except a good old fashioned hour in the bathroom. None of was really wanted to have a full in-depth debrief of what happened–not until tomorrow at least. But Mila tells before leaving to take her shower that when a creation returns to their creator, he or she leaves their worlds behind intact and still existing. Mathias's parents and friends, Mila explains, would simply believe he's backpacking through the world, completely unaware of the truth.

When we were all clean, I wordlessly played Sherlock on my laptop and we binged watched the first two seasons while munching on pizza I had delivered to the house. Mom and Dad stepped out for a few hours to replenish the kitchen. I was immensely pleased to get Mila and Adela hooked ten minutes into "A Study in Pink," but was slightly exasperated by Cordelia's and Emy's constant questions about the plot and twenty-first century ways of life.

It wasn't until Adela noticed the droopiness of my eyelids and my increasingly lethargic movements that she closed the laptop and signaled to the girls it was time to leave. With promises to return in a few days to let me rest, they disappeared in the cloud of smoke. After a brief, tense dinner with Mom and Dad, who ate their pad thai without a clue of how much I wanted to scream at them for what they've unknowingly done to Evan, I spent the last few hours of the day writing. In a blank document on my laptop, I wrote down every last detail of the Andean village in Peru, of the people, of their way of life, of the mountains that make up their backyard. I wrote about Mathias, another victim of a culture unforgivingly hostile to creative expression amidst the prestige of more lucrative ventures. As I finished processing my racing thoughts, the black glint caught my attention out of the corner of my eye.

Mathias's digital camera rested on top of a stack of books on my bedside table. I laid on my bed in the minutes before turning off the light flipping through the photos in the camera. My breath caught as I examined Mathias's careful work. Each photograph quintessentially captured the simplicity and purity of the mountain ranges underneath all the glossy grandeur seen on polished brochures and calendars. One photo in particular brings tears to my eyes. "How could anybody try to dim your precious gift, Mathias?" I whispered, not daring to take my eyes off the camera screen in fear it would disappear. In the photo, a little girl about three years of age was dressed in a fur coat with its hood over her head. With the faint outline of the Himalayas behind her, the toddler holds up a magenta rhododendron to the camera in her tiny gloved hand, grinning from ear to ear with her cheeks stained pink from the cold. Had Mathias been with me, I would've begged him for the story behind the endearing photograph. I made a mental note to send this one first to the National Geographic.