The Sphere Read Free

but I’m pretty sure it’s the latter. I look around, like always, with the feeling that the rest of the world must be staring and pointing at us. I feel sick wen I see how eagerly they shove their faces into their books. It’s just warped. When I was little I had terrible nightmares where some book swallowed my parents up, starting with the nose. In an instant the head disappeared into the pages, and then the body turned into a kind of goo, and seeped into the paper. Sometimes the overzealous reader disappeared entirely, and sometimes the book snapped shut with the feet still outside, wiggling like the antennae of an insect.
    I sense a movement to my right. My mother lifts her head. No, please—not now! You’ve already greeted me with a snort, that’s more than enough. I look fervently up at the sky, wishing some being from on high would beam me up. But there aren’t any beings around this time of day; they must be napping. I settle on prayer. It’s not that I believe in anything, but I send my prayer up anyway, just in case it has some effect: “Don’t let it happen now. Don’t let this be one of those moments chosen to share one of those beautiful sentences or oh-so-interesting ideas that would put a rock to sleep.” My mother’s nose goes up and then down. I see her bookish profile disappear into the pages and then peek back out at the world. I feel it coming. I prepare for the worst: an entire passage that might take up two or three pages—it’s enough to make you laugh at water torture. I start to get up, determined to set off on a walk that will take me at least to Japan. I can understand that people might want to waste their lives behind a book, but there’s no reason to force everyone else to listen to stupid stories that don’t make any sense. I’m already on my feet when my mother closes the book and lies down. False alarm.
    I sit down on my towel again and concentrate on the rocking of the waves, on the people passing by. With my eyes half-closed they’re nothing but little floating spots. I live in a world of little spots. I like the way everything loses its form and turns into something other than reality. I open my eyes wide. I can make out the twins from a distance—it’s them, unmistakable. I half-close my eyes again and their bodies blur until they disappear. I turn my head and do the same with my parents. They disappear. They all disappear and they don’t even know it. The perfect fantasy—though by the time I was eleven I had already learned that there are certain things you don’t share with other people. You can’t say that an ideal world would be one where your family disappeared. You can’t say that, much less write it down, if you don’t want to end up in the psychologist’s office after a visit to the principal. How sad, to learn at eleven years old that a “free” essay isn’t actually free at all! “Utopia, an ideal world”—from there you could write whatever you wanted... Damn school, nest of nasty, hypocritical rats...
    “Listen, listen,” says my father, and the excitement in his voice startles me. I look at him as if he were speaking to someone else.
    “Yes, listen. Your mother’s asleep.”
    I deserve it. For letting my guard down—I should have walked all the way to Greenland. Seriously, what depraved being created literature? When? And above all, why? Out of all the useless things in life the most useless is inventing worlds with people who never existed and never will. My father has begun to read, so I nod as if I’m listening. I’ve had years to perfect this art. Suddenly a little whisper of pride sneaks into my heart, and I puff up like a balloon. My father’s voice as he goes on reading sounds farther and farther away. I’m not there anymore. I’m a great big hot-air balloon just starting to rise, buoyed up by the realization that I’ve gotten away with all of it. I give a little smile. I did it! I finished my mandatory education and got out