My one-armed Uncle just woke up. Or perhaps he's been awake this whole time, pretending to be adrift. Not wanting to confront me.

I caught him looking at me with his pinched, dazed eyes. I met them with a fierce look. You could almost see the wall standing between us. Solid, unyielding, made of tar. I hated Uncle for keeping all those secrets from me (you'll see) and he hated me for . . . well, I’ll admit he has every right to be mad at me. You'll . . . see that too.

That’s why we are off to make amends.

I don’t think it should take us more than an hour now to reach "(Land) Wherever" Uncle wanted us to take (he won’t tell). And then another ten hours after that, as far as Uncle had guessed.

Whatever. Let’s rewind, shall we?

Er – so, I don’t want to elaborate on Mom's demise. She was – is – my mother and I loved her and I still love her and I always will and I miss her. I mean, the saying has been around since the Big Bang: you only realize the value of something immensely precious if you lose it. Now I get it. And if you think you understand what this saying says, trust me – you don’t. Not unless you’ve lost someone close to you.

I hate leukemia. I hate diseases. I hate death.

Unless it’s mine, of course. A permanent one, I mean. The temporary ones that I get are just annoying and nothing more.

So a few months passed by. As you know, I live in a small town. Everyone at school – students, teachers, janitors – treated me like I was a museum specimen to be preserved.

And normally, I would like being treated as a valued prototype of a human {am I one? (Undecided.)}. Trust me, I would. But this wasn’t “normally”. I'd lost my Mum. This wasn’t helping me cope up. This was making me break.

Every day, a kid would give me a kind look or lend me a pencil for no reason. Every day a teacher would let me slip past punishment or tone down my scolding. And so every day I was reminded that my Mom was dead.

I did not need that reminder. The sight of my Dad and my Uncle – two grown men I looked up to; the only two grown men I looked up to – crumbling like an unstable pile of rocks was etched in my brain. I didn’t need a freaking reminder.

And what was worse? Aar and Bee, they tried to act like nothing had happened after a few days. Because they knew how I felt, and I appreciated that. But sometimes they tried too hard. If that kind of thing isn't alien to you guys.

I really have no way of explaining how I felt, how delicate, even wondered if the world was right for treating me as it did. Maybe I was a specimen. Maybe I would break if squeezed too hard. Maybe I would like for that to happen.

Oh, hell with the maybe. I really would like for that to happen.

I would even kill for Gaba and his jocks to bully me. Slay me, if they will, any number of times they desired. At least I would be out this rabbit-hole. Wonderland will do for now.

I even tried, at times – foolish as this may seem – to look for Mom's spirit. Of course, silly of me. Spirits are . . . spirits. They just exist. They never were a person. Ghosts and souls are different. I can’t see them. I wish I could.

Although yes, I could still hear Mom's voice singing me goodnight in the blow of the wind, in the latch of the lock, in the rustle of the sheet, in the shadows of the sunlight.

I know none of that makes sense - but in a twisted sort of way, it does.

Things transitioned into customary slowly, but I was grateful that they did.

And I was back to having fun with Aar and Bee and Es and See.

I don’t know why Es thinks she can somehow interact with butterflies physically. It is a well know fact – at least to me – that spirits cannot interact with anything living. I do not understand why Es wouldn’t cease trying.

Maybe just as I never stopped looking for Mom, she never stopped seeking what she wanted.

Maybe each one of us has a thing we yearn, a thing we'll keep looking out for, even though it doesn’t even make sense anymore.

And some of us – by which I mean idiots like me – will even try to pull absurd stunts to get what we desire.

Some of us – by which again I mean idiots like me – might even risk the lives of their best friends and their most-loved relative to get what they desire.

Some of us just wish they were dead.

Not superfluously, but properly, completely dead.

Not “sort of dead,” like these events leave us be.

Or in my case – “sort of dead,” even literally.

To all those who've lost someone whose death struck them hard, my deepest condolences.

There is another beautiful, beautiful reason for the title of this story - other than Marra's quirks and what this chapter justifies.

You'll see if you stick around until the end.