Emma said that I’d understand when I got there. But I was here, and I still didn’t get it. The place was empty, so it was just me standing in the grass in front of a high stone wall, waiting for something, if anything, to happen. I sighed, looking down at my fingernails, for lack of anything better to do and wondered when the day would come when I’d stop listening to Emma. Fanciful, flaky, totally flighty Emma.
Was this meant to be a surprise? I looked around. There was a small cottage off slightly to the northwest, but other than that, it was just a long stone wall. The grass was neatly cut beside it, except for right at the base of the wall, where it was too hard to cut. There, long blades stood tall and proud, clutching the sides of the stone, hopeful to evade the snap of shears. It looked vaguely familiar, as if from a dream.
I sighed again. Really, this was too much. Had she thought I’ve nothing better to do? I’d left my computer back at home, weary of work, and annoyingly curious about what Emma could possibly want. I was always curious about her little games. I started to think as Emma would think. She would want me to find her note, the note she would have left at the location, as she always did. There was always the initial note, meant to whet my appetite for her little adventures. This was the one that she’d sent to my house invading my time and space, but then there was always the note that revealed her game. That I had to find.
I began walking the length of the wall, allowing my fingers to rove over its bumpy texture, feeling each of the crevices and cracks along the way. Did this wall ever end? Unfortunately, the day was a misty one, leaving the distance hazy and dreamlike, just out of reach. As I walked onward, the next section of wall was clear to me, but the car that I’d parked not far away was swallowed up in the thickness. The mist was growing heavier it seemed, like a magical spell, but I pushed onward, knowing that there had to be something. Well, wishing for it to be so. This was a perfect Emma-day: mysterious, romantic, spellbinding.
As I walked I thought about Emma. It seemed I had known her forever, but it had only been for about ten years or so. I remembered seeing her in the cafeteria at school when I was only a freshman, and knowing then, deep within me, that we would be friends. We had to be. I could feel it in my soul, and as soon as I saw her, I yearned for her. Emma was like a firefly, blinking brightly for one minute, begging to be chased and caught by you. But then, the light would extinguish, and you’d be left alone, muddling around in the dark.
It had been that way ever since, Emma lighting my way, and me struggling to catch her when she was always out of reach. We’d aged by 10 years, but it was still the same game. She would give me bits and pieces of herself, and it only increased my thirst. These games were one of her ways to keep stringing me along. If I followed her rules, she might give me a reward. I was secretly ashamed of that fact that here I was all these years later, following one of her occasional ‘quests’, hoping that maybe in some small way, she’d want to repay me with that secure and warm friendship I was still constantly seeking.