‘This is America!’ a sudden voice would shout, in me but not mine. ‘This is the real America! Real life in America. Think!’ And then, less exultant, more pensive, ‘Just to think . . .’

These were the unicorns. This was where they lived. They ate chicken salad sandwiches at Potbelly and drank Cherry Coke. And I—I ate chicken salad sandwiches at Potbelly and drank Cherry Coke.

The length of distance loses weight as it grows. The miles that are traversed through the air are forgotten as they are left behind. We measure our distances in time and money, in flight durations and ticket prices, in morning-here-night-there and calling-card rates. On planes, we glance at the miles travelled and left to travel (eight three something something, one two something something), but we judge where we are by the glowing little numbers that tell us it’s been fourteen hours since Indira Gandhi International. Only two-and-a-half left to go, thank God.

I felt this distance, at these times. I felt the miles and not the hours. The enormity of the space between where I was and where I had been. The physical, tangible reality of it—the sandy stretches striated atop black seas of liquid gold, the twinkling cities that passed by in such quick minutes. That endless, endless blue—above, below. A space so large that, at some point, we cut through a sky that is half day, half night. A space so great, so enormous that it can hold two realities, that it can distort that great, big, solid thing—Time.

When I wasn’t busy examining the enormity of realities, other more pressing concerns occupied my mind. Such as the fact that I was still ugly. Shit. I had thought that problem would sort itself out by the time I was ready for college in America. At twelve, I thought that the baby fat would be taken care of by fifteen. At fifteen, I was convinced that I would find a way to tame my box-shaped afro into straight sexiness by eighteen. At eighteen, I was fucked.

The vast array of beautiful blondes, brunettes and everything in between pronounced the contrast between what I was and what I wanted to be. There was effortless American beauty all around me, and I, all pudge and glasses and frizzy hair, sized up the competition and prepared to settle into celibacy.