Trigger

            Look into the face. The symptoms of restlessness are easy enough to spot. The eyes tend to take on a desirous, faraway look, a glaze that is unmistakable. The hands are typical signatures, too. They often twitch when they are not consumed with a task, and often the fingers tap out restless rhythms on any available surface. Behind the blank and bland expressions, one can sense minds whirring with motion, minds occupied with waking fantasies. Wanderlust is a hard disease to shake, and some people never even try.

            What makes this ailment so notable? There is no cure. Brief, inadequate treatments target the symptoms instead of the disease. Placebos fail to trick the carrier into being “cured.” A cursory glance outside restores the need to roam and drift. In every facet of life there is this temptation. The foreign rock band and their quirky squeals are in themselves a strange enticement. Even the synthetic incenses the street vendors peddle are reminders of this affliction. National Geographic is more powerful than any empire Hugh Heffner could build. Pornography? Perhaps. But the best kind, the kind that lets the imagination fill in the body under the absurd airbrushing.

            Suppression is possible. Though it is difficult to be content, wanderlust can be ignored. It is not always a healthy alternative, but it is an alternative. Some semblance of normalcy can be attained by simply sitting down and watching *home*.

            Home. What should be stability and warmth is more like abandonment and brimstone, a purgatory. It’s the worst holding cell of any kind because family and friends simply don’t have the capacity to understand that they’re not second place--they’re just not first. They are important in a different way than the world outside the living room is. It’s easy to lie and pretend away the void that waits inside for the first scent of adventure. It’s easy to lie and pretend that everything is perfect here, in this time and place where mediocrity rules. It’s easy, until...

            Trigger! The restlessness hits like a panic attack and you can’t stop pacing. The floor flows with you, and the world becomes a blur of sound and motion. Bad sitcoms drone on in the background, but all you can hear is white-noise rushing through your ears. Your lips compress into a thin line as the resentment grows, and nothing short of sleep will calm the sudden urge to move. Your hands twist and twine about one another. That ache retuns to the bottom of your chest, but you hold your head and shoulders high in defiance. The nausea begins to slow your steps; you falter in pacing, but your mind takes up the slack. Thousands of ideas--snatches of conversations in foreign languages, song titles, car models--assail you.

            Trigger! It’s like an explosion when you finally find the words to express how hard it is to accept the indignity of having to wait for an okay. Being unable to move on your own volition is like rubbing the hair on a cat’s spine backwards. Though the irritation takes a while to manifest itself as pain, the progress is inevitable. You’re damned to suffer at the hands of a four-year-old girl forever.

            Look into the face. The eyes are the key with their wild, obsessive cast. You can watch them dart around in panic, searching for safe ground. You can see the face cloud with desperation when all that is found is another trigger.