The Speed of Dark

By nine it is more than chilly; it is cold. We all go inside, and Lucia fixes a kettle of hot chocolate. It is the first time this year. The others are all talking; I sit with my back against the green leather hassock and try to listen while I watch Marjory. She uses her hands a lot when she talks. A couple of times, she flaps them in the way that I was told was a sign of autism. I have seen other people do that, too, and always wondered if they were autistic or partly autistic.

They are talking about tournaments now — ones they remember from the past, who won and who lost and who was the referee and how people behaved. Nobody mentions Don. I lose track of the names; I do not know the people. I cannot understand why “Bart is such a toad” from what they say about Bart, and I am sure they do not mean that Bart is actually an amphibian with warty skin, any more than Don was an actual heel. My gaze shifts from Marjory to Simon to Tom to Lucia to Max to Susan and back, trying to keep up with who is speaking when, but I cannot anticipate when one is going to stop and another is going to start, or which. Sometimes there is a break of two or three seconds between speakers, and sometimes one starts while another is still talking.

It is fascinating, in its way. It is like watching almost-patterns in a chaotic system. Like watching molecules break apart and re-form as a solutions balance shifts this way and that. I keep feeling that I almost understand it, and then something happens I did not anticipate. I do not know how they can participate and keep track of it at the same time.

Gradually I am able to notice that everyone pauses if Simon speaks and lets him into the conversation. He does not interrupt often, but no one interrupts him. One of my teachers said that the person who is speaking indicates who he expects to speak next by glancing at them. At that time I usually could not tell where someone was looking unless they looked there a long time. Now I can follow most glances. Simon glances at different people. Max and Susan always glance first at Simon, giving him priority. Tom glances at Simon about half the time. Lucia glances at Simon about a third of the time. Simon does not always speak again when someone glances at him; that person then glances at someone else.

But it is so fast: how can they see it all? And why does Tom glance at Simon some of the time and not the rest of the time? What tells him when to glance at Simon?

I realize that Marjory is watching me and feel my face and neck go hot. The voices of the others blur; my vision clouds. I want to hide in the shadows, but there are no shadows. I look down. I listen for her voice, but she is not talking much.

Then they start on equipment: steel blades versus composites, old steel versus new steel. Everyone seems to prefer steel, but Simon talks about a recent formal match he saw in which composite blades had a chip in the grip to emit a steel-like sound when the blades touched. It was weird, he says.

Then he says he has to go and stands up. Tom stands up, too, and Max. I stand up. Simon shakes Tom’s hand and says, “It was fun — thanks for the invitation.”

Tom says, “Anytime.”

Max puts out his hand and says, “Thanks for coming; it was an honor.”

Simon shakes his hand and says, “Anytime.”

I do not know whether to put out my hand or not, but Simon quickly offers his so I shake it even though I do not like to shake hands — it seems so pointless — and then he says, “Thanks, Lou; I enjoyed it.”

“Anytime,” I say. There is a moment’s tension in the room, and I am worried that I said something inappropriate — even though I was copying Tom and Max — and then Simon taps my arm with his finger.

“I hope you change your mind about tournaments,” he says. “It was a pleasure.”

“Thank you,” I say.

While Simon goes out the door, Max says, “I have to leave, too,” and Susan uncoils from the floor. It is time to leave. I look around; all the faces look friendly, but I thought Don’s face looked friendly. If one of them is angry with me, how would I know?

On Thursday we have the first of the medical briefings where we have been able to ask the doctors questions. There are two doctors, Dr. Ransome, with the curly gray hair, and Dr. Handsel, who has straight dark hair that looks as if it had been glued onto his head.

“It is reversible?” Linda asks.

“Well… no. Whatever it does, it does.”

“So if we don’t like it, we can’t go back to being our normal selves?”

Our selves are not normal to start with, but I do not say that aloud. Linda knows it as well as I do. She is making a joke.

“Er… no, you can’t. Probably. But I don’t see why—”

“I’d want to?” Cameron says. His face is tense. “I like who I am now. I do not know if I will like who I become.”

“It shouldn’t be that different,” Dr. Ransome says.