The Speed of Dark

It is on the last page of that chapter that I find a sentence so overwhelming that I have to stop and stare at it: “Essentially, physiological functions aside, the human brain exists to analyze and generate patterns.”

My breath catches in my chest; I feel cold, then hot. That is what I do. If that is the essential function of the human brain, then I am not a freak, but normal.

This cannot be. Everything I know tells me that I am the different one, the deficient one. I read the sentence again and again, trying to make it fit with what I know.

Finally, I read past it to the rest of the paragraph: “The pattern-analysis or pattern-making may be flawed, as with some mental diseases, resulting in mistaken analysis or patterns generated on the basis of erroneous ‘data,’ but even in the most severe cognitive failure, these two activities are characteristic of the human brain — and indeed, of brains much less sophisticated than human ones. Readers interested in these functions in nonhumans should consult references below.”

So perhaps I am normal and freakish… normal in seeing and making patterns, but perhaps I make the wrong patterns?

I read on, and when I finally stop, feeling shaky and exhausted, it is almost three in the morning. I have reached chapter 6, “Computational Assessments of Visual Processing.”

I am changing already. A few months ago, I did not know that I loved Marjory. I did not know I could fence in a tournament with strangers. I did not know I could learn biology and chemistry the way I have been. I did not know I could change this much.

One of the people at the rehab center where I spent so many hours as a child used to say that disabilities were God’s way of giving people a chance to show their faith. My mother would pinch her lips together, but she did not argue. Some government program at that time funneled money through churches to provide rehab services, and that was what my parents could afford. My mother was afraid that if she argued, they might kick me out of the program. Or at least she’d have to listen to more of the sermonizing.

I do not understand God that way. I do not think God makes bad things happen just so that people can grow spiritually. Bad parents do that, my mother said. Bad parents make things hard and painful for their children and then say it was to help them grow. Growing and living are hard enough already; children do not need things to be harder. I think this is true even for normal children. I have watched little children learning to walk; they all struggle and fall down many times. Their faces show that it is not easy. It would be stupid to tie bricks on them to make it harder. If that is true for learning to walk, then I think it is true for other growing and learning as well.

God is supposed to be the good parent, the Father. So I think God would not make things harder than they are. I do not think I am autistic because God thought my parents needed a challenge or I needed a challenge. I think it is like if I were a baby and a rock fell on me and broke my leg. Whatever caused it was an accident. God did not prevent the accident, but He did not cause it, either.

Accidents happen to people; my mother’s friend Celia said most accidents weren’t really accidents, they were caused by someone doing something stupid, but the person who gets hurt isn’t always the one who did something stupid. I think my autism was an accident, but what I do with it is me. That is what my mother said.

That is what I think most of the time. Sometimes I am not sure.

It is a gray morning, with low clouds. The slow light has not yet chased all the darkness away. I pack my lunch. I pick up Cego and Clinton and go downstairs. I can read during my lunch break.

My tires are all still full. My new windshield is unbroken. Perhaps the person who is not my friend is tired of hurting my car. I unlock the car, put my lunch and the book on the passenger seat, and get in. The morning music I like for driving is playing in my head.

When I turn the key, nothing happens. The car will not start. There is no sound but the little click of the turning key. I know what that means. My battery is dead.

The music in my head falters. My battery was not dead last night. The charge level indicator was normal last night.

I get out and unlatch the hood of the car. When I lift the hood, something jumps out at me; I stagger back and almost fall over the curb.

It is a child’s toy, a jack-in-the-box. It is sitting where the battery should be. The battery is gone.

I will be late for work. Mr. Crenshaw will be angry. I close the hood over the engine without touching the toy. I did not like jack-in-the-box toys when I was a child. I must call the police, the insurance company, the whole dreary list. I look at my watch. If I hurry to the transit stop, I can catch a commuter train to work and I will not be late.