"What about your father?"
"No, he isn't around exactly."
The night had arrived; greyish light matted the sky, as the two contrasting clothed figures sat in grass that was damp like a faintly used toilet seat. They had stuck their shovels in the soil and they had to till whatever was dredged from it.
A wind derived from the air, with no direction, keeping them from a comfortable temperature. Elsa was feeling sensitive every moment. Her body sensed a million pins just a millimetre from her skin. It made her want to scratch all over herself for no particular reason.
"Why not?"
John fiddled with a stick on the ground. "Long tail, little time to tell it."
"We have until sunrise" she said, realising as she said it that it was true. Neither had set a time or end point until now.
"Exactly. Look, there's something I've been meaning to bring up with you. Something I don't think you realise is there."
She looked at him blankly and with staring eyes. She awaited his words and tried to stay still. Doing what she could to ignore the wind, she was surprised how tired one became when they made effort to stay still.
"You see, there's this condition, this quirk of the brain that some people have. It went nameless for centuries but recently, in the last ten or fifteen years, it has a name and many faces."
"What do you mean 'it has a name and many faces'?"
"I mean that we know what it is and many people have it."
Elsa sensed what John was about to say, she wouldn't like. She was on the side of imbalance to surprises.
"It's a medical condition that you're born with. It's called the Autism Spectrum. Ever heard of it?"
Elsa furrowed her brow. It sounded familiar. Like how you would remember the name of a machine and know nothing about the machine, or a once notable person's name, now obscure, who you never learned or heard about. But you nonetheless knew their name.
"I have heard of it before. Mother and King used to talk about it a lot."
John exhaled in a smile. He peered downward and fidgeted more aggressively. This would take some time.
"It's a difference of mind. It has many signs."
He stopped his fidgeting and looked around aimlessly, thinking and speaking at once.
"The chief one is the following: Obsessive, repetitive behaviours, good and bad, which are called 'stims', short for stimulation."
Elsa wiggled her fingers and John pointed at them, wide eyed and grinning. "See? What you did there. That's one. When you are happy with yourself, you rub downwards on your stomach, like you are rubbing it, don't you?"
Elsa looked John's way with a recognition she never felt before. "Yes. Is that...a stim?" she asked. She suddenly seemed hopeful now, vigorated.
"Yes, Elsa, yes, it is." He smiled and she couldn't resist smiling back. "Cool, eh? All those different things. I sometimes tap my fingers. And I notice that when you stand for a while, you shift slightly more weight on one foot, then the other?"
"Yes, I do! I don't know why I do it; it just feels weird not doing it."
"Precisely."
John nodded in Elsa's direction and she returned it, after a moment's hesitation.
"What are the other parts of it?"
John came back to himself, finding him different.
"Well, we have special interests, things we hold dearly and learn everything there is to know. Mines were names, words and how they become words, their derivatives, origins. Did you know that when they came up with the idea of stress, they had a contrasting, positive stress called 'Eustress?'"
Elsa looked bland in features for a moment. John wasn't sure what to do and for a moment, felt like panicking.
"Well, I am obsessed with chess." She paused and looked down. She was deep in thought. John found it strangely exciting to watch her think. Her brain was remarkable to watch. You could tentatively feel the wires powering away, making connections.
"And I feel sad when I don't have one. I feel aimless and emptied without an interest. Is that an autism thing?"
John simply nodded. His mood was beginning to shift towards that of the teacher, the expositioneer. He decided she should ask if she wished.
After a long silence, when the wind temporarily worked to deafen them, it calmed again as the last spurt of day was wiped from the sky.
"Elsa, ask anything you like. I know this subject like the soles of my feet."
She was stoically still. Unnaturally motionless. He was sure she wasn't even breathing. Then her hands met each other and she slowly moved again.
"Is it why I seem so other? So different?"
John stood up, half stumbling, half sighing. He began to walk in circles and Elsa was distracted by his behaviour. He acted like a human robot, human in motion but robotic in awareness.
"We were born on the wrong planet, Elsa. The world is a big, loud place, with too many people in it. There are rules we will never learn and things we don't understand. And this isn't our fault. We didn't choose birth."
Elsa gave up following his motions and stuck to the words. "Why are we autistic?"
"I don't know. Nobody does yet."
"Do other people know about it?"
"Some of them, yes. They see it as a disorder and, for now, it may as well be." He announced.
"Why might it well be?"
John stopped his pacing and looked at her for a second, taking her in from his improved stature. "Because we are punished for our differences, Elsa. Our subtleties. It's not like racism, where the hatred is infectious; painting everything someone does and thinks like a bad case of TB. It's more background." He winced to think of it.
"They hate us, yes, but not universally. And more often than not, we aren't hated, but pitied, or just ignored. And half the time, what bothers us isn't even addressed and we suffer quietly. Ditto for people who don't us voices to talk."
Elsa wasn't sure how to take this.
"That's quite a rash thing to say. How can you prove we are treated like that?"
John stood and walked restlessly, half angry and half happy at the challenge. Elsa was moving her feet and shifting them about, without knowing it. The night-time was real and concentrated now.
"Because first of all..." he startled her with one finger raised to make a literal point "...if we were treated and understood better by them, you would know what you were. Second..." he lowered his voice to a soft tone "...can you honestly think of many times when other people made you happy and calm?"
People. Stress.
Stress because...expectation?
Misunderstanding. Yes.
Assumptions on their part.
Oh my god. He is right!
Without any kind of warning Elsa's brain suddenly flooded with energy and she found herself stretched back to past times. In a moment, she thought of her most poignant memories, regardless of happiness. What she found was a strange after taste. A feeling of loneliness and confusion made unreal by how long it had been, and sweetened by the presence of just one person. Anna. But she was an anomaly of fortunate proportions and even she was prone to long periods of loneliness.
When Elsa had thought about her past, she found John kneeling down, trying to comfort her somehow. His fingers were still and his eyes did not blink.
"That feeling? Of loneliness and fear, of confusion and frustration at a frightening world?" He had soft eyes, she saw. This meant a lot to him. She found also, that it meant a lot to her too. The more she listened to him, the more real she became to herself. He was not a saviour or a blessing, he was a conduit to her, for this message that she should have heard long ago.
"Elsa, you are not alone."
He held her gaze and when she showed she understood, he nodded conformingly.
Tired from all he said, he sat backwards and looked up, resting against a rough stone wall. He realised after some time, he was not wearing his jacket.
Elsa was still unsure of all the things he said. She was assured nonetheless that what they had was shared. She hoped it was only partial. John was an uneasy character to get to know. Elsa was not to forget this. She found her figeting was harder to do because of her new attire.
"This will sound strange but I like the feeling of your jacket. I like how heavy it is."
"Oh, well thank you, I believe. You know, pressure on the body, the limbs, that's part of autism too. We feel different in our bodies from others."
Elsa was reeled back in without resistance. "Ah ok. In the same way that I have a weighted blanket?"
He looked at her and paid more attention. "A weighted blanket? I didn't know you had one."
"Yes, I do. My Mother got me it and it helped me sleep. She called it lucky."
"Your mother sounds like a hit-miss kind of woman."
She laughed and John realised he had not really heard that sound before. He was all smiles for it. He made her laugh!
"She certainly is. She has her ways and I have mine. We get along like black and white."
He looked at her coldly instantly and Elsa had to take a moment to think. What had she done wrong?
Black and white on the board? I don't get it, is he upset about the colour? The way they...
Elsa suddenly knew why.
Ah. Right.
"Oh, I mean chess pieces. Black and white."
John laughed this time, but with unease.
"Let's not joke about race."
"Agreed. It is not right."
That exchange had, Elsa was keen to learn other things.
"John, thank you, for the autism stuff. I promise, at first chance, I'll look it up and learn about it because it just sounds like me. And the way you talk about the world, it's not unlike me, you know? I don't find it hard to see your point of view on that, but I do with most other people."
"Well, most people like a loud, annoying and populous world."
Elsa now wanted to discuss him. She had been waiting for sometime but got carried away with John's explanations. It was her turn to interrogate.
"Is that what home is like?"
He glared at her.
"Home is many things. It's not a house or a-"
"Oh stop it, would you? Stop with the philosophising. This is real." Her voice almost broke. "And right now, deflecting me isn't working. I need you to accept that. I thought we were going to talk about this."
He looked away and stared at an angle that plunged his eyes into the dark. So dramatic. She wanted to slap the silly sod. The mood had changed rather quickly.
Life without filters as mum would so delicately put it.
The sounds of the night worked away, doing nothing. It was a night of nothing. Nothing changed. There was no great pantheon of things. Elsa couldn't believe how empty it was all seeming. But the daytime wasn't any better. And straddled with the dark figure in the corner of his corner of the garden, freezing though he might of been, she wasn't feeling much pity. She was annoyed at him for his sudden defensiveness.
Boys, and their dramas. How did we get stuck with the overthinking trope exactly?
But rethinking gender and friendship would help her in no way here. When the idiot finally spoke, he spoke with extreme reluctance.
"Fine, fine. To put it simply Mum is...troubled. And I've learned to just ignore it."
"And why do you ignore?" She asked probingly. "Is it easier?"
"Well, it by no means makes things difficult." He smiled a dead smile and might as well have wilted in fast forward as he spoke.
"Was it difficult before?"
John took a shallow breath, not quite relaxing him as he hoped. He spent a very long time considering his answer.
"In some ways. The problem is the way it changes. When I think about it, it's all quite hazy. Not because I don't know what happened but because my mind doesn't want to. It's protecting me, in its way."
He ended with that tell tale staring off as he finished abstractly. Like he had delivered some great address.
Before she continued, she yawned without ceremony and John noticed.
"What changes? What happens, John?"
He played with his hands, deliberately delaying his answers, not looking at her. He wasn't enjoying this bluff. But he had to, else he would face it quicker. She yawned again. And he noticed again.
"She drinks, obviously..."
She yawned after another 15 second pause.
"...but she ignores it too and everyone suffers."
She tried to look at him directly, entangle herself to his issue, and show him she cared. But she didn't really have a clue what she was doing. She wondered if John did.
"Elsa, nothing will come of this." He said dismissively.
"Well how do you know that? How can you know that?"
John was out of answers, out of questions. Out of energy. He had been awake too long.
"Because I'm clever." Her eyes could roll planets.
"Really? You just expect me to work with that, do you?"
"I expect you to believe me. You are my friend." He said confidently.
"No John. Friends are not deflective at the first sign of trouble. You wanted help, John. The minute you sat down you were deciding but then you handed me that Jacket. Your second skin. You hold onto it everywhere and you never let it get creased in the wrong places or get dirty and you hate it when others touch it. When you handed it over, you were trusting me. But not enough."
He looked at her, deadpan, refusing to give any ground.
"Not enough, eh?"
"No. You think it was all just a physical barrier but we both know it goes deeper. It's your brain, right?"
"I do have a brain Elsa."
"And when did you last use it?" She quipped.
"What do you mean?" he asked dumbly.
Elsa rubbed her hands softly against each other, taking the edge off her growing uncertainty. "If you are so clever, why don't you help yourself?"
She looked directly at him for the first time in a long time.
"You found I was lonely. SO why don't you find it in yourself?"
He was still not budging, even as his face contorted into discontent.
She went on. "Is it because you don't feel its close enough yet, between us?"
She tried and tried again to stare him into looking back, still nothing. A risk to take but...
"Do you need Isabelle?"
John turned to her, holding back body bags of feelings, rotting him away speedily. No, no more. This had to stop.
Don't do it.
"Oh fuck off, Elsa."
She looked, for a split second, unfazed. But her delayed reactions caught up with her emotions. She pulled back and stopped looking at him, a genuine wish to realise what he just said. He convinced himself it was weakness on her part. He leaned forward, sneering at her.
"You act like I'm the bad one out the two of us and play it off as honesty? Well fuck you. I can't handle any of this, ok? I have too many things running in my head. I feel like Windows Vista! And amazingly, Elsa, being clever doesn't stop people fucking drinking. The self or someone else."
She almost laughed, but unable to do so, she renewed her ability to look away.
"And you are making it worse, so fuck off."
He ended his comments too flippantly.
"Just fuck off."
Had he said it with power, she may have been scared. Ended with uncertainty, she might sympathise. But he chose flippancy, and paid for it.
He hated everything about this moment. But not nearly as much as he hated the sheer white hatred she seared into his face in response. Her eyes were menacing spheres, hotter than the sun. He did not relent on the surface of his face but privately he felt too much on top of things. John was pissed off, but he felt guilty now. And it wasn't going to stop. Nothing could. She had been wrong, yes. But that didn't mean he could just bad mouth.
Elsa somehow knew that even at this hellish horizon, he hadn't thought a thing about her, only what she exhibited.
What an animalistic mind.
She stood up and dropped his jacket without resplendence or decency. He sat awkwardly, not wishing to move or even slightly compromise his own perceptions. And he was all guilt. It was in his bones and in his blood. Guilt was keeping him there, he said. Guilt wasn't what he wanted, he said.
Elsa strolled away somewhere. Guilt was all he had. He lived to feel, but could not hope for hedonism. He was too lazy. Elsa lived for questions, a nobler thing
He found himself back with Isabelle on his mind.
Isabelle was too pungently correct when she said Elsa was a Socratic person. Not in that way was it said, but it was a strange compliment. Isabelle never gave direct compliments. Direct compliments were deceptive and indirect tones were genuine. But she had changed tack with Elsa. Why?
He had no clue.
Sure she had walked away from him, like many others, he held his wrist tightly, not wishing to show himself any tear in his mind material.
"You alright?". He half-begged, without warmth, over his shoulder.
She was still there. Walking in the grass. She didn't know where to go. Nor what time it was. She wanted to go home.
"Yeah". She answered.
There was a long pause while each of them spent a great deal of energy not looking at each other.
John never thought he would have to tell someone. Tell them why. But he had nothing to lose. A great deal to fear, rather. So he started emptying his extensive jacket pockets, taking great care and even love while handling it.
He removed each item and placed them down neatly on the grass. After 5 minutes of hearing nothing, he made a decision. A great change was coming. He would have to face it with bear teeth or he might not make it as he was. Autism did not do well with change. Until it could adapt to new things, there was the eternal challenge of relearning old habits or worse, learning new ones. He was special. And so was she.
Two minds of the same kind. The same tribe, perhaps. But now that time was ending. And he wouldn't end it on a downer.
After all, he thought, it would spoil their ending, if this was it.
His best kept secrets still went unknown to anyone but him. And before he could dare reveal them to Elsa, he would have to keep them away, or he would get aggressively defensively hostile. It was hopeless.
But he didn't want to stay locked away forever. Isabelle had taught him much and the one thing he chose never to forget was too always have your armour and wear it proudly. You didn't dare discard it, not unless you were sure you didn't need it.
He couldn't have been less sure. His mums drinking, his father's absence, his dangerously long times of solitude. It wasn't sustainable.
I could tell her.
Ah, how much he could tell. That he was supposed to leave later that day, go with mum, somewhere new. She had spoiled it though. Found the bottle again. John didn't understand its lure. It smelled horrid. But whatever it was, his mum couldn't help it.
He loved her, he needed her but part of him really wished to hate her, to have some kind of certainty.
And here he was, pushing away Elsa and unloading that rage unto her. No more. Not fair.
He was about to stand up and go to her when he found, without any element of shock, she walked back into his vision again and sat. He quickly pondered how someone could be so pale. She really glowed in the dark, this girl. But not of fire. Whatever it was he was thinking, it was more soluble. It was changeable. It didn't stay the same for long.
Elsa really lived in a world of slow drowning. Her overloads from everything around her were part of who she was. She and he were at different stages of similar life cycles, at least to him. She had so much she was going to learn. Alas...
John looked at her and turned sombre suddenly. She noticed and did not trust it.
"If you are going to hurl more abuse at me, you have a fight on your hands."
Knowing she was serious, he turned on his social programming, trying to be delicate.
"I'm sorry, for that. I'm sorry for pushing you away."
Elsa crossed her hands. She didn't demand a better apology, but she didn't find it was enough either.
"Given the way it's all happened, I can understand John. But I can't accept it."
He nodded appreciatively. "I know. Can...Can you ever...?" He pleaded.
She sighed loudly from tiredness.
"I don't know John."
Each of them wanted to tend to themselves, but John had an idea. A what if. It was a big 'if'. But he needed to better himself and avoid further damage. It was time.
"I'm going away Elsa." He announced.
She nodded blankly. "Where and when?"
John replied. "Today or, well now tomorrow, I suppose. Or maybe today again. And to the city."
Elsa nodded again. "Ok. And what is the plan?"
He stood up abruptly and began pacing around like a man driven by a machine.
"The plan is I go to the city, stay there, go to high school there after the break and...Well, that sums it up quite well."
She looked at him, spitefully wishing she would go on.
He was serious.
"You mean it. I know you do. You don't lie when you start pacing."
He smiled slightly more lively. "Very true."
He looked to her for a reaction. As it always was with Elsa, he didn't find one. She had to speak first.
"Are you leaving out of choice?"
He demurred. "No. Not exactly. But I do have one thing."
"What is that one thing? Actually, why are you leaving?"
John stuttered with his answer. He had come to the worst of it.
"Well, I am meeting Isabelle there and I'll have another school, I'll be free-"
"Isabelle?"
She was disappointed suddenly. Before there was restraint in it but now it festered like an abscess on her face.
John didn't reply, he just looked down. After the silence became common, Elsa realised he didn't want to speak again. She could have let him solder himself away, but chose to risk his ire again. She would fight back.
"You accepted what I am going to guess was your Mothers planning to move out, because of the chance to meet her again?"
He nodded, emotionless failing.
"Well, i'll actually be seeing her at school. Same high school, see?" He whispered.
Elsa shook her head. "You're a fool."
John leaned back, almost lying on the grass.
"It's sad, because I know I am. Yet I am still happy to know it."
That settled it then. He was going back to a person who turned him inside out with pain. Whatever her draw was, it was singular in Johns life. But not like Anna in Elsa's. That was better.
No tears like those tears Elsa saw those months ago. Elsa and Anna shared their pain. John and Isabelle, it was more of an extraction process, with one person doing the extracting.
She pitied him even more. He was so lost and somehow still believed in his own intellects power to see through peoples manipulations. Elsa decided not to fight it. He wasn't convincible.
"So, is this it? You leave?"
"Yes, think so."
The two of them stood up and knew that they each wouldn't be sitting down again. For the first time, Elsa noticed a faint blue streak of sky, very far from them, almost indistinguishable from the dark night. But it was there, resting. It would only get brighter and consume the land. It struck her, suddenly, that something so meaningless and so isolated, something that was changing all the time and something that would never be in this exact shape and form again ever, was so beautiful. And she looked at John, that idiotic fellow she had known for so short a time, and she believed it was the same for him.
Maybe it wasn't beauty but it was certainly a sense of the fleeting. She realised, for the first time, that she didn't even have a picture of him. He would leave and go away and not exist in her minds perceptions anymore. It was so frightening it was cool. It made her shake with excitement, even. She was stimming, mentally. Ah there's now a word for it! And all this despite what hes done. Maybe I'm the fool.
John seemed to bow slightly as the slightest light hit his back. She could see his face. He was softly smiling.
"I am going now, back in the house. You can stay, if you like."
Elsa wanted that. Not just this house, any house. She needed warmth and rest. She was so cold. It hadn't been felt until now.
"If that's ok John." She still didn't smile, but she did smooth out her features. She didn't stare him down, mainly because it hurt to do it. Eyes were blades, once again.
"It's fine. I'll take the couch. Normally I wouldn't but honestly I feel like I'm about to fall over."
They began walking, John slightly leading. A quick view of the clock in the kitchen through the window told him it was 3 am. This time of year, it would be light soon. He was glad to see it wasn't much longer.
"If you do, I won't help you up". She quipped.
He laughed as loud as he could, but it came out as a wheeze. The air was cold as ever and it felt heavy on both of them. John suddenly realised why, and what he had done earlier.
The jacket.
He turned around just as they reached the door. He held the jacket like he was about to put it on someone.
"Elsa, I want you to have this."
She stopped, took a step back and took it in.
"Why the leather jacket?"
John looked at it and back at her, trying to decipher what she meant.
"I mean, you love that thing. You never go without it. Why give it to me?"
He really never left it. It was always being worn, bulging with endless pockets, the black cowskin thick and slightly too big for him. It was clean looking and yet old as well. It looked slightly grey, it was aged. Like she would one day. On the inside, it was blue material. You wouldnt see it from the outside, making it seemed pointless to her. But it was so personal to him in her mind, even at this zenith of their relationship rife with his problems, it seemed wrong to take it.
"You see the blue?" He pointed down to it. She nodded.
"The blue never meant much to me. It's just a colour. But for you, it will be more meaningful. You wear blue clothes, blue school bag, stare at the sea and don't mind the cold at all. It barely scratches your surface."
She was getting drawn in, amazingly. "So, you think of me when you see that?"
John furrowed his brow and then unfurrowed just as quickly.
"I wear this as a defence against a loud, Neurotypical world. It keeps me from having to suffer for the fact I live in a world made without me in mind. It's my armour. But you need it more than me. Maybe it's not armour. I personally think it would, on you, exude power."
"Power?"
"Yes, power. Power of mind and of will. You are fantastically strong, Elsa. Resilient. But you are still young like me. We don't know anything yet. We have time to learn but in the meantime we need something that will last for us. A permanent thing in an ever-changing world.
This jacket will last. And it can be whatever you want it to be. Wear it. Hang it up. Use it as a quilt. Just don't sell it, because for that I could not forgive you."
He did not see it, but she rolled her eyes again.
"But do what you want otherwise. It's my gift, for being my friend. But more than that, I hope it shows that I trust you. You are autistic, like me. I know this will mean to you what it would not to anyone else."
Elsa took in everything he said as fast as she could. Interesting though it was, she was tired and it showed. Yawning and resting her eyes for a moment, she finally smiled.
"Do I have to wear it and give it a deep meaning?" She asked
"No, you could just keep cus its cool, like us."
He was being coy with her. "Cool, are we?"
John turned sarcastic, fingers pressed down and all.
"Of course, no one's cooler than us." He suppressed a laugh and watched Elsa do the same. He was still holding the jacket.
"Ok John. We are 'cool' and cool people wear leather."
John folded it up and gave it to her as she outstretched her arms. It was held like a baby.
"Got it in one." He pointed at her swiftly, like marking a full stop.
He opened the door and in they went. As the heat hugged them, they instantly felt sleepy and sought the nearest rest. They ended up in the living room. Elsa was handed a blanket and tried to ignore the smell. The room was mess. He expected her to get up but she didn't, staying with him.
"John, I...I have a strange request."
He turned on the TV, switching it to mute.
"Shoot."
"Do you have a weighted blanket?"
He answered in the negative.
"Well, is there any way I could feel weighed down? I hate feeling my torso rise when I breathe lying down. Is that a stim too?"
John turned from the TV to her, he was almost sleeping.
"Yeah, will be. What can I do?"
The couches were very flat and Elsa found no trouble getting comfortable. She knew where his room is but she was already wanting sleep. She saw no need to get up now.
"Could you put your legs over my torso, maybe?"
He turned back to her again and judged the dimensions of the couch.
"If you shift a bit, sure."
Elsa smiled.
Normally, she slept with a blanket that was made to feel heavier than normal. She figured it was maybe autism.
Such an exciting concept!
If she didn't, the top of her body felt very sensitive and uncomfortable. Like it was being assaulted by the very sense of weightlessness.
Weight meant comfort. John's legs sufficed.
After some shifting, they agreed he would wait till she slept then go to bed. But soon he was sleeping. And so they slept in that position, comfortable, rested, and long passed caring about time and place.
For now, the world did not need to exist. They were sleeping. And so it did not bother them.
That night, for the first time, Elsa recognised the freedom this really was. She slept more comfortably than she ever had. All the motions and audio from the world stopped for a while. And her Autistic brain knew rest.
Authors commentary:
From here, I can reveal that the story is changing. I mean proper change. We are going to see new things now that John has decided what he must do and Elsa still has much to learn about herself and the others.
I said this story was far from finished not long ago. That would still be an apt descripter for it. I have much to tell. It will end, like most things do, but how far away that is, im not one to say.
So if you hunger for more, take heart. There is much more. Big things are ahead. For now, i will put it so: This is the end of Part One.
Authors notes:
These chapters are becoming monthly. I have come to terms with this. I will update, as before, when I can. But I must plead for flexibility with time.
I am a serial procrastinator.