Elizabeth Moon - 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.

I take the lunch sack and the book from the passenger seat, relock the car, and walk quickly to the transit stop. I have the cards of the police officers in my wallet. I can call them from work.

On the crowded train, people stare past one another without making eye contact. They are not all autistic; they know somehow that it is appropriate not to make eye contact on the train. Some read news faxes. Some stare at the monitor at the end of the car. I open the book and read what Cego and Clinton said about how the brain processes visual signals. At the time they wrote, industrial robots could use only simple visible input to guide movement. Binocular vision in robots hadn’t been developed yet except for the laser targeting of large weapons.

I am fascinated by the feedback loops between the layers of visual processing; I had not realized that something this interesting went on inside normal people’s heads. I thought they just looked at things and recognized them automatically. I thought my visual processing was faulty when — if I understand this correctly — it is only slow.

When I get to the campus stop, I now know which way to go, and it takes less time to walk to our building. I am three minutes and twenty seconds early. Mr. Crenshaw is in the hall again, but he does not speak to me; he moves aside without speaking, so that I can get to my office. I say, “Good morning, Mr. Crenshaw,” because that is appropriate, and he grunts something that might have been, “Morning.” If he had had my speech therapist, he would enunciate more clearly.

I put the book on my desk and go out in the hall to take my lunch to the kitchenette. Mr. Crenshavy is now by the door, looking out at the parking lot. He turns around and sees me. “Where’s your car, Arren-dale?” he asks.

“Home,” I say. “I took the transit.”

“So you can take the transit,” he says. His face is a little shiny. “You don’t really need a special parking lot.”

“It is very noisy,” I say. “Someone stole my battery last night.”

“A car’s only a constant problem for someone like you,” he says, coming closer. “People who don’t live in secure areas, with secure parking, really shouldn’t flaunt having a car.”

“Nothing happened until a few weeks ago,” I say. I do not understand why I want to argue with him. I do not like to argue.

“You were lucky. But it looks like someone has found you out now, doesn’t it? Three episodes of vandalism. At least this time you weren’t late.”

“I was only late once because of that,” I say.

“That’s not the point,” he says. I wonder what the point is, besides his dislike of me and the others. He glances at my office door. “You’ll want to get back to work,” he says. “Or start—” Now he looks at the clock in the hall. It is two minutes, eighteen seconds past starting time. What I want to say is, You made me late , but I do not say that. I go in my office and shut the door. I am not going to make up the two minutes, eighteen seconds. It is not my fault. I feel a little excited about that.