Andrew, Orlando
From 400 Words, Issue 1
by Andrew – Age 26 – Orlando, FL
This guy, see, or should we say a boy then, was born already distracted. With bright eyes and a quiet mouth, he watched and watched. Leaves made good friends, which unnerved his parents such that they made him do things like play baseball. He was forced to stand in the outfield, which unnerved him such that he couldn’t stop anxiously biting his nails. He looked around at everybody in caps and cleats, clueless to their fascination. His dreams were about how amazing it was to feel the spongy the wood chips underfoot, not about a day at the plate.
Even as a child he never cared for reading about himself very much. Diaries were abandoned and lost; pictures crumpled; and later, e-mails deleted. His biography would be no visual patchwork, but he was labeled “artistic.” Memories were smells and sounds, small triggers. He struggled with remembering as he imagined regular people did, and floundered in school. His talent was a nigh-useless cycle of absorption, imagination, and obsession, tragically detached from his environment. If you gave him a glass of water, he’d have a good idea how to swim in the ocean. He flunked French without an ounce of grace for lack of conjugation.
It was discovered his mother passed down to him a strange empathy fused with perceptive retardation. It lay unrecognized for years—who wants to be sincere when they’re eighteen? But this talent-curse ran so deeply, was so ingrained that he couldn’t pin down the impetus that hurtled him about. He went to the sea, but it wasn’t much like he imagined—too large and cold, frightening, remote. Leaves rotted and were covered by layers of ice and snow in the New England winter.
He became hopelessly confused. Often words were too much, sights too much, and feeling too little. Nothing gelled. Adult work was tolerable only for the newness of each situation, and he was left to wander. He still bit his nails and was scared of “now.” He couldn’t stop his course for the world, until he found somebody to describe him in a single word. She knew how he heard cicadas in winter and the crunch of frost in the summer. The couch smelled musty, and her breath gave dust in the air new motion when she told him, whispering in his ear as a dry snow fell outside. He promptly forgot it and was happy.
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