sit down and start to reach for the fan. I stop myself, and then I wonder why I stopped myself.
I do not want to work. I want to think about what it is they want to do to my brain and think about what it means. It means more than they say; everything they say means more than it says. Beyond the words is the tone; beyond the tone is the context; beyond the context is the unexplored territory of normal socialization, vast and dark as night, lit by the few pinpricks of similar experience, like stars.
Starlight, one writer said, perfuses the entire universe: the whole thing glows. The dark is an illusion, that writer said. If that is so, then Lucia was right and there is no speed of dark.
But there is simple ignorance, not knowing, and willful ignorance that refuses to know, that covers the light of knowledge with the dark blanket of bias. So I think there may be positive darkness, and I think dark can have a speed.
The books tell me that my brain works very well, even as it is, and that it is much easier to derange the functions of the brain than to repair them. If normal people really can do all the things that are claimed for them, it would be helpful to have that ability… but I am not sure they do.
They do not always understand why other people act as they do. That is obvious when they argue about their reasons, their motives. I have heard someone tell a child, “You are only doing that to annoy me,” when it is clear to me that the child was doing it because the child enjoyed the act itself… was oblivious to its effect on the adult. I have been oblivious like that, so I recognize it in others.
My phone buzzes. I pick it up. “Lou it is Cameron. Do you want to go to supper and have pizza?” His voice runs the words together, mechanically.
“It is Thursday,” I say. “Hi-I’m-Jean is there.”
“Chuy and Bailey and I are going anyway, so we can talk. And you, if you come. Linda is not coming.
Dale is not coming.”
“I do not know if I want to come,” I say. “I will think about it. You will go when?”
“As soon as it is five,” he says.
“There are places it is not a good idea to talk about this,” I say.
“The pizza place is not one of those places,” Cameron says.
“Many people know we go there,” I say.
“Surveillance?”Cameron says.
“Yes. But it is a good thing to go there, because we go there. Then meet somewhere else.”
“The Center.”
“No,” I say, thinking of Emmy. “I do not want to go to the Center.”
“Emmy likes you,” Cameron says. “She is not very intelligent, but she likes you.”
“We are not talking about Emmy,” I say.
“We are talking about the treatment, after pizza,” Cameron says. “I do not know where to go except the Center.”
I think of places, but they are all public places. We should not talk about this in public places. Finally I say, “You could come to my apartment.” I have never invited Cameron to my apartment. I have never invited anyone to my apartment.
He is silent a long moment. He has never invited me to his home, either. Finally he says, “I will come. I do not know about the others.”
“I will come to eat supper with you,” I say.
I cannot get to work. I turn on the fan and the spin spirals and pin-wheels turn, but the dancing colored reflections do not soothe me. All I can think about is the project looming over us. It is like the picture of an ocean wave towering over someone on a surfboard. The skillful surfer can survive, but the one who is less skilled will be smashed. How can we ride this wave?
I write and print out my address and the directions from the pizza place to my apartment. I have to stop and look at the city map to be sure the directions are right. I am not used to giving directions to other drivers.
At five, I turn off the fan, get up, and leave my office. I have done nothing useful for hours. I feel dull and thick, the internal music like Mahler’s First Symphony, ponderous and heavy. Outside, it is cool, and I shiver. I get into my car, comforted by all four whole tires, a whole windshield, and an engine that starts when I turn