She's looking at me. She's looking at me and I don't know why. Her face is a puzzle but instead of putting actual pieces together to make a picture, you're meant to 'read' a face and put together an invisible picture of what she's thinking. I have a feeling that if she wrote down her thoughts right now, I still wouldn't understand.
Nothing has been said for 19 seconds and yet she's still looking at me and I think she might want me to say something, but I'm not certain, so I don't say anything. To me it feels like the safest thing I can do but the air around me is feeling different. It's tension, I've been told. I don't like it but it's my constant companion when I'm here.
She knows something I don't and it's got something to do with me, of that I am certain. This situation is one I have been in many times before, so I know it's something I've done. But every time, what ever I've done wrong is different to the times before, so I can't pick a solution from the other times and apply them here and say exactly what she wants me to. Every time, it's a whole new script and I don't have time to find the pages, let alone learn the words. It's one of the many things I cannot grasp and I'm sorry for it. Especially for all the times when my lines have been left blank so I have to think on my feet. My mind goes blank and so does my face, people have told me. From there, things have only gotten worse:
I had someone talk to me once and get very angry even though I was answering all his questions. I said that all of the technology products had to be purchased in that department because of the security measures they have that other departments don't. Those security measures make sure that people only take what they have bought and nothing else. It seems like all departments should do this too but my manager says it has to do with how much something costs, and how likely it is that other people will want that something even when they can't afford it. Everyone wants flash, brand new technology now so there we have it, the tech products have security tags on them.
The man is wearing lots of international brands and I've told him that he'll have to take his item down to the second floor to buy it. This seems to make him very angry.
"I don't have to. There is no security on this, it's a USB stick. Just put it through."
"I can't. It's a technology item so it has to be bought in the technology department."
"There's no security on it! You can see that can't you? You blind?"
I take a closer look at the stick and there is no tag anywhere on the packaging. This is confusing because I was told that ALL technology items have security tags so they HAVE to be bought in the technology department. This one doesn't. Are there acceptions to this rule? I'll ask my manager later.
"Are you kidding me?"
"I haven't told you a joke."
"You haven't said anything, you've just been staring at it for five minutes!"
"It wasn't five minutes. It was actually closer to one."
"You smart-arse, don't give me that attitude."
The air has changed.
"I don't know what you mean. I was simply pointing out that your estimation of time wasn't as accurate as it should have been."
Then there was nine seconds where he didn't say anything, he simply pushed the stick back at me then said "Put. It. Through."
"It's still a technology product. You need to buy it on the second floor."
"They have a very long line."
"I can't do anything about the line. You'll need to wait in it."
"What!"
"That's how they work. You wait in line until your"
"For fucks sake! I know how lines work, I don't need to be in that one becuase you can sell it to me here! There is no security tag on it so there'll be no problems when I leave will there?"
There's something I should say here. There's something he needs to know about it but I can't remember what. It'll come back to me if I just wait.
"Are you just going to stare at me like that? You're so stupid. How the fuck did you get a job here?"
It's something about the barcode...
"Hello?"
"Greetings are for the beginning of a conversation, not at any other point."
"The fuck you on about?"
"It's not the right time for you to say hello. Are you saying that now because you didn't reply to my greeting you at the start?"
"You really are joking."
"I still haven't told you a joke."
"Where is your manager?"
"On his break."
"That's convenient."
"It is. He gets hungry in the middle of the day."
"I can get you fired Shit-For-Brains, put it through now!"
I see one of my colleagues behind him nod her head at me so I scan the item. The register comes up with a message saying it doesn't recognise the barcode. That's it!
"The computer can't read the barcode. It's from the technology department."
"What?"
"All technology products can only be scanned in the technology department so everyone has to buy technology products from there. Their codes are specific to their department."
"Why didn't you tell me that at the start?"
All of a sudden my mind is whirring and frozen at the same time. I'm trying to think of something to say. Maybe "people bring things with tags so it's always the first thing I say," or "most customers don't ask why they just go to the second floor," or "I don't scan technology barcodes so I forget they can't be scanned here." I wish I knew what was the right one. What I do know is that my mind is frozen because my mouth won't open and I think he's getting annoyed at my silence.
"Fine, just fucking leave it. I'm going to make you sorry you wasted my time here."
"How?"
"You fucking retard! Why don't you shut your mouth!"
"But that's not an answer. How will you find me? Do you work here too?"
"Money talks arsehole."
And with that, he turned and left without answering my questions or taking the USB stick. I've heard lots of his words before.
Like I said before, not exactly something I can use with this lady now:
She asked me a question and I gave her an answer, and yet she's still looking at me.
"I've been up to that floor and they've sent me down here. I am not trudging around this place any more. Where are the handbags?"
"On floor eight."
"They are not, I have been there. They are not the handbags I am looking for."
"That is the department for handbags. They're all there."
"Not the ones I am looking for."
This is where the silence started. I don't know what else to say to her. I've given her all the information she's asked for and added on an extra bit so she knows that they are all there. I've been practicing adding extra bits of information to help keep a conversation going. Dad and I do that. He says it's the best way to keep people talking and you get to say something that you find interesting. You have to stay on topic though. I struggled with that bit for a long time. I was happy to be getting the hang of it recently but somehow it seems like it wasn't the thing this woman wanted to know.
"Which bags were you looking for Ma'am?" My manager steps in. He's a mindreader, of that I am certain. "House brand or international brand?"
"International, of course."
"Very well, they are one more floor down. The third floor. If you go straight into the next room and take your first right, across the room you will see some escalators and that will take you right into the international brand area. The bags will be to your left."
"Thank you very much." Her tone doesn't sound like she's grateful and she looks at me, not my manager, as she walks away. That's very unusual. My dad always told me to look at the person who is talking to you otherwise it's rude and people get upset. But my manager's not upset. There must be exceptions to this rule. I'll ask Dad about them later.
"She didn't tell me which kinds of bags she wanted. I guessed she'd want the house brand ones. She didn't look like she had a lot of money to spend on a handbag and her accent wasn't from here so she's clearly a tourist." This is what I tell my manager.
"Sometimes our guesses aren't always right. Remember to keep asking questions. Tell you what, we're not busy and I think I'm going to close up early. You can go home now." This what he tells me. He lets me go home early quite often. He's very kind.
It's the middle of summer so the sun is only just starting to go down for the evening. That means I can walk home and not take the bus. I like the bus, but in summer I get to see everyone out and about with their children and their dogs and their drinks and their shopping. People are very interesting to me so when I walk home, I get to watch them and that makes my walk very interesting.
You might think I'm autistic. Lots of people have asked me if I am or just tell me that I am without even talking to me about it. Autistic is not a word I'm allowed to say at home. Dad has banned it. "It's not your word, it's theirs and they don't live here. It's not a word we say in this house." Dad said that a lot when I started school.
I get lots of other words too; weirdo, freak, stupid, dumbass, retard. Some people get upset when they hear them, like Dad does, but they've never upset me. I've looked up weirdos, freaks, stupids, dumbasses and retards on the internet and I'm not like them at all, so the people who say them to me are a bit confused. Like a boy in my class when I was nine. He said I wasn't even one of those 'freak geniuses'. Of course not, I'm of average intelligence. I could have told him he wasn't a 'freak genius' either. In fact he had to repeat that school year and have extra tutoring for maths. I'm still trying to figure out why he felt that a comment like that was only relevant to me at the time. It's a fun riddle to try and figure out if I have a spare hour or two.
I'll tell you another reason why I think I'm not autistic. After I looked up the freaks and the stupids on the internet, I looked into the definition of autism. The big difference to me and an autistic person is that the autistic person gets very stressed out by people and likes to be on his or her own a lot. I don't get stressed out by people, I just get confused by them. I'm happy on my own in a crowd or walking home, like I am now, and I'm just as happy to talk to someone at any time for however long they want. I'm still trying to learn when and how to stop a conversation because there was that time I let an old man talk about his grandchildren, and my manager told me he's never so many people waiting in line for so long in the store before. No one seemed happy when the old man left and the line started moving. I told my manager that I thought lots of waiting customers meant business was good. He let out a big sigh and didn't say anything.
When I walk home in the summer, I turn down a small alley way off Church Street. It's a quick shortcut that takes exactly forty-three seconds off my journey at my quickest walk. I like to test myself to see if I can beat that time without breaking into a run (I can't). I turn left into the alley way as usual when something hits the back of my head. I'm on my knees at once and my vision is starting to go blurry when the feeling of my head splitting open streaks right down the middle of my skull. I wonder if anyone else can hear that ringing too. I can't see anything clearly at all and my throat strains to let out a scream of agony and alarm. The ringing is very loud now so I don't know if I'm making any noise.
I clasp the back of my head and try to curl up and cover my face. My temperature is rising, I'm beginning to sweat, my hands come unstuck and I think I'll vomit at any moment. All of a sudden something blunt hits my face and my neck snaps back. I hear an audible crack in my mind and liquid pours out of my nose and drips into my mouth. Another object hits my left eye once and then again. Liquid is now seeping into my ear. Through the blur of my right eye, I make out a shape running away from me. I hear "You fucking retard!" from a distance. Everything is quiet.
When I open my eye, it's very late. It's pitch black. In summer, this means its very late. I feel very cold on the concrete and my skin is sticky with dried sweat. Everything is sore. My left eye feels like someone's forced a big stone into the socket and is still pressing it down. Touching it gently sends pain around my face. My nose feels enormous too. It doesn't feel like my nose. My nose doesn't feel squishy and soft like it's full jelly. I try turning my head to look around and see where I am but my neck is screaming at me. The smallest movement up or down feels like a knife is jabbing into the very middle of my neck, the point where it snapped back. But this is nothing compared to my head. A huge crack has opened up from the back of my skull up and over to my forehead. I dare not touch it as I might touch my brain. I don't need to touch it anyway, the throbbing and the aching paints a very clear picture for me in my mind.
My right eye is starting to adjust to the dark. A streetlamp flickers somewhere behind me and I can make out a thin puddle of something around my head. It's very dark and some is dripping from my lips and out of my mouth onto the ground. It's night time and late at night is a time for sleeping. I think I'll do that and get up in the morning.
I'm not on the ground anymore. I'm on a matress and it's day time. I can tell through my eyelids that it's light now. It's not the sun's light though, it must be a normal light. I think I'm inside and that makes sense cause I'm on a matress.
What else can I tell you? There's something beeping beside me. It has a constant pace and rythm to it, I can follow it with my breathing. There's also something on my eye. It's very soft and covers all my eye. It doesn't feel so big anymore. They've done the same thing with my nose and there's a lot around my head. There's something else going around my face and up into my nose. I don't like that as much.
Someone is holding onto my hand and I know who that is. That's Dad. His hands are very big and very warm. He doesn't usually hold my hand for this long though. I'm about to ask him why when I hear someone else talking. Someone I don't know.
"That's all we need for now. We'll be in touch once the DNA results come through."
"What if there isn't any?" says Dad.
"The hits to the face were made by a shoe. We found material from a shoe at the scene. We can get a match from that. We have a pretty good idea of who comissioned the attack in the first place."
"But...why?"
"With people who are...different, there is someone we know quite well who doesn't like different. This is similar to another attack we're investigating right now."
"How can someone do this?"
"Whoever it was was probably paid. I'm very sorry sir. In these circles money talks and everyone listens."
"Money talks."
"We'll leave you now sir. We'll be in touch."
Nobody says anything else. I need to ask Dad something. What is it? I hear footsteps leave and footsteps arrive.
"Things are stable. That's always a good thing." says a woman. A pen scratches on a board. She's close.
"Will...when will...is there a chance..." I've never heard Dad like this before. I can tell he's looking at me.
"Comas are unpredictable. The brain isn't swelling anymore."
"But has it gone down?"
No one says anything else. That's right, I need to ask Dad why sometimes it's okay to not look at the person you're talking to.
Footsteps leave the room again. What day is it? Am I late for work?
We're alone so now's probably a good time to talk to Dad. I open my eye and the light on the ceiling is blinding. A short, sharp shock before something eclipses the light. The form comes into focus. Dad. My mind is whirring with questions but nothing is coming out of my mouth.
Hold on Dad, my words are coming.
