The View from Outside You

A few decades later, someone mentions your hands.

They grin as they tell you how your fingers used to take over whenever something interested you. They even attempt a demonstration. It’s affectionate and slightly inaccurate.

But you remember those hands of which they speak. You spent long conversations trying to keep them quiet as instructions shouted over whatever else was happening.

Be still!

Shorten your answer!

Don’t laugh that loud!

The work of managing yourself was so noisy that you mistook it for the whole event.

It wasn’t.

The person sitting across from you didn’t witness a containment failure, they saw interest turn physical. They knew their story got to you because your whole meat suit answered.

Perhaps being listened to that closely was rare enough that they kept the memory for decades.

You couldn’t have known. From your seat, the chat was full of corrections. From theirs, you made the place more alive.

Now they’ve carried that version of you all the way back and placed it in your hands.

Imagine how many others never returned theirs.

— Autistic Ang

* Upgrade to Paid! A wheel of fancy cheesy just whispered your name.

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