The Wrong Question

“So . . . what have you been up to?”

Everything.

Nothing you can get across without sounding insane, but everything.

Without hesitating, Brain’s trying to decide what matters.

Mention the rabbit hole? Nope.

What about spending 20 minutes attempting to remember if the kitchen always sounded like that? Too risky.

Discovering a better route through the grocery store that avoids the loud freezer? Meh, pretty niche.

Finally understanding something after thinking about it every day for months? Hmm, but doesn’t it count as “nothing” in conversation?

The answer’s smaller and smaller.

By the time it gets to your mouth, it hardly resembles the day it came from.

“Not much.”

An incredible piece of bullshit.

Brain’s been lugging something around for days, not telling you what it is.

Then you’re rinsing a fork.

Oh.

There it is.

The answer.

Not to anything useful. No one’s winning a damn prize over this.

It’s merely the reason the conversation kept snagging. Why the grocery store felt unbearable halfway through aisle eight. Why that song kept getting skipped.

And things start to make sense again.

Something else was impossible too, for reasons too complicated to explain before the other person’s already nodded and asked what you’ve been watching lately.

By the time the words finally line up, nobody remembers asking.

— Autistic Ang

* Upgrade to Paid! Support the arts without attending a gala or having an opinion about a sculpture.

Adult Autism 101 is below—cuz “spend 40 years thinking you’re bad at life” was a shitty orientation program ⬇️
Adult Autism 101