2 The Second Big Bang

My name is Noah Eschwick and I have a condition.

Some call me weird, but I don't understand it.

Weird is when you do something absurd, like when Kyle from 7th grade preached about God and the heavens, and how we are going to hell if we did not pray. No one is certain whether God or the heavens exist. Often, it is the last resort for when you can't explain an incident. Look at that yellow thing in the sky: God. This is an example of an Occam's razor. It sounds dangerous and sharp but it isn't really. Occam's razor is just a statement by some guy named William and in it William says that the simplest solution is usually the right answer. How do I know about this?

My mom is a great teacher and she teaches me a lot.

My dad is a teacher too - it's just that he stopped teaching. He got depressed when Harper died, and my mom said when you get depressed, you don't want to teach anymore, so my dad does nothing but walk around the house and clean and do gardening and help my brother with his assignment.

But he doesn't teach.

That is why I started to frequent Aunt Lisa's home. My mom says that I'm growing and that I was learning to be on my own, but she just couldn't leave me yet. Not with dad.

Every night after school, I would walk to Aunt Lisa's house, which is just beside the school, and then mom would pick me up after she's done at the college. I loved staying with Aunt Lisa, and I loved playing with Mikey, but after I heard the glasses break and after I heard Aunt Lisa cry, I couldn't go there anymore. When mom told me about this, I was agitated. I told her that I want to go to Aunt Lisa's, but she said that she doesn't want what happened to happen again. And then I was so angry that I felt sick and when I felt sick, I lose control of myself, so I was hitting everything and she got out of the car and waited for me to pass out, and I did, and then we continued the drive home.

Mom says that Aunt Lisa did something very bad. When I ask her what it is, she just cries. I know it when people cry because they cover their face and their eyes start sweating. So when mom covered her face and her eyes started sweating, I gave her a hug – even if I don't know what it does.

My mom said my condition is called Asperger's Syndrome.

She told me it was the reason why I don't like to interact with anyone. Because I have trouble communicating. But I wasn't weird. I'm just different. She also says that it's why I can't read other people's emotions, because Asperger's affects the amygdala, and the amygdala is the part in my brain that allows people to feel emotions.

It's alright however, because I'm learning. Every Thursday, we go to Dr. Coulis's office and do therapy. It's nothing busy, we just talk about how I'm feeling and what I want to do or what kind of things I hate, and what kind of things I believe.

For example, I tell Dr. Couli I like the color gray because: 1. I hate colors and 2. Gray is not a color. Gray is composed of black and white and both black and white don't have a corresponding wavelength which means they are not colors which also means that gray is not a color.

Last Thursday, Dr. Coulis asked me how I felt and I said I felt like me. He said that's not what he meant. I told him, "But that's how I felt. I felt like me." And so he said, "Alright." and he gave me some test papers to answer and I said goodbye and then we left.

Today, Dr. Coulis asked what I wanted to be in life. I told him I wanted to die. He said why I would want that when life is beautiful and full of wonder. I told him the sun is going to incinerate us in a few million years. He told me that these are all inductive inferences and I'm just misunderstanding things. Then he asked me if I feared oblivion. I said no, and then he said I was very brave. I told him he was a funny man and he said I was too. We had to leave early because mom and I had to buy something for dad so I said goodbye and we left.

On the way home, my mom said there seemed to be an accident near Gant Bridge and that if we go through the traffic, it would take us around an hour or two. I've seen a map of Faulberg hanging on the wall at dad's office before and remembered that if we circle around from East Avenue towards the college, we would cut a good amount of time. I told my mom we should take a detour. She said where and I told her about East Avenue and that it was the opposite direction. My mom did a U-turn and we headed south.

I kept thinking about the name East Avenue and I told my mom that it was weird to name it East Avenue because there is no absolute inertial frame of reference and that if we headed south then it won't make it east anymore, and she told me it's just a name, and I told her it was a weird name, and then she laughed and we proceed to East Avenue.