by D. L. Keur writing as herself and/or one of her numerous pen names
Stepping into the shower, she listens to the giggling in the walls, watches light refracting in the streaming spray, smells the fragrance of freshness. Tastes it, too. She closes eyes, lessening visual stimulation. While spatially disorienting, this decreases distraction.
Narrowing focus, she concentrates upon sensation. Sound and odors fade; touch, the lesser skill, can now dominate attention. She revels in sensation: tingling, stinging, punctuated hot; dripping, streaming flow sweeping all around, swirling at her feet. Immersed in movement of the stream, her mind explores vectors and trajectories.
“Raynie, did you take the garbage out?”
The sound explodes around her. The world spins, threatening to topple her.
She extends a hand, but can’t find ‘solid’.
Concentrating, she manages to still herself enough to hold stability, despite the violent buffeting of tidal swirls that threaten to upend her. She trues to that hold, but the effort is immense. Still, she knows it’s necessary. Doing less will bring unending queries and more violent disturbances.
With a will, she splits attending from single- to multi-dedicated focus. She seeks and finds ‘speech’, the least of her capabilities, but the one most critical to maintaining comfort levels within those with whom she shares experience.
The effort makes her breathless. She coheres the necessary communication from conceptual instance into distributed linear stream, making sure the energy within that stream congeals into: meaningful, simple, concise.
Once sure, she finds, then engages mouth and tongue, that finding and engagement also requiring of her immense concentration.
“Raynie?”
“No, Mom. I’ll do it when I’m finished showering.”
“Well, hurry up. The bus will be here.”
Dedicated concentration fractured, she struggles to stabilize herself as every sense goes overload. She struggles and, with a breath, just manages appropriate response—“Okay”—then she hopes that Mom will go away so she can regain control.
Silence answers, and, as the metasphere around her calms, the skirls and buffeting exponentially diminish until they become mere ripples dissolving into echoes as they fade off down the here-now’s timeline.
I click to go check the latest news. What do I get? Videos that either auto-start, else a video window with a start button. My eyes seek somewhere for an alternative text version–just the facts, please, no talking heads, no editorial commentary, no anchor, no jabbering reporter in the field talking to a lens. There isn’t one. I click gone, seeking my choice of alternative. I always knew I was different. The world wants to watch; I prefer reading. Here’s why: It’s faster to read.