Cacophony
by Debra Bennett
The moment she opened the front door, the brilliance of the sun slammed right into her. She felt the edges of herself cracking into bits like crumbing eggshells.
The ozone layer. Climate change. Melting ice caps. She thought of Greta Thunberg, planted in front of her school, frowning and resolute with her posters and signs.
And those huge white bears she's seen pictures of, floating now on tiny ice islands, looking, somehow, ridiculous, ridiculously misplaced, like cartoons. They've lost their whole wide white wilderness.
Her feet, slimy now, slid back and forth in her saddles, squeaking repeatedly, hurting her ears. And every seam on her clothes was scraping at her skin. How could she stand it? She looked down, counting breaths, the way her therapist had shown her. Slow inhale. Hold. Slow exhale. Hold.
But luckily, she was almost there, almost at the bus stop. Inside the bus, she could climb into her own shadow, she could just sit, letting the low rumbling of the motor sooth her. She could forget that the high pitched discordant shrieking of the sun, the noise of her sandals, the textures of clothing that rubbed and scraped, scoured her skin.
Long ago, she’d found that most people didn't hear such sounds, or feel the same sensations. She’d discovered the reasons behind those half-hidden smirks or the perplexed glances, sometimes the sly eye-rolling…or the too-bright smiles of some.
She’d been amazed.
The counsellor had leaned forward, her voice gentle. “You see why your reactions are different? There is nothing wrong with you. Your perceptions are different.”
Yet, she felt as out of place as those giant white polar bears, surviving on shrinking bits of ice.
Here it was, finally. She climbed up the stairs in her slippery, still-sliding sandals. She shut her eyes again the shrill clanging of the coins into the slot, and moved quickly into a seat.
She’d only settled, though before some odor began stinging her nose. Sun-screen? Hair shampoo? A face moisturizer? She leaned forward, trying to not be seen, and wiped at her nose vigorously, willing the smell to vanish. But it was in her nostrils now. And no. No. She would not, she could not, allow the odor to make her sick.
At the next stop, she stood and slid into to a back seat.
“You alright?”
It was a whiskery old-sounding voice that spoke, just across the aisle. And since it was a quiet type of voice, she dared look up and over, and she didn’t need to look away. The eyes were quiet. They didn't try to pull, push, probe, intrude. They just were.
It was the eyes that pushed the words out from the back of her throat. “It’s just, um, autism,” she murmured and then stopped. “I’m on the autism spectrum.”
But, she thought, it was like explaining light to those who lived in dark, or dark to those, always in light. Two different worlds.
Yet the old man simply nodded. “Yeah, so’s my granddaughter.”
There was nothing startled in his voice, nothing curious, or condemning: no judgments, and no happy, bright assurances.
She saw that, unlike most people, this man didn't need to pretend to be anyone but himself.
The old man reached over and pushed the button. At the stop, he heaved himself up, heavily, grabbing the cane that hung over his seat. The cane shuddered in his hand briefly before he found his balance. He glanced over. His smile wrapped around her, sheltering. A warmth moved toward her, but he knew not to touch.
Then, he was clumping slowly to the front of the bus, his cane thumping, step by step. He waved a hand at the driver as the door gusted open.
“You take care now,” the driver told him, watching as the man climbed
She leaned back in her seat. For a moment, her brain could bypass all the noise, the noxious smells, her own racing, frightened thoughts.
She felt a smile beginning from inside herself. It reached up from her chest, into her face, the warmth of kindness, of human acceptance.
She breathed into it.
For now, that was enough.
Debbie Bennett was an Early Childhood Educator for many years. She has published poetry in various Canadian journals: The New Quarterly and The Capilano Review, as well as in an American publication: The Last Girls’ Club. She recently published a piece in Brilliant Flash Fiction. Debbie has a granddaughter on the Autism spectrum and has some attributes in that direction, herself. Debbie lives on Salt Spring Island, BC with her husband and, during the school year, with their granddaughter.