Fallen Colors

By David Howells

Ryan Fitzgalen and his wife Vanessa, now raising a daughter of their own, have chosen to live in seclusion from the countless who seek to contact him. But the mission of the Family had to continue, and he remained the Family Patriarch. But things are changing, not only politically, but the structure of the Earth itself was preparing for an unprecedented upheaval. An autistic child is found to be watched over by an angel, and is is from both of those creations of God that guidance and illumination will come to guide what will eventually overtake and change the world, and even be a harbinger for worlds to come.
The final chapter will conclude the life of Ryan Fitzgalen in a place and time even he never dreamed he'd live to see.

• Language: English
• Publisher: David Howells
• Release date: Apr 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301059577

David Howells

Doctor of Chiropractic since 11/1984. Former Chief of Nuclear Medicine, Lutheran Medical Center, St. Louis, MO. Volunteer EMT, Hurley Fire and Rescue Squad, Hurley NY. Folk musician, volunteer soundman for the Hudson Valley Folk Guild. Kiwanis Club of Kingston. Society for Creative Anachronism fighter, archer, and chirurgeon. Greetings and welcome to my website. Thanks for stopping by. I welcome you to download VANESSA with my complements and see if you like the style. I'm told by readers the first two chapters are a slow acceleration (others say 'no problem') and then it takes off from there as a great page turner. Each of the four sequels had good reviews on first released a few years back, so I hope you'll try those as well. Time Snap and Hell Rise were more recent efforts I hope you'll like. The short stories have been a lot of fun to write, and are getting good response levels. Thank you all so very much! Long and merry life, best of health, David L Howells PS: I've done my best to filter out errors in the copy, but if you see one on any of the works, please notify me at twosword at earthlink dot net? I'd appreciate it (just include a three word sequence and which title, and I'll fix it with a search and correct). Happy reading!

Book preview

VANESSA

FALLEN COLORS

David Lee Howells

Copyright 2013

Smashwords Edition

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SYNOPSIS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER 1 – THE WIZARD

CHAPTER 2 – GET WITH THE PROGRAM

CHAPTER 3 – WEDNESDAY: LIGHTS

CHAPTER 4 – WEDNESDAY: ANNA

CHAPTER 5 – FRIDAY: THE WRATH OF GRAPES

CHAPTER 6 – SUNDAY: GIRL TALK

CHAPTER 7 – MONDAY: CONNECTIONS

CHAPTER 8 – MOTHER OF GOD

CHAPTER 9 – TUESDAY: WINGS OF FANCIES

CHAPTER 10 – WEDNESDAY: TRIALS AND ERRORS

CHAPTER 11 – THURSDAY: CONFERENCE

CHAPTER 12 – FRIDAY: PENTAGRAM

CHAPTER 13 – SATURDAY: ESSENTIAL CHANGES

CHAPTER 14 – THE LORD’S DAY

CHAPTER 15 - MONDAY: DISCIPLESHIP

CHAPTER 16 - TUESDAY: WASHINGTON

CHAPTER 17 - TUESDAY: BASH BISH FALLS

CHAPTER 18 - TUESDAY: SAN JUAN

CHAPTER 19 - TUESDAY: WHITE FOX

CHAPTER 20 - TUESDAY: HARLEM

CHAPTER 21 - TUESDAY: CONFERENCE

CHAPTER 22 - WEDNESDAY: AWAKENINGS

CHAPTER 23 - WEDNESDAY: DISCLOSURE

SYNOPSIS

The confrontation at the Rhinebeck Cemetery caused widespread public paranoia of large trees, which took a year to ebb to a background malaise. Meanwhile, the world’s forests enjoyed a brief respite from the logging, and Christmas tree industries suffered a major loss of revenue..

The death of Elizabeth Gladstone hurt her children, badly. The Family closed ranks and gave the children all the love they had. Jerry and Janet also drew strength from their past experiences with the spirit world and knew that their mother was in good hands.

What finally became of the Lincoln Marfan/Friend symbiotic entity was never revealed. Since both parts had been gathered after the cemetery nightmare by the returned forms of Anita Edwards and Natalie Canard, it was assumed by the Family that there was still some purpose to this curious spiritual pair.

The Family Mission continued across the globe. Melissa coordinated her RPI Department for Paranormal Studies and Research with Rachel Gladstone’s organizational skills, and with Frank Gladstone’s coordination of entity sensitive volunteers around the planet. That number of participating clairvoyant, clairaudient, or just entity presence sensitive individuals wasn’t large, but it was gradually growing. ESPER and the recently reformed C3 Christian mega-organizations also leant their strong hands for the grunt work of paranormal research.

PROLOGUE

She was ancient, by human measures. She was fearsomely powerful, even by the standards of her own kind. By her hand, an entire city could become a tomb overnight.

But that was not her mission on earth. Not this time. She gazed outside the window from within a human dwelling. For four years she had stood guard. So far, the ‘other side’ had taken no action. But it was just a matter of time, or of what her kind called ‘moment’.

Outside the window, two glowing globes peered through the crevice between the curtains. Pesky things, she mused, but the One who sent her also had a use for these beings. Personally, she felt they were lazy.

Gazing further, she could see the dark outline of the night’s horizon. So much was hidden. So much would be revealed...very soon. Spring had come to the Hudson Valley. Spring was a time of change. It was a time of birth. From what she had heard, birthing was a painful experience.

Chapter 1 - THE WIZARD

I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Halder, but your son, Alex, is definitely autistic.

It was one of those snapshot times, just as when those of a certain era could remember exactly where they were and what they were doing when Kennedy was assassinated or when the terrorists took out the World Trade Center and part of the Pentagon.

It wasn’t even a real doctor’s office, but an Albany Memorial Hospital (New York) consultation room where you told relatives good and bad news concerning people they loved. It seemed little bigger in dimension than a jail cell. But shoehorned into it were a modernistic couch for the listener(s), a chair for the speaker, a table for the lamp and dog-eared magazines that might interest someone who liked pop video culture, gardening, or stats on how people threw or struck balls and pucks. The look of realized fears on the parents’ faces contrasted to the bland expression on a four-year-old face. While Mom and Dad drew in breaths, he continued his fixation with the shadow his finger made on the end table.

Dr. Maxwell Forrester knew this had to be presented in digestible steps. It helped that both parents were supporting each other, judging from their handholding. A lot could be told about parents by the attitudes they assumed when confronted with such a difficult mountain to climb. Indeed, they had only just begun to scale this pinnacle. Dr. Forrester could tell that revealing this news wouldn’t break up this marriage. The real danger lay in the years ahead. It was time for more words.

I know this comes as a shock and it will mean some tough times ahead for all of you. But it isn’t the end of the world. Alex falls into a category of high-functioning autism. He has Asperger’s Syndrome. You have probably heard a lot about autism and at least half of it is wrong. Alex will likely live a full lifespan and accomplish some surprising things. There is strong evidence that Einstein and Andy Warhol were high-functioning autistics. Mozart and several very well known sports figures were likely sufferers of another challenging neurological problem, Tourette’s Syndrome. Mr. and Mrs. Halder, this is a condition to be understood and managed. This is going to take cooperative work on your part. Are you ready to begin? His words ended; the doctor wisely waited.

Wesley Halder looked at his wife, Amelia. His quiet outside hid a storm of conflicts inside. He was a good father and husband, now to share in a lifetime of difficulties with and for his son. Fathers were supposed to be strong. So were husbands. They were the rock that the family relied on. This part of him wanted to reach out to his beloved wife and console her, to support her. But, there was another part. It was weak, now. It could grow much stronger, given time. That part looked at her with suspicion. She was the last one to have the child before he was born. The damage to his son was therefore, somehow, her fault. Fathers were the protectors and breadwinners. The breadwinner part may have paled with the increasing reliance over the past half-century on two income earners per family, but the cultural mores were still implanted in his mind.

She was the nurturer. Alex seemed fine as an infant. Granted Alex, as a baby, wasn’t quite as interactive as some he had ‘kootchied’, but he still seemed normal. It was during the last couple of years that things became increasingly abnormal, like the odd repeated hand and finger movements. Like now. Wesley looked at Alex, who continued to move his finger to the right and left, staring at the shadow it made on the lamp table. That just wasn’t normal. The resentful and suspicious side was pushed aside for the time being.

Amelia?

The pronouncement struck even deeper into the mother’s heart. Alex James Halder was her child. The well-meaning Wizard had just conjured a curse upon the head of her baby boy, one that she could not lift. All of her dreams for Alex had just been robbed of colors and heights. Now, there were only grays and depths. All her life she had been told that she was a little off her nut; that she was often in another world and dancing to a different drummer’s rhythms.

Was Alex her fault? Did the God she partially believed in actually shortchange her in the genetics department out of spite for her weak convictions? So many thoughts tumbled through her mind that she had great difficulty responding to her husband’s one-worded question. A response was expected of her, but words wouldn’t come. Wesley wanted something to come out of her for Alex. That was likely a good thing. So, she made eye contact with him and nodded. It seemed to satisfy his want, for she saw him turn back to the white-jacketed Wizard and say, OK, Doctor Forrester. What do we do?

Wesley listened dutifully as the professional outlined the steps that would have to be taken, while his loving but often-flaky wife scooted closer to Alex. Wesley wondered, again, at the odd bond between his wife and son. Amelia could be a little outside the norm in ways it was hard to put your finger on, but that had attracted him to her in the first place. Her needing someone to take care of details like finances, home maintenance and child care priorities allowed him to shine in her eyes. That had always made him feel wanted by her, needed by her. A psychologist might have said that it was also a way that he could control her, like his father controlled his mother. But Wesley’s father had been a very hard and strict man whose house had to run like clockwork. Wesley swore he wouldn’t be like his father and worked hard during his married years not to repeat that oppressive behavior. But his general marital role model could still be interpreted as a controlling one. The subconscious, if frustrated in exactly fulfilling the parental behavior legacy, will find some other game plan to express its role modeling. For Wesley, it was control via detail management. Happily, Amelia didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she seemed grateful.

While her husband did his best to understand details outlined by the doctor, Amelia lightly ran her fingers through Alex’s hair. She watched her son focus his attention on the shadow created upon the end table by his extended index finger. It wasn’t the first time. He would move his hand to the left of a light source, then to the right, and repeat the process sometimes for an hour...even two. Shadow and light, black and white, day and night, dark and bright, left and right, wrong and right, blind and sight. Contrasts fascinated Alex and they formed the basis of a lot of her conversations with him. He had learned to talk at the usual age. How could he be autistic? Didn’t they have delayed speech?

But no, she had heard some of the Wizard’s words, ones that said that children with Asperger’s Syndrome usually developed speech on a normal timetable. Dr. Forrester spoke more nails into the diagnostic coffin being built around her son.

A tendency to place things in order. Alex had taken his sixty-four-crayon set and arranged them in patterns on the floor. But, unlike what the doctor said, Alex didn’t just line them up like rainbow soldiers. There were patterns, like stars, triangles, pentagons (but never a square...why was that?). The colors that made up each pattern seemed to matter as well. Complex shapes required shades in the same color family. Paired crayon groups were usually opposites on the color wheel.

A lack of social interaction. Yes, Alex didn’t make a lot of friends at day-care. He seemed happiest when left alone to paint shapes on an easel or to draw patterns in the sand-finger-box. The books he chose were those with the fewest words and the most colorful pages. The teachers and aides had commented to her that Alex would take his finger and trace the lines in those books that divided up the contrasting colors. Alex wasn’t completely anti-social, though. He did participate, at times, but gravitated to a relative few. Those few also seemed to lean to the solitary side.

A fear or upset reaction to sudden or unexpected noises. Sometimes. Thunder didn’t please Alex, especially when it was a real thunderclap. He held his hands to his ears and kept them there until the storm had moved off far enough for the thunder to be only a gentle rumble. The lightning, though, fascinated him; it was bright light against the darkened sky. Contrast.

So, the good Wizard was right about Alex. Amelia was beginning to understand the way of things now and to accept it. But there were questions in her mind about other aspects of her son’s personality.

Wesley, on the other hand, was being more practical detail conscious. Doctor Forrester, should we take Alex out of his pre-K at Beginnings? He seems to like it there and we’re happy with the staff, but would he be better off in a more specialized setting?

Logical, thought Dr. Forrester. Interesting dynamics in this family, like halves of the human brain. The husband was the logical, mathematical half. Was the mother the imaginative, emotional side?

I’d say no, Mr. Halder. We don’t try to force autistic children into accepted norms. Autism isn’t some weak mental muscle that needs to be exercised to make a child normal again. It’s a mind that functions differently, sees things differently. Since Alex has to live in a world that the autistic community calls ‘neurotypicals’, the game plan is to find environments where he can socially interact on a level comfortable for him, where advances can be made at his own speed and in his own unique ways. If Beginnings is such a place, then my advice is to keep him there. The clock was running and there were other duties. Dr. Forrester was feeling the need to wrap up this package and move on when the mother finally spoke. She had been mostly quiet all during this process.

Doctor, Alex has an imaginary friend, I think. Is this normal for autistics?

Imaginary friends were normal for normal children, Dr. Forrester thought. But the incidence for this emotional outlet in autistics? It never came up before. Might make an interesting study. He asked the mother to give him more details. Sometimes imaginary friends were a blessing, or a curse.

Well, we keep a monitor in his bedroom in case he has a hard time getting to sleep or wakes from a nightmare. I can hear him talking to someone. It’s been that way for, well, Wesley? Her husband was the detail person.

Doctor Forrester, it started really since before Alex could talk. I just thought it was his practicing sounds, but it’s turned into conversations. I guess it’s been since he was about a year old.

That was a bit early for imaginary companions. He was no psychologist, but pediatric neurology had put him in contact with other arenas that affected children. Mrs. Halder, does your child act out during these conversations? I mean, does he get upset, violent, does he cry?

The mother thought about it, gently and slightly rocking her head in the curious way she did when she thought about things. No, I’d have to say no. It’s never when we’re there, only when he’s alone in his room. That can be at other times of the day, but most of the talk we hear is at night.

Alex looked up to the ceiling. Something had attracted his attention away from the finger-light-shadow game. Amelia added, Oh, yes, doctor. There is another thing. Alex changed the direction of his pointing finger to aim at the comer of the ceiling closest to him. He’s doing it now, yes, that’s what he does. Alex stared and pointed. Over the past year, the parents had given up looking at where their son was pointing. There was never anything there to look at. The doctor was new to the game, so he looked to see what might have attracted the child’s attention. There was nothing there except the intersection of walls and ceiling. You never knew what might attract an autistic’s mind.

It happens especially in certain places, like buildings, but it can happen outside as well. He’ll just stop and point and say ‘light’ or ‘lights’. Sometimes, he might say ‘tornado’, or ‘cloud’.

Right on the heels of the mother’s last word, Alex spoke his first word of the session. Lights. Dr. Forrester thought this sufficiently out of the norm, as if there was that much of a norm for autistic children in how they saw the world, for him to bring it to the attention of one of his colleagues, later. Congenital problems did show up more often in PDD children (Pervasive Development Disorder). Maybe there was a retinal problem, a detachment, perhaps? That could cause lights to show up in the visual field. The child was looking up. Maybe the strain on the retina by that action was aggravating the problem? He made more notes to follow up on.

Mr. and Mrs. Halder, I’m sorry, but we have to end our time together. Since you live in Troy, I’m going to direct you to a top resource at Samaritan Hospital department that specializes in this. They’re doing excellent research jointly with the college there: RPI. It’s actually a better place for you than Albany Memorial is. I’ve referred a number of people to them. So far, just about every one of them has been happy with the staff and programs. They also work with the families, kind of like Al-Anon. A child’s special needs can sometimes tear apart the rest of the family. They’ll help you over the hurdles and speed bumps you’ll meet along the way and they know resources for Alex as he gets older. That’s very important.

That got Wesley’s attention. What do you mean, Dr. Forrester? Will Alex get worse as he gets older?

The father was definitely the family planner/manager. Yet, the mother kept doing that head-nod thing. She also had a curious quirk of locking her fingers and rubbing her thumbs together. Just a nervous tic, or was there more to it?

No, Mr. Halder. Resources for infants and young children have always outstripped those for adolescents and young men and women. As long as I can remember, our country has funneled the most funds into research that dealt with childhood problems. Maybe it’s because we’re naturally more protective of children than we are of teenagers, who are far more independent and don’t traditionally even want our help. Because of that, resources for assistance in living, transportation, job placement and other things older autistics may require is harder to find. The Samaritan/RPI program has been helping to change that, along with a network across the country of other programs built on the model pioneered not all that far from your home. I’m sure you’ll hear the town of Woodstock mentioned many times in the next few years. You’ll also find several international networks on the world web that will answer questions you don’t even know enough to ask, yet.

The doctor’s words were very comforting. Wesley made a note to send the man some appreciatory gift, perhaps a plant arrangement. Amelia preferred a more immediate demonstration. When they all stood up, she hugged the Wizard. Thank you, Dr. Forrester. Thank you, ever so much. Wesley opted for a more manly handshake, though he had been tempted to follow his wife’s example. Alex only took his mother’s hand and began to walk with her out the door of the conference room. He looked up to the ceiling again, pointed, and said, Good-bye.

That action distracted Amelia, not to mention the two men in the room, and that caused a near collision with a gurney being wheeled down the hospital corridor. This upset the mother more than the child, and the doctor’s detail-trained eye observed the mother’s free hand briefly flap about like a wounded butterfly as part of her distress expression. He nodded understanding and, as the parents escorted their only child down the hall and to the exit, Dr. Maxwell Winston Forrester added one more item in the notes he would transfer to the Samaritan Hospital PDD Programs Department.

It was a three-letter abbreviation. They would understand what it meant. He wrote ‘BAP?’ in the section labeled ‘relatives/mother’ and then closed the folder. The secretaries would take it from there. For now, he had to put this case on the shelf with the thousand others, past and present, which had touched his life. It was time for another case.

Chapter 2 - GET WITH THE PROGRAM

Nurse Physician Kristy Lange represented an innovation over the past decade to meet increasing health care needs with declining numbers of medical doctors. Legions of MD’s had dropped out of the picture due to the heavy handedness of three letter entities (PPO, IPA, HMO) that hired and fired more on the basis of who would order the fewest tests and accept the lowest fees for services. The insurance shadow-federation’s iron grip became known to potential students of the medical arts, causing many to seek alternative avenues for livelihoods. A major effort to unionize the medical profession had gained significant momentum around 2010, but what might have been a decisive helping hand of congressional clout from the AMA’s resources had been significantly muted by anti-PAC legislation. The need for interim medical providers had initially been addressed with Nurse Practitioners and Physician’s Assistants, but there evolved a greater need for higher decision making capable professionals regarding more invasive procedures and treatments.

Arise the Nurse Physician (NPh), capable of and empowered to perform minor surgery, practice psychology/psychiatry, prescribe and order more advanced therapeutic and diagnostic procedures, as long as they functioned under the umbrella of an overseeing MD that was board certified in managing the ever evolving pyramid structure of health care providers. The end result was that GP had evolved from ‘General Practitioner’ to ‘Grand Puppeteer’, more of a health care systems manager than a practicing healer.

This wasn’t always the case. There were still MD-GP’s, and others who specialized in advanced medicine on a dozen fronts (such as neurology, orthopedics, forensic science, space medicine, emergency obstetrics). There were also Osteopaths (DO’s), Oriental Doctors (OD’s), Chiropractors (DC’s), and other ‘doctor’ classifications (never mind the PT’s, DPM’s, DDS’s, MTs, PA’s and NP’s) that often intimidated the new entrant into the American Health Care System. When you added to the cauldron that each state had its own set of unique rules for every field’s scope of practice limitations, you approached a tangled confusion rivaling the ‘Gordian Knot’. Yet, somehow, the system managed to lumber along, grudgingly allowing people who were truly dedicated in helping their fellow man to ply a trade that actually did people some good.

NPh Kristy Lange prepared to meet her newest challenge. This one was a four-year-old boy referred from Albany Memorial by a respected colleague, Dr. Forrester. This was her third new patient that day and she hadn’t had the time to go over the preliminary findings written by Dr. Forrester. Since this case was a high-functioning autistic, it hadn’t merited a high priority on her time crunch. The PDD Department of Samaritan Hospital had expanded to a point where they had to take over one of Samaritan’s satellite buildings it leased from the City of Troy. Happily for her (she loved old architecture), the PDD Department was housed in a Victorian three-story on Tibbets Avenue. That put it only a little bit out of the way from the main hospital grounds, with the RPI campus nesting on a line directly between her office and the ‘medical mother ship’.

With the family waiting in her office, she took a quick tea break to review the case. Walking in cold just wasn’t done, ever. She hadn’t finished scanning the first page when her head cocked to one side. Kristy sat down at the staff-room table, took another sip of tea and began reading again, carefully. A Physician’s Assistant was quietly eating his late lunch with a Speech Therapist lady-friend, and both overheard the NPh begin to mutter, ...BAP, shadow traits, mother, imaginary companion, lights, Asperger’s, contrast fixation, father/manager...

She closed the folder and mused upon a case that was sufficiently interesting that her Albany colleague pulled a string or three to get this one in ahead of the waiting list. Max Forrester knew Kristy Lange from the time she interned at Albany Memorial three years previous. Max was one of the better resources in the NPh program; he was one of the few MD instructors there that didn’t come off as ‘snooty’. Despite the certification, gender and age differences, the two of them hit it off early in the program.

Both loved the field of pediatrics in general and the arena of progressive development disorders in specific. Once in a while, Max would find an interesting case for her and him to brainstorm on. It looked like she was going to have to brew up a pot tonight in order to stay awake long enough to give Max a report. Kristy got up and walked to her office.

While her husband pecked away at his portable PC, entering numbers and items incomprehensible to her, Amelia took in the feel of the office. It was almost four times the size of the Wizard’s consultation room. The furniture was far more comfortable, and the decor was much more calming and reassuring. She liked the pictures of laughing and smiling children being held by the person they were going to soon see. Some of those children were obviously challenged on at least the intellectual front. What did Dr. Forrester call them? ‘Neuro-atypicals’. Yet, all of them seemed as happy as the person they embraced. There was also a wall completely festooned with cartoon pictures. Many were framed cells from old and new programs and many more were hand-drawn renditions of those characters.

Alex was often glued to the television, especially when something slapstick funny was showing. Since he preferred contrasting colors, cartoons usually won out over live-actor shows. Amelia had come to know quite a few of the characters portrayed on the wall. Warner Brothers was well represented, with characters like Daffy Duck, Yosemite Sam, Taz and Marvin the Martian. Disney had a healthy showing of their usual gang of princes and princesses, dwarves and talking animals. There were more recent innovations of the Q-Balls, The Chinchillas (Alex had outgrown those cutesy brainless computer animations, thank heavens) and Banana Man.

That wall had flagged down her son’s undivided attention the moment they were ushered into the office. Alex’s finger was going into overtime as he pointed to each picture he recognized, whispered the name, traced the outline, and moved onto the next picture. The one that held his attention the longest, however, was his favorite character: Daffy Duck. Amelia thought the children’s renditions were cute, but Alex was snagged to the four-picture framed work. The upper left showed the duck on a stage doing some kind of a dance with a cane, striped jacket and straw hat. The one to the immediate right had Daffy’s beak twisted off to the viewer’s right and a smoldering head with a long-suffering expression on it. Oh, yes, she remembered that classic sequence. Shoot him now, shoot him now! He doesn’t have to shoot you now. I insist! Shoot me now! Boom!

Amelia remembered how hard Alex had laughed at that one. She did, too, and both of them screeching was enough to bring Wesley out of his accounting room to see what the ruckus was. Wesley wasn’t ‘into’ television, but he did manage a brief chuckle from the rest of the cartoon before he went back into sequestration to earn a living for his family.

The lower left picture was a group shot of the whole Warner Brothers crew. But it was the lower right that Alex kept returning to, kept staring at, and kept touching. Daffy’s bust rendition was smiling in a typical publicity pose with an eggshell white background. It would have been a black and white picture, were it not for the orange beak. She found curious comfort in that presentation. At the center of a black and white scene devoid of anything found in a rainbow, there was still color to be found. Within that colored beak was portrayed an attitude of confidence, friendliness and humor. Amelia was thinking that she would very much like to own that picture for her own when the door to the office opened.

Kristy Lange liked to take a mental snapshot of her first meeting with a client family. The father was sitting alone with a PC on his lap, looking a little flustered at the sudden interruption of whatever it was he was doing. The mother was standing a few feet behind her son and both of them were focused on the Daffy Duck section of the cartoon wall. The son was up close and personal with the lower right image of Daffy. A single image like this could do as much as an hour-long interview in painting the dynamics of a family, and it was often a more honest presentation that avoided the carefully sculpted images that parents tried to portray to the world.

Kristy’s post-meeting notes would state that the father appeared dutifully busy, yet removed from the warmer aspects of family life. The mother was more bonded to the child, sharing his interests. The son was typical of neuro-atypicals, attracted to the colorful characters represented on the wall that they often fixated upon. This one was especially attracted to Daffy Duck, the third most black and white of her wall’s slapstick characters (equal in mishaps only to Wyle E. Coyote, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam, and nudged out of the running for lack of actual color to Sylvester the Cat and Pepe LePew).

Daffy was one of the older but enduring characters with timeless personality quirks that had entertained people for almost a century. Her favorite was his quote that he may just be a little duck, but he was a GREEDY little duck. How many neurotypicals did she know that this could be readily applied to? Given her last few attempts at dating, all too many.

Good afternoon. Sorry I’m late. You must be Mr. and Mrs. Halder. I’m Nurse Physician Kristy Lange. Follow-up impressions included that the father was first to get up and greet with a firm but perfunctory handshake. The mother had more difficulty tearing herself away from what she was doing in order to deliver a much softer double hand embrace that expressed more emotional content and intensity. The son, Alex, never left the cartoon wall.

Not that she expected him to. They rarely did. Media fixation was a powerful thing all along the autistic spectrum. What she sensed so far was that this was a functional-dysfunctional family. The father and mother were both people with issues that could stand some psychological scrutiny, but they actually complemented each other to a degree that might prevent her from ever suggesting that they seek help. How many working relationships like this were torn apart by well meaning therapists? Sometimes it was best for everyone not to let on that the Emperor’s new clothes were a tad threadbare.

After words were exchanged between hopeful parents and the pediatric professional, Kristy specifically asked the mother to introduce her to Alex. It wouldn’t do for her to approach the child without his closest soul mate as an intermediate. Relationships were made or unmade on first impressions and autistics often had long memories of bad first impressions.

Kristy took Amelia’s hand and kept it in hers for Alex to see. Amelia spoke in her gentle-careful voice she used to interrupt one of Alex’s full absorption times. Alex. Alex. Alex. It’s mommy. Look at me, sweetheart. Let Daffy go for a little while. He’ll wait there for you. I want you to meet someone. Look at my face, Alex. That’s a good boy. I love you. Look at Kristy, Alex. She’s your friend, Alex. Say hello to your new friend.

Kristy noted the typical pattern of speech the mother used. The child’s name was repeated, a lot. The tone was singsong and comforting, gentle, warm and loving. It didn’t vary greatly in tone frequency, which reduced its irritation factor to children often hypersensitive to outside stimulus. That she had to identify herself implicated that the mother knew her child was, for the time being, walled off from the outside world as he fixated upon the objects before him.

Alex’s attention was pulled from the fascinating wall of colors. He looked at the lady his mother was introducing him to. Other ladies she had presented had been nice to him, like the teachers at Beginnings and some of the people who would stay with him when his parents went away. This one had a comfortable feel, too. But this was an office place, wasn’t it? The lady before him wore brown slacks and a fuzzy yellow shirt. You aren’t a Wizard. You don’t wear white.

Wesley was mystified. Kristy suspected. Amelia knew. Alex, Kristy is a different kind of Wizard. She is very smart and helpful and nice and she has left her white jacket in another room. The NPh cued in and followed suit in a similar sing-song cadence.

Hello, Alex. Please call me Kristy. I would like to be your friend. Do you like Daffy Duck, Alex? That was an action step that might help or not. She had made contact surprisingly fast for a first-time autistic encounter. Directing him back to the wall might initiate a deeper connection, or lose his attention. She waited to see what he would do, while the mother instinctively backed away a few steps to give the two people space. Wesley remained on the couch, watching, and listening.

Alex turned back to the framed series and pointed to the lower right. He’s funny. He shifted his aim to the ‘shoot him now’ image. Do you think he’s funny when Elmer Fudd shoots him?

Most people would answer right off in the affirmative. Kristy knew that one had to be careful with implied violence, especially with PDD children. They didn’t always know the difference between media and real life. It’s funny, Alex, in cartoons where the characters don’t actually get hurt.

Alex slowly lowered his hand and leaned forward a little more to look at the portrait. The great entertainer looked back at him with the warm familiarity he had come to know from the videos. Is Daffy Duck real?

Decision gate. Answer a question with a question or an answer? Both. Alex, cartoons are real only on the television. They talk to each other, but they don’t talk back to you, do they? Do you think cartoons are real? Normal questions for any Asperger’s Syndrome child, so far.

Alex took that thought in. Lady Wizard was wise. She knew. They are real to each other. You’re only real if you can talk to each other.

Remembering the comments and observations Max had written, Kristy took advantage of Alex’s close proximity to the wall and directed his attention higher up to Banana Man. He was some kind of simian superhero who got his charge from the yellow fruit and was popular, nowadays. She found him a bit on the shallow side of bravado. The new just never had the depth of personality of the old, it seemed.

What do you think of Banana Man? His picture is up higher. Do you see it? She carefully observed. Alex raised his vision to the top of the wall. He had seen Banana Man before, but it didn’t do much for him. Characters didn’t blow up with blackened features, only to show up in the next scene with their faces cleaned and their clothes repaired. The picture didn’t even rate a finger point. Instead, his eyes went back down to rest on the now familiar and comfortable portrait series of the feisty duck. Kristy asked, Alex, did you see any lights when you looked up?

The boy went back to finger pointing and tracing the picture. Kristy sensed it was time to give him a little space and so went back to speak softly to the parents. Your son connected with me surprisingly fast. That’s a very good thing.

Wesley said, But he didn’t answer your last questions.

I know, Mr. Halder, but that’s to be expected. Questions are requested connections between people. With autism, you have to discover the things you can connect with that has meaning to the child. Trying to force a response usually only pushes them further away from you. Alex may use English to communicate, but the words and concepts may hold different meanings to him. This is part of the great value within these children that is only now being realized. They challenge our starched concepts with completely new ways of looking at life and ideas. Alex is very high functioning, so he may well grow up to be someone with wonderful gifts to give people like us. Keep that in mind in the future, when I guarantee you will both be frustrated and angry.

The light of hope began to grow in both parents’ eyes. That light began to give color to Amelia’s gray visions of her son’s future. Lady Wizard was pulling the nails out of Alex’s medical coffin. Her heart was feeling less heavy and she was about to say so when Alex spoke up, showing that questions not responded to right away should not be forgotten by the questioner. No, no lights, not here. Kristy, I think it’s funny when Daffy says, ‘You’re dith-picable.’ Don’t you?

Kristy left the couple to return to the friendship bonding process, leaving Wesley and Amelia holding each other in their arms. The NPh decided on passive progression for today. Diagnostic examinations and queries into lights and invisible companions could wait for the next session.

That evening, Kristy Lange sipped her cup of half regular/half decaf and looked at her PC screen. Her friend and mentor had listened to her review of Alex’s first interview. Not bad, Kiddo. You made a greater connect with the boy than I did with all of my face-time with him. Tomography studies here showed nada and ditto with the wakeful and sleep EEG series. Nuclear studies were also zip. So, with no organic diagnostics left for you to fall back on, what’s your game plan?

Max Forrester had just pointed out that she had most of the standard imaging procedures already ‘done deals’ with no resulting insights. Well, you didn’t leave me much for the toy boys to play with. For some reason, staff members that ran the expensive diagnostic tools were, more often than not, male. What was it with guys and gadgets? We’ll do the usual function rating questionnaires, but they won’t tell me much more than I already know. Alex will show up in the upper tenth percentile, most likely, maybe even in the top five percent slot. I want to find out where he can shine, so we’ll do the aptitude indicators as well.

Autistics could be musical, artistic, mathematic and/or poetic in degrees that would startle Joe Average. They weren’t savants, where someone could tell what day of the week any date in a five thousand year time span would fall on. That was almost computer-like. Autistics weren’t like that. There was both a creativity and unique perception capacity that actually appreciated life. If she could find what strong point field(s) Alex’s mind and talents chose to wander in, she could both walk there with him with far greater connectedness and, at the same time, direct his parents as to where their son just might make a name for himself.

The face on the screen nodded. That’s the smart approach. You might want to have your ophthalmologist check him out for retinal detachment, too. Those lights his parent’s report he sees concern me a bit. Alex is very visual and I’d hate for him to lose that strong point. Did you talk to the mother about her BAP?

She knew he was going to ask about that. Broader Autistic Phenotype was a common term for those traits one or both parents of an autistic child might demonstrate. ‘Shadow Traits’ was the more common term for a wide spectrum of what the lay community would see as personality quirks and idiosyncrasies. These were the oddballs, the wallflowers, the nerds and the different drummer marchers; never being quite in step or in synch with the standard peer groups and often forced to create a peer group of their own.

No, Max, I didn’t. What’s more, I may never. What would be the point? The parents click in their own way. To throw in destabilizing changes when they’re going to need all the stability they can get just doesn’t seem smart to me. Besides, I sense a little guilt on the mother’s part and resentment on the father’s part for Alex’s autism. Why reinforce it with scientific mumbo-jumbo that will just add fuel to that fire? You know something?

Tangent time. That was the key phrase for Kristy’s going off into a related but different direction. It’s late, Kristy. Is this going to take a while?

She laughed. No, just a thought that occurred to me while Alex was at the cartoon wall. The entertainment mass media has actually put out a reasonable effort at getting kids to accept others who are out of the norm. That was part of my thesis, you recall? ‘From Banana Man to Powerpuff Girls?’ Oddball isolation still happens, but it tends to happen later in children’s lives. What happens to all that morality these shows teach the kids about accepting others despite their differences?

Dr. Max Forrester scribbled a note on his pad. This NPh had just given him the thesis he was going to assign a particular wise-ass intern who had been a thorn in his side. It was time for the future PA, Mr. Fred Fudala, to put up or shut up.

Hard to say, but it’s a good thought. Off the top of my head, I’d say that, as kids get older, the programs they gravitate to are either action/adventure or social/romance. Those programs don’t have the thrust for accepting ‘outside the norm’ that the pre-teen programs do. That gets even worse with programs aimed at adults, whom the children model themselves after. Tell you what. I’m laying that little egg as a research project on that Alabama brat I told you about last week. You’ll get a copy of his thesis outline next week when I get it from him.

Kristy smiled. She’d been responsible for half a dozen thesis topics for Max’s intern ducklings. It was a source of pride for both of them that two of those projects had found their way into the medical journals. Give’m hell, Max. Just don’t tell him where you got the idea. I like my tires with air in them, thank you. Good night. The face on the screen didn’t say another word, but gave a wink just before the disconnect.

Wesley and Amelia were bedding down. Their earlier reassurances were still there, but what was coming over the monitor from Alex’s room haunted them. The Nurse Physician hadn’t gotten into the companion situation. Did she know about it? Wesley decided he would tell her at the next session in three days. It was Friday night. They both looked at the monitor as it faithfully relayed their son’s voice. She’s really nice, the Lady Wizard. And you should see her room. It has a whole wall of cartoon pictures, [pause] Really! Even Daffy Duck and Yosemite Sam. [pause] No, I don’t remember seeing Pepe LePew. I’ll tell you the ones I do remember. Roadrunner, Banana Man, Bugs Bunny...

On it went. It sounded like Alex would take a while to wind down. Since he couldn’t take any action steps, Wesley gave up and allowed himself to drift off to sleep. Amelia, though, would almost always listen until Alex finally fell asleep. She heard her son give an accounting of the cartoon wall’s membership, including descriptions of children’s renditions of each character. That took a long time and his voice had begun to slow down into a whispery tone that was punctuated by yawns and lip smacks. Alex had never mentioned his friend’s name and he seemed loath to talk about it to parent or professional. Yet, whatever the cause of this verbal dump, Alex spoke more in the closing half hour or so each night than he did during the entire preceding day. Her connectedness to her son got her to yawning along with him. Yeah, I’m sleepy. I’ll talk with you tomorrow. Good night.

Chapter 3 - WEDNESDAY: LIGHTS

‘This is Nurse Practitioner Kristy Lange. It is April 12th, twenty- forty-nine. Subject, Amanda Rowling. Category, Rett’s Syndrome. Amanda’s results from tomographic imaging have returned, adding ‘basilar insufficiency’ to her growing list of documented congenital problems. Her personal physician had given a poor prognosis for the subject to live past her eighteenth birthday and this new finding may further reduce that expectancy. The parents have been informed and understand. Since the child is thirteen, they will discuss the advisability of taking Amanda out of her IEP (Individualized Educational Program) in favor of the family traveling and spending as much time together as they can. I advised caution, for Amanda has come to rely on the structure of the program she is in. Removing her from it would very likely cause far more upset to her than they realize and this turmoil could well shorten her life expectancy even further. No decision will be made until next week, when they have an appointment to see Dr. San Amu, their supervising physician. Maintain current medication program with no changes of dosage or timing. End report."

Kristy leaned back and rubbed her eyes. It wasn’t the best way for her to begin her professional