An Aspie Tells Tales Read online

  William offered his outstretched cupped hands that cradled what appeared to be a perfectly detailed newborn baby with eyes closed in peaceful sleep. Her left thumb slipped to the first joint into the tiny rose-petal lips while her bent hips drew the tiny legs halfway towards the inch-long umbilical cord. Her knees bent slightly into a natural fetal position that only the very young find comfortable. Except for the too-pink color of the soft plastic, the infant was perfect in every way. Mary extended a tentative finger to touch the fanned-out right hand and traced each finger.

  "It... she is so incredible. There are even cuticle beds beneath the fingernails, and eyelashes! How?"” asked Mary in wondered tones.

  "I downloaded the six-month sonograms, expanded them to approximate birth size, uploaded to the three-D printer, and a few hours later, there she was! If you run your teeth along the back of the head, you can feel the individual layers the solidifying laser built up from the liquid slurry.”

  "I'll do no such thing!" she interrupted, offended by the very idea, "She is special, though, thank you my genius lover."

  ~o0o~

 

  William set the temperature to slightly below scalding, slid into the generous sized antique claw-foot tub, and closed his eyes for what he planned to be only a few moments. He sighed in pure contentment, both from the relaxing heat and his life in general. He opened his eyes, ready to get on with the job of matrimonial-level grooming.

  The sun had dropped below the Bay hills, which lowered the ambient light within the unfamiliar room. He could not find the soap anywhere within reach and thought he might have missed it in the dark. The light switch, an old-fashioned dipole punch-button from the house’s original conversion to electricity, was a full arm's length beyond his reach.

  He seriously did not want to get out of the water into the cooling air. He stayed mostly submerged as he reached for the three-legged iron toilet-paper holder and attempted to use it as a remote control. He slid back against the fluted end of the tub and reached the white-circled "on" button of the light switch.

  His weight shifted at just the wrong time and his slippery body slid along the porcelain so that the iron rod touched both buttons at the same time. The deteriorated wiring arced in a direct ground and completed an electrical circuit into the water through William's highly conductive body.

  Mary at first thought how nice that William put on the teakettle, but the chattering whistles became a staccato scream as William's vocal cords tightened from the electrocution. She abruptly realized her beloved husband was in distress and ran through the doorway. William was ridged on his back and his extended legs pushed his shoulders past the lip of the tub. His cramped hand gripped the iron rod of its own accord and his entire body vibrated in agony. His final movements before the circuit breaker tripped were fluttered eyelids that made the whites appear to strobe.

  Mary grabbed her new husband's hand without thought of consequence and reached to remove the metal rod. A final electrical surge arced to her hand an inch before she made contact and threw her back onto the toilet tank. The fifty-year-old fuse finally melted and cut power.

  For William, it was too late as Death separated spirit from flesh. A few moments of eternal pain later, Mary felt her child exit the womb. After three struggled breaths, the infant's soul met her father's, who gently and lovingly gathered her tiny bemused spirit to his ectoplasmic chest.

  Mary lay at a balance point, half in each world, wholly in neither. She slowly came to awareness as the room swayed and bobbed around her. She finally noticed William and their baby as they undulated in synch with the room. Mary realized it was she who was in motion and was floating a foot above her bloody contorted body.

  There was an ethereal, braided cord that connected her ghost-navel to that of her almost-corpse. She ran a hand from her belly down the cord and pulled. The action wafted her towards the floor until she was softly swaying on her feet. Mary’s voice, when she finally spoke, was wispy and tenuous, modulated like waves on a shallow sandy beach.

  "Oh, William! This can't be happening. We can't be...this is our wedding day!"

  She refused to look towards or in any way acknowledge her baby's blue tinged unmoving body as it lay on the floor between her bent legs. Williams voice sounded soft and far away but was clear and full of sadness.

  “You are still alive, my light and my love. Keep us always in your heart. I don't know exactly where we are going, but I can feel the pull. I do, somehow, know for a certainty that you will continue to an enviable age. When it is your time, our baby girl and I will be there to meet you. I promise."

  He paused for a moment to kiss his daughter’s ethereal forehead while she sounded a soft, bubbly coo as if in agreement.

  "She says her name is Margaret, and that she loves you very much. I'll have to call her Margie though, because to me, "Margaret" will always be your great-aunt. That woman still intimidates the bejesus out of me, and I really hope she won't meet us on the other side. Not that I expect her to have ended up in heaven."

  William's sardonic humor was, for him, so classically normal that Mary momentarily forgot their surreal situation. William also had a phantom umbilical that connected his body and soul. It slowly pulsed with mother-of-pearl light and dissipated starting at the corpse, reminiscent of a slow-burning fuse.

  Baby Margie's tether to the mortal realm also began to undergo the same transformation. Mary, forced past her denial, issued a challenge toward God, or the universe at large should He/She/They not be listening.

  "No. NOnononono! I am NOT losing my family!"

  Mary grabbed a double handful of her life-anchoring cord, and despite the bottomless well of pain, pulled, and yanked. She was intent on breaking the bond in order to travel on with those she loved more than life itself.

  "Mary, please...I don't know the full consequences, but I do know you will suffer if you do not stop.

  “I!-pull-Don’t!-yank-Care!-pull”

  An ugly black bruise enlarged around her body's abdomen with each pull. A fully formed idea appeared in William's mind, but from where he could not tell. He paused and weighed the alternatives presented to him.

  The choice was an eternal horror he knew faced his beloved bride, or an open-ended sentence of imprisonment for this daughter who captured his heart the moment she was conceived. He made his choice, pressed his phantom lips once again to Margie's tiny forehead, and tenderly laid her spirit into the realistic model doll of herself.

  Margie’s new surrounding felt...familiar. It was unyielding and confined, yet she felt much more comfortable than during her brief stint in the outside world. She automatically curled herself to conform to the doll and jammed her spirit thumb into her mouth. She relaxed and fell into the first restful slumber since her birth or death.

  "Mary, look, she's bonding. Margie is not going anywhere for quite some time. She needs her Mommy to look after her and love her."

  A soft glow pulsated from the remnant of plastic umbilical stub as the formerly inanimate object gained life, of a sort. Mary sobbed and gave up her struggles, then collapsed in a slow motion and fell back into her still breathing body. She opened her eyes and was overwhelmed by pain, both physical and emotional. She wanted to drop into catatonic despair and never come out.

  A stab of white-hot pain impaled her uterus and forced a scream that echoed off the bathroom tiles. In the after-silence, she heard a non-directional thin cry, unmistakably that of a hungry baby. Mary half-rolled off the commode base where she had been thrown and reached for her daughter, or at least where she knew her daughter resided. She brought the fetal model to her breast and heard Margie gurgle, happy and content. Of course, no milk passed through the unmoving plastic lips. But then, what is Mother's milk other than a conduit for a Mother's love, the perfect nourishment for any soul.

  Mary knew she must remain alive, to honor her husband's sacrifice and to ensure the happiness of her daughter. She was too weak to crawl, but after a few
heroic attempts she could hooked her foot through William's discarded tuxedo jacket. He always kept his phone in the same pocket, and was consistent to the end.

  ~o0o~

  The next sixty-five years, Mary and Margie led a simple, timeless life. Every morning after breakfast, baby would receive a careful bath. After toweling and dressing, they moved a small ornate prom from room to room while Mother went about her daily running of the estate. At four in the afternoon, weather permitting, Baby would be appropriately dressed and they took luncheon under the veranda in the high-walled back garden.

  They spent evenings together either in the conservatory for piano practice, reading classics out loud in the library, or with needlework and mending in the drawing room. A light snack before retiring, then Margie would be dressed warmly in hand-knitted bedclothes and placed in her bassinet beside Mary’s bed. Every other Saturday, they received visitors in the rear entrance, mostly grocery-deliveries and tradesmen. They received the occasional charity representative in the anteroom, where in exchange for humoring Mary's eccentricity each received a carefully calculated tax offset.

  One Saturday each month, they met with a junior partner of her trusted legal retainers in the overly masculine study to sign the usual variety of documents. Her portfolio seemed regularly to increase so that money was, for them, irrelevant to their lifestyle. The smartly attired agents were always solicitous of Margie’s' welfare and never failed to bring her a small gift which ended up on a special-built shelf above her bassinet.

  For Margie, the outside world simply didn't exist. Mary kept neither radio nor TV, and the rhythm of each week turned to seasons which turned to decades. Margie grew strong in will and spirit on her mother's love and devotion and felt only harmless amusement issue from the few visitors. She never grew up, in the normal sense, but she did mature with age.

  Mary also aged, in the full traditional way of life. While she baked a small cake for their shared (her ninety-first) birthday, she suffered a debilitating stroke. This was on a Friday morning but due to her otherwise good health she survived until a concerned grocery delivery boy found her the next afternoon.

  Despite her doctor's concerns, Mary's solicitors engaged a home-care team that included an on-site nurse twenty-four seven. Mary remained bed-ridden and unable to either talk or grasp small items. As the care workers soon learned, the only time she made a fuss was when they removed her "baby" to change the linens and give Mary her scheduled sponge bath.

  When Mary's terminal breath finally signaled the end of a long and arguably fulfilled life, Margie watched her mother's spirit dissipate in a scintillating fog of translucent color. She passed in a peaceful sleep so different from the stress of a violent death of her beloved groom so many years earlier.

  Margie could tell this moment was near for the past couple of days. She had hoped to tell her mother good-by and maybe return a hug between spirits in appreciation of a lifetime of shared plastic ones. Mary fell into a coma at the end and missed her own translation into the next world so Margie never got the chance. As her mother's body cooled, Margie realized for the first time in her entire experience that she was alone.

  ~o0o~

  The coroner's assistant wheeled the body away and closed the bedroom door behind. That was the last person Margie saw for the next month. She experienced loneliness, boredom, and finally fear. On the third night, she felt claustrophobic and panicked. She slowly drifted out of her plastic body and floated in the middle of the room. She hadn't known she could do that! As she calmed, Margie wondered what other undiscovered talents she had.

  She caught a pearlescent glow at the corner of her vision and slowly rotated until the diffuse light was in the center of her view. She wanted a closer look and without conscious volition floated towards the light. She had stopped an inch before they touched. Margie giggled in tinkling laughter at herself as she realized she was looking into her mother's vanity table mirror.

  There was not much to see but a dim smear of translucent colors that slowly wavered in and out of sight. In the full light of day, Margie discovered she was all but invisible. Direct sunlight also made her sluggish and tired. She simply re-entering the familiar body substitute she had occupied since shortly after she came into the world and napped the day away.

  She spent her nights exploring and discovered she could ooze her way through walls, floors and ceilings with little effort. She was even able to hover outside the window a story above the garden. There were, she soon found, limitations. After twenty feet in any direction she began to feel a tug in the area she pictured her abdomen lay.

  Further away than that she experienced increasing pain in her belly, as well as a panicky paranoia. One night, overcome with loneliness and despair, she took the equivalent of a running start and felt a snap when she exceeded her limit. She awoke in the morning ensconced in her plastic body, rudely startled as the bedroom door opened with a bang. That was the day her life changed forever.

  "Dang, this furniture looks heavy! We'll need to break it all down. Get to it, boys."

  "Hey boss, I can't find the hardware, no bolts or screws or nothin'."

  “Idiots. These are real antiques, early eighteenth-century German, I'd say. That's why the auction house is so excited to have them for tonight's show. They're all put together with hand-made wooden pegs, just follow the seams and pull. It's all solid wood, so don't worry about breaking it."

  "That did it. Just the furniture?"

  "Lazy bunch of bums! Yous should know the drill by now; clothes, blankets, and soft goods into the hinged bins. The stock manager will sort it later and donate all the junk for a hefty tax deduction, probably enough to pay all our salaries. Now, move butt!"

  ~o0o~

  Lavinia was four years old, barefoot, thin, and smudgy. She stood within a wonderland of desire and opulence, or what a more entitled family would consider a low-end second-hand store. The shiny metal forks and spoons mesmerized her, and she sighed as the light sparkled through the glass bowls and cups.

  Everything was all so much nicer than the used Tupperware and plastic picnic spoons she used at home. The toy shelf was an almost reverential experience. She learned through welts and bruises that these were all forbidden and willed herself to stand just out of reach, plus one more step back in case she wavered.

  She heard her momma arguing with the store lady behind the counter and knew it was time to go. Momma had a pile of pretty clothes. There were also shoes with really high heels that made Lavinia fall over when she tried to walk in them, and some big sparkly jewelry Momma covered herself with before she went out to work most nights.

  "The sign says all jewelry ten percent off on Tuesdays. This is Tuesday, and these is jewelry, and it's the law that you gotsta gimme the discount."

  “I already explained to you, Ma’am, you need a store discount card to get the discount. I'd be happy to give you the card if you'll just give me a phone number."

  "And I 'splained to you, biatch; that phone is for work only. I can't just give it out to anyone."

  "Look, give me any number, or just make one up."

  "I ain't no liar..."

  The line had backed up by nine more customers, and with her manager out on lunch break, the cashier made an executive decision.

  "Fine, I'll use mine. That's five pieces of jewelry, minus ten percent, here's your dollar back."

  Lavinia's momma had not really expected to win the fight, she seldom won anything, or she would have bought another egg of nylons or a nice hat. She glanced at the clock on the wall and knew she dared not get home late. On the other hand, if she still had the dollar Big Frank would just take it back, or give her a chin check for holding out on him.

  She noticed Lavinia had made it to the front of the store and was waiting on her. In a rare good mood from winning the argument, she bent down to her daughter.

  "Hey, baby, yo' birthday in two three days, take this and get a present."

  Lavinia's
eyes grew wide and she nearly lost her water as she tentatively reached for the first folding money she had ever touched in her life.

  "Hurry up, though, I ain't waiting."

  Home was only ten city blocks straight down the Boulevard, but it was a scary neighborhood for street-smart adults, let alone a not quite five-year-old. Lavinia ran fast as possible to the toy shelves, overwhelmed by the endless choices. She saw a newborn baby doll fall from the top shelf, almost as if it tipped over by itself. A small clear voice said, "Hello Lavinia, I'm Margie. Take me home and I'll be your best friend."

  Lavinia always tried to be a good girl and do what she was told, since it could be painful to not. She grabbed her new best friend and ran to the front, slapped the dollar up on the counter and waited politely if not patiently. The cashier looked at the four-ninety-nine price, remembered putting the ugly thing on the top shelf at least six months earlier, and her heart melted. She could not imagine what hell this poor little waif's life must be. The cashier pulled the tag and rang up one dollar and reached into the "take a penny leave a penny" jar for the sales tax. She was rewarded by a look of pure joy.

  ~o0o~

  Lavinia's room was the space beneath the stairs that lead up to Momma's room, which she was forbidden to climb. Sometimes Big Frank would sleep up there too, or sometimes other of Momma's friends, but they only stayed for an hour or less, usually a lot less. The rest of the downstairs consisted of an eight-by-twelve-foot room with a small kitchenette at one end and which shared the space with a curtained-off toilet and shower alcove.

  A black-and-white television, attached to a giveaway DTV converter box, stood against the outside wall. It was never turned off and provided Lavinia her main comfort and entertainment. She could not remember a time she was not left on her own during the long nights while Momma was out working. The television also provided Margie with an expanded, if somewhat skewed, exposure to the world at large.