"It's 9.10 in the Keshling House and in the office Keshling is bent over the computer, trying to write a witty and entertaining blog post.
Nearby in the kitchen Carb Addict is prancing from one foot to the other in front of a docked iPod. He is holding a table knife up to his face and using it to look at his reflection from the corner of his eye. Simultaneously he is flicking rapidly through the Shuffled Songs, listening to the opening few bars of each one before moving on to the next. Is he looking for any song in particular?
Ping! 'Be My Baby'
Pong! 'Sex on Fire'
Pang! Everybody Wants to Rule the World'
Pow! 'At The Hop'
Zap! 'Jeepster'
Zhup! 'Dambusters March'
Zip! 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag'. Ah, Carb Addict decides to rewind this one 16 times, still only listening to the opening bars, before moving on.
Zow! 'What Difference Does It Make?'
"It's now 9.25 and back in the office Keshling is becoming irritated by Carb Addict's musical choices. She tells him to go and put his pyjamas on but instead he goes out into the garden and takes a small saw from the garage. It looks as if Carb Addict might be planning an assault on the apple tree. He is talking to himself but Keshling picks up a few random words...'postman', 'goodbye Janet, see you soon', 'Chessington World of Adventures', 'get up', 'weekend'.
"In the kitchen Keshling is getting the corn-popping machine out, Carb Addict is upstairs in his room changing out of his wet clothes and the small saw is in the pond. It's 9.45 and having given up the idea of a pithy blog post Keshling has ceded possession of the computer to Carb Addict who settles down in front of The Platters on YouTube with a big bowl of popcorn. Keshling repairs to the living room with the strains of the first few bars of 'Smoke Gets In Your Eyes' echoing in her head.
Night falls on Southampton."
Anybody who is familiar with Autism will be able to relate to the scene you've described. If I concentrate hard enough, I can hear the sound of 7 Autistic teens playing and replaying the sentences from films and songs for hours on end. I used to find it both comforting and excruciatingly irritating.
ReplyDeleteWhen my youngest was born, middle son was in full swing showing classic signs of Autism, playing the same DVD title sequence over and over and screaming hysterically when it stopped. He's been discharged from the hospital now - not enough traits for a diagnosis. When I sit watching him ask his dad the same questions over and over "is the mummy dead dad, is he a dead king dad?" and then request the same JLS track over and over, part of me knows this is never going to end.