A Mango-Shaped Space: Chapters 5-8

The oversized chairs are white; the walls, covered with occasional landscape paintings, are white; and the plush carpet is the whitest of all.

“Remember, Mia, anything you say in here is confidential.”
I nod. Unfortunately, my only secret is already out.

Taken aback, I tell her no, I’ve never taken drugs.

She taps her pen rapidly on her desk and asks, “Are you familiar with middle child syndrome?”

“Who has the largest bedroom?” Ms. Finn asks bluntly.
“Beth does,” I admit.

“A child may devise an elaborate plan to get his or her parents’ attention,” she explains.

So another doctor will poke and prod and then send me to someone else.

“He’s at a conference in Europe, where it’s already the afternoon. He got the message I left yesterday and wanted to reassure us. He said that since you’ve had this condition your whole life without any other neurological impairments, he can rule out diseases such as epilepsy or tumors.”

She is standing by her bed, trying valiantly to squeeze her schoolbooks into a purple minibackpack that I haven’t seen before.

“If you spill salt, you have to throw some over your left shoulder to appease the evil spirits. No big deal.”

Like the rest of us, Mango had found the house’s little nooks and crannies that never quite fit together.

I cringe and sit down across from Zack.

In my haste I knock over the saltshaker.

Kids who totally ignored me before are clamoring to talk to me now.

Rain pelts the car as we drive through the university gates on Friday morning.

“Mia, you don’t have a disease. You don’t even have a problem, exactly. What you have, based on what your mother told me, is a condition that is harmless. It’s called synesthesia.”

In your case, your visual and hearing senses are linked. The visual cortex in your brain is activated when your auditory cortex is stimulated.

In your case, your visual and hearing senses are linked. The visual cortex in your brain is activated when your auditory cortex is stimulated.

We now believe that everyone is born with it, but for most people the extra neural connections are pruned away.

Seeing colored letters and numbers—lexical synesthesia—is the most common form, followed by colored hearing.

“Do you mean that everyone who has this synesthesia condition has all of these traits?” my mother asks, clearly skeptical.

“For instance, many people I’ve tested have problems with understanding math, but on the other hand, one of my former test subjects is now a college math professor. But it’s uncanny how many characteristics they do share.”

Jerry introduces us to his assistant—a perky graduate student named Debbie, who is wearing rainbow-striped overalls the likes of which I haven’t seen since old Brady Bunch reruns.

I explain that some letters are shiny, some are gauzy, some are grainy like wood.

Stimulants such as coffee and nicotine dampen synesthesia, and depressants such as alcohol can increase it.

The only really traumatic thing that I’ve been through is Grandpa’s death.

“The thing is,” I tell them, aware of the quiver in my voice, “my colors help me a lot too. I’m the best speller in my class, and I can remember history really well too. Phone numbers, names, everything. Well, everything except math and foreign languages. But what if I promise to always carry a calculator and to never travel to foreign countries?”

“Maybe it’s the eyes,” my mother says wistfully as she makes a sharp turn onto the highway entrance ramp.

“I mean, I know the bare bones of it from Zack, but I want to hear it from you.”

“At least I have friends,” Beth says indignantly.

I watch the pile of leaves quiver and shake, and out walks Mango, his fur bristling from being sat on.

I decide not to tell him that I ended up being sent back to tadpole after almost drowning another camper while I flailed around in the deep end.

By the time the bus finally lurches to our stop, I'm more than happy to get on it.

“I didn’t think any of you would understand what I'm going through. I'm sorry if schoolwork isn’t my first priority right now. Or even my second.”

“It was the first time a married couple had been executed. Also something about the first time American citizens were executed for spying in peacetime. It was very controversial.”