Holding Up the Universe: List 4

I hack away like I’ve got tuberculosis until a woman appears at the door and wants to know what in the Great Fanny Adams is going on.

I hack away like I’ve got tuberculosis until a woman appears at the door and wants to know what in the Great Fanny Adams is going on.

“I’ll be okay.” I don’t actually mean to, but I sound like a martyr. I cough a little more.

“Face blindness is often genetic, but there are three categories of prosopagnosia: acquired, developmental, and congenital. It can also be a symptom of other disorders, such as autism. Did you ever experience a fall or a childhood illness of the brain?”

“Face blindness is often genetic, but there are three categories of prosopagnosia: acquired, developmental, and congenital. It can also be a symptom of other disorders, such as autism. Did you ever experience a fall or a childhood illness of the brain?”

“I think I’ve always been good at compensating and covering up. I mean, even back then. Maybe I could recognize people before, but I was so young.”

"It’s comparable to how you are with regular faces because the human processor only works with upright images. Unlike monkeys, who are adept at recognizing other monkeys, no matter the orientation.”

"It’s comparable to how you are with regular faces because the human processor only works with upright images. Unlike monkeys, who are adept at recognizing other monkeys, no matter the orientation.”

"It’s comparable to how you are with regular faces because the human processor only works with upright images. Unlike monkeys, who are adept at recognizing other monkeys, no matter the orientation.”

I lean on the chin rest and press my forehead against this contraption that looks like a mask.

She sits down across from me and says, “You’re definitely prosopagnosic. Prosopagnosia is on a continuum. You can be mildly bad or you can be profoundly face-blind. You are profoundly face-blind. In fact, you’re one of the most severe cases I’ve ever seen.”

"For so long, we’ve thought of the brain as one entity, but we’re learning now about all these separate machines, if you will, that are a part of its makeup, and the fact that these machines don’t interact with each other, that they aren’t even aware of each other.”

“Basically the face-processing area of my brain is either missing, defective, or unplugged? But if I do the MRI, there’s still no cure."

I’m staring out past the road into the great beyond, but after a while the blanket of silence starts to feel smothering, like it’s cutting off my circulation.

To his credit, he doesn’t go veering off the road.

Because to like someone back indicates reciprocating something that was already in existence. As in you liked her first.

We pass the high school and the college and the mortuary, and then, finally, we pull into my neighborhood.

I want to say You're the last person who should be reprimanding anyone.

“Hypothetically speaking, if—and I’m not saying I do—but if I was to like you, what would you want to do about it?”

But I say, wary as hell, “What situation is that?”

"...Take us to Indy...Take us to Indy...Indy...Indy...Indy...”
(Several indecipherable words followed by mad laughter.)

Even to me, my laughter sounds maniacal, but it doesn’t feel that way.

This is the best day of my life. I’m on the highway now and everything is whooshing by, but then I start whooshing along with it all, just like everyone else, like I actually belong out here in this world. Like I could drive all the way up into the clouds, propelled by happiness and freedom.

She gives me a smile that’s all slinky and seductive.

And suddenly I’m thinking about the daughter we’re destined to have. Beatrice, I think. We'll name her Beatrice.

Followed by: This chick Mary Katherine really reminds you of us? From what I can tell, she’s pretty much bats in the belfry.

I’m carried away on the notes, across the gym, high up into the rafters, out the doors, and through the school, all the way to Principal Wasserman’s office, until I'm outside in the sun, under the sky.

The girls on the bleachers giggle. I am dripping, but I dab at my upper lip and the back of my neck as demurely as Queen Elizabeth.

I search for anything I can use as coverage, for my face and from the monsoon.

In that instant, the flicker of panic sparks into an inferno.

Even though she’s done a terrible, horrific thing, Mary Katherine doesn’t feel anything—no pain or remorse or emotion.

Dusty’s sensitive, he’s honest. He’s a little eccentric.

And maybe because he knows some of this might be his fault, my dad says, “I believe you, Jack, but this is pretty bad. You need to make amends with the families.”

As I hang up the phone, I add a postscript to my prayer. Don’t let anyone hurt him. Including me.

I might conjure up a face from my memory or be able to think Mom, and instantly associate the word with a whole, added-up image of eyes, nose, mouth, the way everyone else does.