Jason Dias's Blog - Posts Tagged "autism"
Exceprt from Finding Life on Mars
I shook my head, lifted off the helmet, stripped away the mask that covered my mouth and nose. Took one breath, exhaled, replaced the mask. Feeling no ill effects for a minute, I took off the mask again, took two breaths. I repeated the process until I breathed the interior air continuously.
"Why did you do that?" Merlin asked.
"I did not wish to risk you. You are too important to the colony," I said.
"The colony?"
"Yes."
He nodded, turned away so I could see nothing of his face. Then he started to take off his own helmet.
"Too much risk," I said. "If there is some toxin at work in here it may take time to affect..."
"What happens to you happens also to me," Merlin repeated. "You are too important to risk."
"I am of no consequence," I said.
"Perhaps, on the cosmic scale. And while you have some value to the colony, to me you are everything." The helmet was off now, mask lifted to rest on his forehead. He still faced away from me but his voice came clear through the atmosphere rather than through the headset now. "Parents die for their children. It is perverse for children to die for their parents. Illogical and undue."
"Tell me how it was," I said, rather than argue. "The last days on Earth. The first days here. How was it to fly through space?"
"Why did you do that?" Merlin asked.
"I did not wish to risk you. You are too important to the colony," I said.
"The colony?"
"Yes."
He nodded, turned away so I could see nothing of his face. Then he started to take off his own helmet.
"Too much risk," I said. "If there is some toxin at work in here it may take time to affect..."
"What happens to you happens also to me," Merlin repeated. "You are too important to risk."
"I am of no consequence," I said.
"Perhaps, on the cosmic scale. And while you have some value to the colony, to me you are everything." The helmet was off now, mask lifted to rest on his forehead. He still faced away from me but his voice came clear through the atmosphere rather than through the headset now. "Parents die for their children. It is perverse for children to die for their parents. Illogical and undue."
"Tell me how it was," I said, rather than argue. "The last days on Earth. The first days here. How was it to fly through space?"
Press release for Finding Life on Mars
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
5/15/2018
Finding Life on Mars by Colorado Springs psychologist Jason Dias hits the atmosphere!
A neurodivergent novel written by a neurodivergent author.
Finding Life on Mars invites us into the world of Jaye, a young woman born to a failing colony on Mars. This story takes us through her mission of survival, the ongoing existential crisis born of the external and internal threats propelling Jaye’s self-discovery. Survival may depend on solving technical problems, however through Jaye’s struggle to be human we are shown how the gravity of life is dependent on something else entirely.
Finding Life on Mars is the seventh novel written by Jason Dias of Colorado Springs, CO. A clinical psychologist and professor with autism, he welcomes us into science fiction story telling through the neurodivergent lens of cognitive differences such as dyslexia, ADHD and autism.
Jason Dias, PsyD says, “I’m an autistic psychologist. Temple Grandin has thought of herself as an anthropologist on Mars: a perpetual outsider, studying humans less out of interest than out of the need to survive here. Some of us are gifted strange, narrow interests. One young man I worked with designed and built models of drains to watch the water go through. Another was obsessed with tires. Me? I’m fascinated by humans and am constantly stuck in the outsider perspective while seeking the inside view.”
Other promotional material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uie3x...
https://www.amazon.com/Jason-Dias/e/B...
5/15/2018
Finding Life on Mars by Colorado Springs psychologist Jason Dias hits the atmosphere!
A neurodivergent novel written by a neurodivergent author.
Finding Life on Mars invites us into the world of Jaye, a young woman born to a failing colony on Mars. This story takes us through her mission of survival, the ongoing existential crisis born of the external and internal threats propelling Jaye’s self-discovery. Survival may depend on solving technical problems, however through Jaye’s struggle to be human we are shown how the gravity of life is dependent on something else entirely.
Finding Life on Mars is the seventh novel written by Jason Dias of Colorado Springs, CO. A clinical psychologist and professor with autism, he welcomes us into science fiction story telling through the neurodivergent lens of cognitive differences such as dyslexia, ADHD and autism.
Jason Dias, PsyD says, “I’m an autistic psychologist. Temple Grandin has thought of herself as an anthropologist on Mars: a perpetual outsider, studying humans less out of interest than out of the need to survive here. Some of us are gifted strange, narrow interests. One young man I worked with designed and built models of drains to watch the water go through. Another was obsessed with tires. Me? I’m fascinated by humans and am constantly stuck in the outsider perspective while seeking the inside view.”
Other promotional material:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uie3x...
https://www.amazon.com/Jason-Dias/e/B...
Excerpt from Finding Life on Mars
"Father, I think I am ill," I said, in my tiny, piping voice.
"Oh?" Merlin said. He set aside the solenoid he was working on and turned his full attention to me. We were in the kitchen and my memory informed me it was identical then and now. "Why do you say so?"
"Look," I said, and extended one hand, palm up. In the center of my palm lay a milk tooth. It had fallen bloodlessly out while I slept. When I awoke, my tongue found a gap in my gums, and I found the tooth on the floor under my sling.
"Oh, you have lost a tooth. How wonderful."
"Then I am not sick?"
"No, baby, the farthest thing from it."
"I am not a baby," I said. "Please explain."
"Well," Merlin said, "it is normal for a child of your age to lose her teeth, slowly, over the course of a few years. New ones are growing in, beneath your gum-line where you cannot see them, and eroding the roots of the old ones. The old ones fall out, new ones grow in. Perfectly natural."
"Why?"
"Well, because if you were born with a full set of adult teeth, your head would be too big to fit through the birth canal. And if your teeth were not replaced with larger ones, your adult jaw would be full of gaps."
"Oh."
If he had left it at that, it would have been better. Maybe a lot would have been different. But he did not.
"Now, where should we put the tooth? On Earth, we used pillows. You would leave a lost tooth under your pillow and the Tooth Fairy would find it, replace it with a few coins. Here we not only have no pillows but no beds. So where should we leave it?"
"What is a fairy?" I asked.
"My goodness, but we need some books to read to you. We never planned for children, you know. Let me see. Fairies are magical creatures that live in the woods and sometimes at the end of nice gardens. Mostly they are there for young girls to find beautiful, but sometimes they are mischievous. They steal or play tricks or cast naughty spells."
"There is no magic," I said.
"Can you be sure?" And Merlin reached behind my head, touched my ear, produced a solenoid. "If so, then how did this get behind your ear?"
"That's a trick," I said. "Not magic. There is no magic."
"You mustn't be so upset over it, baby girl. Magic is just something we talk about to have fun, to explain things we cannot otherwise explain, to wonder at the nature of the universe."
"I'm not a baby and there is no magic."
"Please, just calm down."
But it was too late for that. I started to shout. "You're a liar and there isn't such a thing as magic. You shouldn't lie to your children. Father Christmas is a lie and the Easter Bunny is a lie and God is a lie and the Tooth Fairy is a damned lie."
Merlin sat back, narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms. I knew I had crossed some kind of invisible line and I didn't know what it was, why it was. He didn't say anything, though, and I couldn't stop.
"If there is a God and if there is magic, then bring back my mother. Give her back to me!"
"Oh?" Merlin said. He set aside the solenoid he was working on and turned his full attention to me. We were in the kitchen and my memory informed me it was identical then and now. "Why do you say so?"
"Look," I said, and extended one hand, palm up. In the center of my palm lay a milk tooth. It had fallen bloodlessly out while I slept. When I awoke, my tongue found a gap in my gums, and I found the tooth on the floor under my sling.
"Oh, you have lost a tooth. How wonderful."
"Then I am not sick?"
"No, baby, the farthest thing from it."
"I am not a baby," I said. "Please explain."
"Well," Merlin said, "it is normal for a child of your age to lose her teeth, slowly, over the course of a few years. New ones are growing in, beneath your gum-line where you cannot see them, and eroding the roots of the old ones. The old ones fall out, new ones grow in. Perfectly natural."
"Why?"
"Well, because if you were born with a full set of adult teeth, your head would be too big to fit through the birth canal. And if your teeth were not replaced with larger ones, your adult jaw would be full of gaps."
"Oh."
If he had left it at that, it would have been better. Maybe a lot would have been different. But he did not.
"Now, where should we put the tooth? On Earth, we used pillows. You would leave a lost tooth under your pillow and the Tooth Fairy would find it, replace it with a few coins. Here we not only have no pillows but no beds. So where should we leave it?"
"What is a fairy?" I asked.
"My goodness, but we need some books to read to you. We never planned for children, you know. Let me see. Fairies are magical creatures that live in the woods and sometimes at the end of nice gardens. Mostly they are there for young girls to find beautiful, but sometimes they are mischievous. They steal or play tricks or cast naughty spells."
"There is no magic," I said.
"Can you be sure?" And Merlin reached behind my head, touched my ear, produced a solenoid. "If so, then how did this get behind your ear?"
"That's a trick," I said. "Not magic. There is no magic."
"You mustn't be so upset over it, baby girl. Magic is just something we talk about to have fun, to explain things we cannot otherwise explain, to wonder at the nature of the universe."
"I'm not a baby and there is no magic."
"Please, just calm down."
But it was too late for that. I started to shout. "You're a liar and there isn't such a thing as magic. You shouldn't lie to your children. Father Christmas is a lie and the Easter Bunny is a lie and God is a lie and the Tooth Fairy is a damned lie."
Merlin sat back, narrowed his eyes, crossed his arms. I knew I had crossed some kind of invisible line and I didn't know what it was, why it was. He didn't say anything, though, and I couldn't stop.
"If there is a God and if there is magic, then bring back my mother. Give her back to me!"
Excerpt from Finding Life on Mars
The next day she had left his apartment early, before sunrise, before he was awake. Gone down to the main street to find a spot on a rooftop. People were already starting to stake out their spots to view the running. They smiled at each other, waved. She got a position on a flat rooftop with a guardrail, stood there and watched the sun rise orange and dusty, felt the sweat intensify on her neck again. Her hair stuck there, uncomfortable, until she tied it into a bun.
An hour later she was hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder with a hundred other people on a rooftop with room for twenty, wondering if it could support their weight - but of course this rooftop had seen a hundred such runnings and it was just her first. And what did it matter? It had been a good life, because she had taken chances and seen everything she could while she could.
A mile away, men gathered - and some women, too - nervously stretching and laughing and pretending not to be nervous. Raffael would be among them, but Madelaine could not tell one person from another at this range. She could feel their tension, could almost taste it with the dust on her tongue, see it building up around them like a brown haze.
She told herself she would not look for him, would just feel the spectacle without intention, but when the men came charging through the street below she could not help herself. She never saw him, though. She saw so many men, all of them just the same. They wore different clothes, had different hair, different faces, different eyes and hands and watches, but they were all the same that day: runners looking for life in a dusty street, steps ahead of death.
The bulls thundered along behind them, boulder-sized mounds of flesh and hair and bone, juggernauts of thunder, rolling drums of force. There was the maned beast that had eyeballed her the night before. There was a huge black bull with white flashes on his hooves. They didn't catch any of the runners that year. One young woman tripped and fell and skinned her hands but they just ran by and she picked herself up and chased them, fifty-five kilos of woman after ten thousand kilos of bull, running with her head back and laughter streaming from her throat as her hair streamed back from her head.
Madelaine had seen everything Earth could offer in those five years. Snorkeled off a hundred coasts, touched groupers and sharks and rays, hiked under Kilimanjaro, carried water in the Masai Mara, ran with wild horses in Montana. Climbed through towers and dungeons in European castles a thousand years old, eaten rice in a New Delhi slum even older. Thrown paint and been painted in Bangladesh. Painted coffins in Chengdu before eating scorpions off skewers from a Chinese street vendor.
Later, she had held a daughter in her arms, Olivia. Seen the dusty Martian sky, the ground so much like the Montana badlands. Seen Earth from space, seen alien moons, the tiny white Sun in the sky.
What good were eyes, what could they show her now that her memory could not? And what she remembered best was that young woman running after the bulls, chasing them with no mind for the consequences should she catch them, just the joy of life, doing, being.
An hour later she was hip-to-hip and shoulder-to-shoulder with a hundred other people on a rooftop with room for twenty, wondering if it could support their weight - but of course this rooftop had seen a hundred such runnings and it was just her first. And what did it matter? It had been a good life, because she had taken chances and seen everything she could while she could.
A mile away, men gathered - and some women, too - nervously stretching and laughing and pretending not to be nervous. Raffael would be among them, but Madelaine could not tell one person from another at this range. She could feel their tension, could almost taste it with the dust on her tongue, see it building up around them like a brown haze.
She told herself she would not look for him, would just feel the spectacle without intention, but when the men came charging through the street below she could not help herself. She never saw him, though. She saw so many men, all of them just the same. They wore different clothes, had different hair, different faces, different eyes and hands and watches, but they were all the same that day: runners looking for life in a dusty street, steps ahead of death.
The bulls thundered along behind them, boulder-sized mounds of flesh and hair and bone, juggernauts of thunder, rolling drums of force. There was the maned beast that had eyeballed her the night before. There was a huge black bull with white flashes on his hooves. They didn't catch any of the runners that year. One young woman tripped and fell and skinned her hands but they just ran by and she picked herself up and chased them, fifty-five kilos of woman after ten thousand kilos of bull, running with her head back and laughter streaming from her throat as her hair streamed back from her head.
Madelaine had seen everything Earth could offer in those five years. Snorkeled off a hundred coasts, touched groupers and sharks and rays, hiked under Kilimanjaro, carried water in the Masai Mara, ran with wild horses in Montana. Climbed through towers and dungeons in European castles a thousand years old, eaten rice in a New Delhi slum even older. Thrown paint and been painted in Bangladesh. Painted coffins in Chengdu before eating scorpions off skewers from a Chinese street vendor.
Later, she had held a daughter in her arms, Olivia. Seen the dusty Martian sky, the ground so much like the Montana badlands. Seen Earth from space, seen alien moons, the tiny white Sun in the sky.
What good were eyes, what could they show her now that her memory could not? And what she remembered best was that young woman running after the bulls, chasing them with no mind for the consequences should she catch them, just the joy of life, doing, being.
