Happy Doomsday

by David Sosnowski

Her son—who suspected emotions fell somewhere between Santa and the Easter Bunny on the logic scale—didn’t disagree.

Group projects, the very thought of which made him physically ill. Why should he have to water down his grade with the inferior contributions of others?

To the contrary, being on the spectrum was the source of his secret power: being smarter than everybody else.

If Lucy saw the silver cross around the receptionist’s neck, it didn’t register; knee-jerk Christianity was, after all, the Southern way.

Even so-called friends teased him about his mom being “one of those beekeepers.” But when he pleaded with her to “act more American,” she compromised precisely once, going outside to tend her garden in a burka and cowboy hat.

The neighbors who saw her were deeply offended, and she was offended by their taking offense. “That’s how compromise works,” she explained. “Both sides are angry.”

“We’re never as ideologically pure as when someone else is paying the bill.”

Suicide among Aspies was as much about emotion as ulcers were about stress.

To the extent she had a chip on her shoulder, though, it had been nailed there by others, using one of those nail guns that uses shotgun shells. To say she was bitter fell a wee bit short, like calling sulfuric acid tangy.

“I thought love was supposed to be like fireworks,” the boy said. “Nope,” his dream dad said. “It’s like a lump in your throat. But in your heart.”