Usually I try to explain, ‘My brother is already not happy being tied up and forcefully brought to the hospital. He is also not happy with the foreign environment. He is furthermore not happy that you just poked him with a needle and taped it there. Now, my mother and I are not automated beings. We are bound to fall asleep sometime during his stay here. Mind you, my brother is a very fast worker. What will happen if he went around pulling out the other patients’ intravenous plugs?’
Then we get our requested ward.
It was not as though we were looking to holiday in the A-class ward. We just needed an isolated ward, a secure space. Whenever no isolation wards were available, I had no qualms bluntly asking that our patient be bumped up to a single ward for the health, safety and reasonable peace of mind of all.
With my brother’s strength, the family would have sent him for triathlon trials for the Olympics, only he would probably have single-handedly re-routed the runners’ paths. We have pondered the fact that should the home’s electricity be generated from his energy, it would save us a lot on utility bills.
It is interesting. I have mentioned that the boy is a great fan of the Disney animated film Hercules.
He is especially fond of the song in the film, “A Star is Born”.
The 7th Step
After being sent to IMH, Jan got his check-ups and his medication and was in and out of hospitals for a bit. My father had all the window-grilles reinforced with steel, and riveted. The house was bolted down even tighter than before, like a submarine in an underwater emergency.
A few more years have passed by without much incident. Jan has turned his attention to other things. There are ups and downs and time flows on.
But the memories, like persistent phantoms, still haunt us. My mother stops in her tracks whenever someone hammers unannounced at our front door. It usually turns out to be for some innocent reason; the post has arrived, or door-to-door salespeople making their rounds, or volunteers doing charity work. She would turn extremely irate and say to me afterwards, ‘They don’t have to bang on the door like they’re trying to knock it down.’
My phobia for such incidents has grown too. Now, whenever I see police officers carrying out official business anywhere near our place of residence, my system instantly shuts down. A second later, it reboots into emergency mode.
Did something happen? Is that a body bag? My first coherent thought would be “Msut. Cnoatct. Hmoe.” I then frantically try to get in touch with whomever is at home.
One morning, I was leaving for work when I saw that a crowd of police officers had cordoned off the area nearby. Men and women in blue were milling about, and there was an zipped-up police tent by the side of the pavement.
Jan had been keeping irregular hours the previous nights, and so alarm bells in my head immediately went off. My first instinct was to dash back home, but I would have been late for work. I froze for some moments, a petrified statue by the side of the road, of two minds as to what to do. Then I craned my neck to get a better view of what was happening without attracting the officers’ attention. I spent the next couple of minutes like that, then decided to leave a phone text message for those at home. I dashed off to work and hoped for the best.
When it turned out to be a false alarm, I did cartwheels and somersaults, danced a jig, built a spaceship and rocketed off to the moon.
The 8th Step
Jan is not a naturally sorrowful character. Instead, he usually is pretty merry. When he does get sad, a kind of desolate fog creeps into the house and lingers for a time.
I had not noticed the fog one morning, being busy getting ready for work. Jan was dozing on a mattress on the floor of the study. He had been feeling off-colour for some weeks. I did not want to disturb him and went about my business silently.
I was thankful he did not stir, even as I crept in and out of the study. Finally, after returning to the room to fetch an umbrella, I was about to leave when suddenly I felt his hand grab my ankle. My brother had woken up, and his face was a bluish hue. Jan then did something which was extraordinary for him. He began crying, clinging to my leg with both hands and begging me not to go.
My father had already left for work and my mother was ill in bed. The last thing I wanted to do was leave Jan there alone, sick and crying, but I had no choice. I wrested my leg from his grip and fled from the house extremely distraught.
The management I was then working under had already been growing impatient with the consequences of my living with autism. As I made my way to work that day, I was scarcely in a forgiving mood.
I could not forgive those strangers in the management. I had just been forced to conform to their normal laws in a less-than-normal situation. However, the truth remains that they were merely trying to run a business and lead their normal lives.
There are many things my family has taught me to laugh off, but that day it was just not funny.
Chapter 3
Outsmart Me If You Can
The 1st Step
Together with Jan’s autism comes sleeping problems and episodes of erratic behaviour, especially if he is cranky or physically unwell. It is particularly difficult as he cannot express to us precisely what is wrong.
People are fond of telling my family to send my brother away. The Institute of Mental Health is an oft-suggested destination. The topic, of course, does not sit well with our digestive systems, but after being told
