The True(ish) Tales of Saint Alan of Aspergia

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15 Nov 2013, 1:59 pm

This started as a comment in the "Raised By Asperger Parent" thread over in the Parent's Discussion.

Basically, it seems to me that there is a need for happy stories of ASD families. I have one. But-- it doesn't belong there. So I'm going to start it here.

This is the story of my father, and me, and my maternal grandfather, and all I know of our families over generations. The stories will be true-- I may take artistic license, and I believe I'm going to approach this as a soft fantasy/magical realism type thing, but the facts will remain as they were. No one can account for time and point-of-view distorting things, hence they are true(ish).

TALES FROM THE BORDERLANDS

Long ago, in a deep hollow on the edge of a remote mountain town on the near (or far, depending on how you look at things) edge of the Kingdom of Aspergia, a little girl was born. So remote was her community that they knew little to nothing of the Kingdom; though it existed all the same, they did not acknowledge it in any significant way. The people did not think of themselves as Aspergians; they claimed no national loyalty and flew no flag. Most of the time, they simply thought of themselves in relation to their neighbors. Their community spanned both sides of the border with the neighboring kingdom of Typicalia; the people, in their isolation, recognized more kinship with each other than with any tribal or ideological boundary. This was probably for the best, as the people were so thoroughly interbred that any attempt to divide them along nationalist lines would have divided families and sundered homes. So they came to be known, not as Aspergians or Typicalians, but simply as Borderlanders.

The little girl's name was Jane; in that time and place there was nothing particularly remarkable about her. She was serious and hard-working, a respectful child who did as she was bidden. Borderland families had to depend entirely upon themselves and their neighbors for survival, so such was the way of life for all Borderlanders, young and old, male and female. And so the little girl became known as Plain Jane, and she grew up tall and strong and dutiful and matured from a girl who did as she was bidden into a woman who did what needed to be done.

Across the creek, at the mouth of the deep hollow, lived a young man called Charles I. His family was a rarity in the Borderlands-- long, long before they had been Typicalian nobility, somehow exiled to the Borderlands in a long-forgotten spate of political machinations. They had integrated deeply into the Borderlands community, and most thought of themselves only as Borderlanders. However, Charles's mother carried dreams of one day restoring the family's nobility through her sons, and secretly and politely despised the Borderlanders.

She was greatly disturbed when young Charles developed a fondness for a little Borderland girl, and livid when he announced his plans to marry Plain Jane. For their part, Plain Jane's family wasn't exactly thrilled either-- Witch Hazel didn't keep her disdain as close a secret as she thought, and besides, it was well known in the Borderlands that noble blood was weak. Why, didn't young Charles have terrible struggles with his sugar?? Wouldn't he be likely to be unable to father children, or apt to die and leave Plain Jane with a terrible load to bear??

The young Borderlanders, not to be deterred, married in secret and took off, over the mountains, to the city of Typicalopolis. There, they hoped, Sir Charles would be able to get an education-- for though his body was weak, his intellect was sharp and his mind strong. They found a large estate, where a benevolent mistress said they might exchange Plain Jane's labor in the house, kitchens, and stables for food and a small hut to live in. Plain Jane commenced to work, and Sir Charles gained entrance to the University and became an engineer. He found work, and Sir Charles and Plain Jane took gracious leave of their mistress and set off to begin the life they'd dreamed of.


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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"