Lonely and Precocious

By Erika Hammerschmidt

This was originally part of a collection called "If the World Ended, Would I Notice? and Other Stories." It's being republished as three books.
"Lonely and Precocious" explores the lives of various beings who are kindred spirits to my long-ago self, uncertain to notice the end of the world. They live in their own worlds: failing to notice, struggling to notice, noticing in unique ways, or sometimes just choosing not to notice, what the World Outside is up to.
These stories do not all deal with the end of a world, but they all feature worlds that are deeply transformed from the one we know. And each one faces the specter of an end, to be faced or averted, whether it’s the end of the story’s world or just the end of a character’s worldview.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Erika Hammerschmidt
• Release date: Mar 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005141660

Erika Hammerschmidt

I am an autistic author, artist and speaker. I give speeches to schools and support groups, telling the story of how I grew up as an alien on earth.I was diagnosed with various neurological disorders around the age of 11, but labels aren't everything to me. We are all individuals, and a diagnosis is just one of humanity's flawed but natural attempts to arrange the world into categories that seem neat and orderly. It's language, and as much as I love language, it is not a perfect way of describing reality. There is no perfect way. No word's definition is universally agreed upon. No written definition can perfectly encompass the idea expressed by a word. And some ideas can't even be expressed by words in the first place.What I am can be described partially by the words "Autism," "Asperger Syndrome," and "Tourette Syndrome," with their definitions as printed in the 1992 edition of the DSM-IV, as they were interpreted by my childhood psychiatrist... but really, individual people all have their own unique mental conditions. Mine works for me right now, with or without labels. I see no need to change.

Book preview

1

Gelatin Pie

Ibegan this story as a personal project during college in the early 2000’s, built around the world of the Circle People, one of the alien species I had invented. I made up their whole language, and I have a Speaking Circle of my own, made out of tape and string and cardboard. This story is my exploration of how they would interact with humans.

Way back then, I found worldbuilding far more interesting than plot. I introduced the diplomats to each other, showed off some of their differences, and then abandoned the story for many years. I didn’t finish it until 2012, long after college, when I finally figured out where it could go.

Please eat the pie, Savvy.

No.

I sigh and try to catch her eyes over the table, knowing that it is a futile endeavor trying to get First Savant to make eye contact, but somehow satisfied in the knowledge that it makes her uncomfortable. Why not? You love pie.

She taps her fork on the edge of her plate. Not this one. And you know damn well why.

No, I don’t. I lean forward on the table, past my own emptied plate. Second Savant looks at us from the couch, smirking. I try to ignore her as I focus on First Savant. Remember what the counselor said about your theory-of-mind issues? That’s one of the things you need to work on—your ability to imagine other people’s thoughts. Other people don’t automatically know everything you know. Sometimes you have to explain it.

First Savant kicks the table leg, shaking the table’s whole surface. "Dad, you are a patronizing jerk. And I don’t assume people know things they couldn’t possibly know. I assume people know things they could figure out if they ever bothered to think. Which nobody does."

Then you still have a theory-of-mind issue, I say calmly, though I feel all too much like yelling. Please explain why you don’t want the pie, for the benefit of people who can’t think, like me.

It has gelatin in it. She pokes at its fruity pudding center.

How, I ask, my last remaining nerve vibrating with each syllable, do you think you know that?

First Savant lifts away a small dollop of the filling with her fork and drops it on her plate, next to her naked corncob and an overlooked green bean, and proceeds to dissect it with excruciating precision. "The texture. It’s gelled."

If they don’t use the hooves and bones to make gelatin, then they’re wasted, Second Savant offers helpfully from the safety of the couch. It makes the poor animal’s death even more meaningless. First Savant glares at her.

I made this pie, I complain in a hurt voice. I spent the afternoon making this pie. Not all children are lucky enough to have a father who spends a whole afternoon making pies for them. I neglect to mention that the pie came from an instant mix, and I spent nineteen-twentieths of the afternoon virtual-reality road biking while the pie was in the oven, but it is the principle of the thing.

You put gelatin in it, First Savant mutters. Gelatin is part of a dead animal. I won’t eat it.

Fine, I say. Then you don’t get to translate when the diplomat comes over tonight. My own diplomatic skills are not at their best right now, but at least my threat is one connected to the issue that comprises the main reason for my irritability in the first place. I can’t follow through on the threat, of course, because translators for the Circle language are almost impossible to find. But it’s somewhat satisfying anyway.

How would you like it if you were punished for acting on your moral beliefs? First Savant shrieks, her verbal articulation rising, as it always does when she is excited. This is unconstitutional! I am going to report you to a human rights authority.

I do not try to convince her that there is no law against a parent forcing a child to act counter to his or her own ethical opinions. The diplomat is for the Circle People, I tempt her.

Predictably, her response is unpredictable. Really? Circle People? The ones that communicate through sculpture? You haven’t had a diplomat from them in ages! In an instant, pie is a non-issue. I sigh, facing the failure of my plan. I have gotten First Savant started on the subject of language, and the lovingly crafted dessert will be fossilized before she shuts up. I pick up the plate with its uneaten pastry, and bring it into the kitchen.

What planet is that? Second Savant is asking when I come back, and now I know the evening is planned out until at least seven. Unless I interrupt them—and I shudder and prevent myself from imagining the outcome of such intervention. Brilliant minds, nonexistent social skills and volatile tempers—in the union of a successful Interplanetary Mediator and his charismatic starship pilot wife, where did the genetics for this brood lie hidden?

It’s not a planet, First Savant says. It’s a moon, excrement head. Cassiopeia 3-2-1, the first moon orbiting the second planet orbiting the third star of the constellation. It’s orbited by—

Cassiopeia 3? The closest warp to that is two light days. The diplomat must’ve spent months just getting to the first warp. And that one goes to—wait a minute, if that’s the Meinheimer Warp it leads to the Katherine Warp on the other side of the Milky—

—three smaller bodies that as far as I know linguists haven’t found a word for. It raises a big question: What do you call what orbits a moon? My personal term is ‘submoons.’ It suggests smaller size and inclusion in a subcategory, but the prefix—

—no, he must’ve taken the second-closest warp, because that’s the only one anywhere near there that leads in this direction. That would be the Mariana Warp to the Buffalo Warp to the Koenig-Lesley Warp to the—

I tune out the dialogue—or the simultaneous monologues—of Savants One and Two as I clear the dishes and check on the soup I am to serve the diplomat at nine o’clock. It’s done, and I slide it into the stasis compartment so it will still be warm when Water-on-a-full-head shows up.

The front room is clean; there’s nothing on any of the chairs; the daffodils from our garden are placed prettily in a cobalt blue vase on the coffee table. All is ready. The message machine is nearby on the kitchen counter. For the sake of variety—and to prepare myself somewhat further for this disastrous meeting—I punch the playback key. I’ve listened to this recording a million times today. The voice—even though it isn’t the diplomat’s own voice, but some translator’s—is as familiar as those of my own children chattering oblivious to each other in the other room.

—’sub’ suggests being ‘under,’ which is not really an issue in space, but ‘circummoons’ sounds awkward, and you can’t say—

—in any case, he must have gone through at least nineteen warps to get here—

Message 1 of 1, 10:27 a.m. Greetings to Interplanetary Mediator Ralph Jacobs from Water-on-a-Full-Head, leader of City-by-the-long-thin-lake, northeastern hemisphere of Cassiopeia 3-2-1. Has arrived at spaceport and requests personal meeting with Mediator Jacobs at eight-thirty this evening regarding the Shine Field mine. Has not hired a translator for the evening, and is leaving this message through one of the spaceport employees; wishes to know where and how interpreter may be located.

I think back to my own call in response, a confusing ten minutes with Water-on-a-full-head and the temporary translator, during which it was clarified to me that the leader expected a private meeting at my own house rather than the usual negotiation table. Not the weirdest cultural difference I’d ever seen, and no big problem, as long as I made sure the living room was clean and Second Savant was safely occupied with one of her programming projects on the third floor. But it was still a further annoyance on top of the Shine Field issue—an unsolvable problem if I ever saw one. There would be no outcome of this meeting, and I couldn’t believe Water-on-a-full-head didn’t realize it.

The meager silver lining was not having to hire an interpreter because my fourteen-year-old daughter is a child prodigy who is fluent in every language between here and Andromeda. Even if she’s never had a friend her own age, and talks in a weird mix between the syntax of college textbooks and the speech of the professors she hangs out with—and has the worst diplomat in the galaxy for a sister. But don’t get me started on her.

I wander back to the dining room. It’s as I feared; the monologues have merged into a dialogue, and no dialogue between First and Second Savant can last too long without becoming a fight.

You can’t live like that. How about potato bugs? Do you refuse to eat potatoes because they kill the potato bugs to grow them? And how about the potatoes themselves? You have to kill a potato plant to get the potato.

No you don’t, the potato isn’t the entire root, it’s just a small portion of it. Potatoes are one of those plants that reproduce underground and grow a lot of new roots and grow up new stems from them. First Savant turns to me. Dad, do you have to kill the entire potato plant to harvest a potato?

And how about ants? says Second Savant. I bet you kill hundreds of ants every day and you don’t even notice. And you slap mosquitoes when they bite you.

I don’t slap mosquitoes.

Yes you do, I’ve seen you.

"Then you’ve seen that I don’t slap them." First Savant folds her arms.

Well, okay, you don’t technically slap them, you sneak up on them with your hand and squash them. Same thing; you’re still killing them. And bacteria! Whenever you wash your hands you’re killing millions and millions—

This is my philosophy, Rae, says First Savant. I respect life as long as it is not endangering me.

So is a mosquito endangering you? That seems like a strong word to use, Shirley.

Rae.