Window to Your World

Multimedia illustrated serial about a young autistic girl

[windowtoyourworld-blog]

Window to Your World #4

It was raining heavily, and their Saturday morning trip to the park had been cancelled. Thaïs was watching the street from the living room window. She wanted to go out onto the balcony but her dad had said no. There were not many people walking outside, and those that did walked very fast or ran, heads hidden under umbrellas. 

“I’m bored,” she said, for what could be the hundredth time that morning. “I want to go out.”

Her dad was sprawled out on the couch, half watching TV, and half sleeping. He mumbled something she didn’t understand in return. She sighed and went to her bedroom. It was small, but cosy. Her bunk bed was one of her favourite places. She slept on top, and underneath was her secret nest. She had used sarongs to make curtains, and kept all her stuffed animals in the nest. She crawled in and gave them all a hug before going back to the living room.

“Dad? Dad? Dad!?”

“Hmm?” He finally looked up. “What’s up?”

“I want to go out, dad.”

“Honey, I told you, it’s too wet and cold out there. We’ll get soaked. Anyway, I’m really tired, I need to rest a bit so I can be in good shape this afternoon.”

That afternoon they were going to visit dad’s friends. She loved going there because they had three cats and a very big garden where she could play while the grown ups talked. Sometimes other people came with their children, but she knew many hiding places if she needed to be alone. But the afternoon was ages away, and she was bored now. She glanced out of the window and jumped with excitement.

“Dad! Dad! It’s stopped raining! We can go out!”

Her dad gave a long sigh. “I really need to rest a bit, sweetheart”, he said, rubbing his hand over his face. “Why don’t you have a little rest too? Last night was exhausting for you too, I’m sure.”

She couldn’t remember much of it, but she knew it had taken her a long time to calm down, and she had not slept until the sky had started to become lighter, which was a long time not to sleep. She didn’t feel tired, though. She wanted to go outside and feel the rain on her face, and the wind flapping at her clothes. She loved the smell of the park when it rained, and the drops of water clinging onto the flowers and leaves. Sometimes she went snail searching, trying to find the tiniest snail she could. The smaller they were, the harder it was to see them, which made it a challenge. She hated the slugs, though. They looked so odd, like snails without a house. The shell was the best part, with its swirls and colours, and the two little eyes poking out when they felt too shy to come out fully.

Well, maybe she could wait a little bit. She could look for snails this afternoon. Smiling, the climbed onto the couch and curled up against her dad, taking his arm and holding it against her like a rollercoaster safety bar. She closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift.

[windowtoyourworld-blog]

Window to Your World #3

It was Sunday night, and, with only ten minutes to go till her bedtime, Thaïs was neither clean nor remotely ready for bed. In fact, she was currently sitting on top of the kitchen counter, screaming whenever Julia approached too closely. Ever since her dad had left for work, it had all gone very wrong. The evening had been completely ruined and nothing would ever be right again. How could it? If you knew that orange always came after red, always, in a rainbow, and one day, it was blue - blue! - how could anything ever be right again?

Now Julia had stopped talking to her, had stopped repeating over and over “come on Thaïs, please, you need to take your bath”, and was picking up the phone, which slipped through her fingers, falling. Twice, she dropped it on the linoleum floor. Through her own tears, Thaïs noticed that she was crying. Her hands were shaking as she finally managed to dial the number.

Normally, her dad did not work Sundays, but he had been putting in extra hours recently so that he could liberate some Fridays and take her out. The weather was perfect for evening strolls, which she would only do with him and no one else, certainly not any babysitters. At four fifty, Julia had arrived, and at five o'clock, Thaïs’ father had left, despite her protestations. “Don’t be grumpy, he had said. You know I have to work. I told you last week, remember? We wrote it on the calender.” But she had remained angry with him long after he had departed.

And then, the fight. Julia had taken her to the park. Thaïs loved the park, and almost forgot about her bad mood as she ran for the swing, until an older boy got there first. She had clenched her fists, glared at him, growling, and Julia had walked over, put her hands on her shoulders and turned her away, saying “you have to wait for your turn”. Next thing she knew, she had walked over to the boy and punched him in the stomach. She didn’t remember much of what had happened next, except that there was a lot of shouting, and someone heavy pressing her body against the dusty ground as she fought to free herself. At some point, they had made it back to the flat.

Thaïs looked down at her arms and realised she had been scoring lines into them with her nails. She wasn’t sure exactly what was so wrong, but she did know that it was. It was all bad, and everything hurt. When Julia had tried to run her a bath, she had bolted, ended up here on the counter. How long had it been? She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t known how to tell Julia that the bath was wrong, she had used the wrong bubble bath, and anyway, on Sundays, baths were meant to be after watching TV, not before.

Julia was sitting on the couch now, head in her hands. Who had she called? Thaïs closed her eyes and tried to shut it all out.

Part 1

Part 2

[windowtoyourworld-blog]

Window to Your World #2

When Thaïs arrived home, her dad seemed to have just woken up, opening the front door slowly like a bear coming out of hibernation.

“Hello sweetheart, nice day at school?”

“Dad, your hair looks like an old, abandoned nest!”

“Ah… alright. Thank you for that.” He smiled at the elderly lady waiting by the door. “Thanks so much for picking her up. Thaïs, did you say thank you?”

“Thanks!” She shouted, kicking off her shoes and running down the hallway and into the living room. A second later, the brash sounds of children’s cartoons could be heard.

“I’ll uh, I’ll let you get back to… you know.. thanks again, yeah?” He gave the old woman an embarrassed smile before closing the door.

In the living room, Thaïs was sprawled out on the sofa, legs propped up on a pile of pillows and her head over the edge of the sofa, so that her body was more upside down than right side up. This was how she watched her cartoons when she came home from school. This angle added a little interest to the episodes she had already seen multiple times - reruns seemed to be the norm on these channels. She wasn’t too fussed about following the meagre plot, prefering the visual stimuli and the often hilarious sound effects. Between episodes, the channel showed mindless adverts, and she always had her snack during the first break. Milk and a slice of marble cake.

“Ten more minutes and then it’s homework time, OK?”

She peeled off the layer of marzipan from her cake slice, saving it for last.

“I don’t have homework today.”

“Well, I’d like to work a bit on your reading. Your teacher lent us that really nice book with the animal tales, we can read it together.”

“Sorry, no can do! Maybe next time?” Thaïs was gripping her slice of cake so tightly, it was being reduced to crumbs in her fist.

“Honey, that script isn’t going to work on me. Look, we don’t need to read for long, just ten or fifteen minutes, and then you can go play.”

“Play what?”

Her father sighed, and she knew it meant she had had a moment. She wasn’t entirely sure what it meant, but she had heard the lady at the clinic talking about these moments with her dad. They were not good, and they made grown ups sad or mad. She thought it best to change the topic.

“I almost punched Reese today, but I didn’t”, she said.

“I… OK… Well, good! Well done. I’m glad you controlled yourself.”

“He kept whistling. It was so annoying! I told him to stop, and he did it again. I was about to ram my fist in his face but then I heard a siren so I had to cover my ears. So I couldn’t use my hands, see?”

“I see. Well, I hope that if you ever feel like hitting him again, you can remember that moment and stop yourself. Maybe pretend you hear a siren.”

“Pretend sirens don’t hurt my ears.”

“No, I guess not…” He sighed again, and added quietly, “I guess we need to work on it.”

Part 1

Part 3

[windowtoyourworld-blog]

Window to Your World #1

The headteacher’s office was small and slightly cramped. Two large desks on which were placed two computers, and sprawling piles of paper, post it notes, and the odd paperclip. On the other side, a small, semi circular table, and two chairs, by a wall of shelves. Thaïs sat facing the window, and the headteacher sat facing her.

“Good morning Thaïs, how are you today?”

“Um… fine,” she mumbled. “Thanks,” she added hastily.

“There’s no need to look so worried - you’re not in trouble. I simply like having a chat with new students, see how they’re settling in. How are you finding it? Are you happy in this school?”

Thaïs let her eyes wander around the room. The walls were mostly bare, off white plaster with a few bits and pieces blu tacked above the desks. She thought about how to answer the question, but just figuring out which cog to turn in her mind was a struggle. Was she happy? Did he mean now, or in class? Or perhaps he meant to ask if she was happy with the building ? Did the building make her happy? She did like that it wasn’t too big, you couldn’t get lost here, and she had found the toilets easily, unlike at her last school.

“I don’t know,” she replied, because silence usually meant people got angry.

“Have you made any friends?”

She thought of the girls in her class, who sometimes played tag with her, but who would mostly try to rope her in complicated games she never understood. At breaktimes she usually preferred to sit on a bench and observe the other children, or read a book.

“I sometimes play with Saskia,” she replied.

“Saskia Walters? In Year 6?”

“I’m not sure what class she’s in. We play together sometimes at lunch, but not everyday because sometimes she eats later than me.”

“What about in your own class?”

Thaïs shrugged. She was getting a little tired of this conversation. The chair felt uncomfortable and the constant jiggling of her leg was not doing much to alleviate her restlessness. She felt a humming sound start in her throat.

“Your teachers tell me you spend a lot of time alone in the playground, during break. Do you want to be alone, or is it because you’re finding it hard to make friends?”

She shrugged again, grimacing. The humming was getting louder, but she knew she had to stop it. Stop that noise! Ms Whiteley would have said, how disrespectful! She realised she was gripping her own wrist. She released her grip, leaving deep indentations in her skin, which was now red.

“I don’t know,” she said, again. “My tummy hurts. Can I go?”

His face didn’t change. “We can continue this chat another time. Go and see the nurse about your tummy, and I’ll check in with you later. Sound good?”

She nodded, jumping up from the chair so fast it almost toppled over.

As she walked to the nurse’s office, she felt the knot in her stomach unwind. How odd, she thought, that she should be sick a minute ago, and now feel almost fine.