Scene 1: Autumn 2005
I’m sitting on a train with this awkward, autistic teenage boy. I was his schoolteacher, several years ago. Now I’m somewhere between his mentor, his friend and his student.
He doesn’t have many other friends, which is why he’s spending a Saturday afternoon with a podgy middle-aged woman.
We’re travelling through the Norfolk Broads, on our way to Great Yarmouth. He doesn’t usually talk much, except to me. He can’t say the things he wants to say to anyone else. Right now, the words are tumbling out of his mouth because he’s having one of his visions and I’m the only person on the planet he can share that sort of information with, without being told he’s delusional.
I’m listening carefully. I don’t dare share what he tells me with anyone else either, but I’ve started making notes, because I know the things he sees and knows are important. One day maybe we will find someone else to tell.
He’s peering into the future. He’s seeing himself as a man. He can’t see me there, which strikes him as strange and sad, because we’ve been part of each other’s lives for almost ten years now.
Now he looks puzzled. “People LIKE me,” he says. “I’m not a doctor, but something a bit like that. They listen to what I say.”
For Ash, that seems the most unlikely future he can imagine. He had a few friends at primary school, but now he’s ignored or shunned by almost everyone. They think he’s weird, unfriendly, aloof. He’s not like the rest of them. How could he ever grow up to be a popular person?
I keep my notes safe and wonder how I can help to move him towards that future self. I’d love it if he could feel heard.
Scene 2: Autumn 2025
I’m sitting at my laptop, answering Asher’s fan mail. It’s built up over the last few weeks, because I’ve been getting the manuscript of our second book ready to send off to the beta readers.
I copy another bunch of emails over to him. There’s a poem, several people asking questions or wanting his advice, another request to communicate directly with him via telepathy, a couple of heartfelt messages from parents with autistic kids who want him to know how much hope his story has given them and one person enquiring what his future plans are.
This morning I sent him a screenshot of our latest five star review. Most weekends are like this, nowadays.
On the other side of the country, he checks and reads the messages. As far as I know, he still doesn’t have many friends. Going to and from work and masking his autism so that he can hold down his job is tough enough, without having to socialise as well.
Ash is still spending his Saturday afternoons in conversation with his old schoolteacher, but not face to face. It all happens via WhatsApp, email and telepathy these days.
He’s what he calls the ‘silent partner’. He still shares his visions and the wisdom he finds on his astral journeys into other realms with me. I still take notes. The difference is that now, rather than keeping them to myself, I share them in books and articles, podcasts and interviews. I deal with all the public-facing stuff. I do the social media, write the newsletters, answer the mail.
It’s getting late and I’m tired. I’m not going to finish this backlog today. I’ll reply to the rest tomorrow.
I message to tell him that. ‘Why do you have to be so popular?’ I ask, with a grinning emoji.
No sooner have I pressed ‘send’ and seen the little ticks turn blue than a thought is sent straight into my mind.
This is that vision I had on the train in Norfolk.
So it is, Asher.
I’m not there, as you foresaw, but people LIKE you. They ask your advice. They listen to what you say.
Finally, you feel heard and I’m so very happy that it’s turned out the way it has.