The Listeners (2012)
The Listeners
“She worried about pimples, but not about the shapes and scents flying around in our heads. We got born lucky, she believed, able to see things in a way other people couldn’t. But I did not want to see them that way. I wanted to be regular, like Riley, who hated when we talked about what color a number was, or a sound. Jealous, my sister reminded me, but I was jealous too—of Riley’s clean brain that took in noises as plain noises, names as plain names instead of boxes of sensation. Smell of tree...s. Darkest green. At school, at first, they thought I was slow. Nine minus two is purple and a boy. Colors were the only way I could talk about numbers. It sounded wrong when I said it out loud, but it made total sense in my head—in there, never a mess. Girls, look at this room. What a goddamn mess. These (Mert snatched dresses from the floor) need to be hung up. And these (grabbing shirts thrown over a chair back) should be folded, not slopped! When your room’s all ahoo, she added, it makes your mind disorganized.MoreLess
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