Huang Mengxi

    Huang Mengxi, born in July 1997, is a senior student at Shenzhen Middle School. She is the founder and president of the student psychology club, Mental Study Association.

    Huang is fond of literature, especially English literature. She became interested in psychology a few years ago and started interacting with children with autism and other mental illnesses.

    This serial story is based on an experience she had while volunteering at a local psychological hospital. It tells the story of a teenager with Asperger syndrome who observes the adult world from a special perspective and struggles with the ideals of love and affection.

Chapter I

It has been some years since I left my innocent, adolescent days behind. Until quite recently, it never occurred to me that I have been, for a very long time, the one who was “a little different.” I had every reason to believe that I was, and still am, the most ordinary person of all. A wallflower, always the one most overlooked, the one in the corner, the least remembered. But, then, that’s perhaps what makes me special. I suppose I am just the clumsy one, the one always a little behind. I have done my best to make fewer mistakes and to be less of a burden to my mom; though, I never quite succeed.

There was something, someone, which I will not forget. I don’t know in the timeless, endless universe, whether my transient sojourn will make the tiniest impression; yet I realized that even if everything I did for love and devotion would forever be preposterous to people with sound judgment, it is never the action we consciously take that speaks of our value, but it is the burgeoning blossoms that grow from the seeds we sow of our rather misguided, obstinate and blind beliefs. That is all I have to offer.

Chapter II

We moved several times before we finally settled down in a quiet place in a big municipality. Frankly, where I lived wasn’t a priority for me, but I just couldn’t understand why we had to move. Every morning, Ms. Davis drove me to school under a row of white cedars that lined the side of the river, and every afternoon after school, she was there to take me home.

Ms. Davis had been with us for as long as I could remember. By modern standards, Ms. Davis was not a bad-looking woman. She had a somewhat Eurasian look, although I’m pretty sure she was of Germanic descent. Nevertheless, I have to say that I was not especially fond of her. Though she kept my bedroom clean and hardly ever touched the ice cream I had hidden in the refrigerator, she was as lousy a cook as one could imagine. She also persistently meddled with my things. She kept putting things in the wrong places. One day my phone charger was on the nightstand where I had left it while the next day it would mysteriously disappear until I accidentally found it two weeks later in the third drawer of my desk. I tried not to make a fuss about it, but I just couldn’t understand why she had to do that. They were in their respective places for a reason, which was perfectly logical, and her insistence on altering that perfect homeostasis was quite baffling and a little annoying.

When my mom came home every day at 6, Ms. Davis would report to her everything I did during the day with the precision of a chubby kid counting his candies. I didn’t complain, though. I had attempted to once, but nothing came of it, so I decided I would leave it alone. Besides, I had already gotten used to her presence and learned to put up with all her annoying habits.

(Chapter II to be continued)