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July is Flash Fiction Month! I’ll be sharing short short stories here through the month of July. More notes at the end of the story.
It was kind of mind-blowing when I realized I fell into the category of “neurodivergent.” Yeah, there were signs, like sensory issues when it came to pencils or getting overwhelmed in crowded places. But for years I was just “quirky.”
But now I’m neurodivergent, and the new label takes some getting used to. I’m still the same person. I still prefer round pencils and quiet spaces, I still eat my pizza backward, I can still turn your bones into liquid with my brain.
I have friends, a good job, a pretty normal life. I’m pretty happy with the way things turned out. I learned how to manage my “sensory processing issues” pretty well now, and it’s been years since I accidentally turned anybody’s bones to liquid.
“Neurodivergent” is a really broad category and I’m sure the label has been great for a lot of people. I still don’t know how I feel about being “neurodivergent,” but it’s more positive than “guy who can turn your bones to liquid,” so I’ll take it.
A couple years ago I realized that I fell under the umbrella category of “neurodivergent.” This was so mind-blowing that I had to get up and pace and talk to myself. I generally find “neurodiverse” and “neurodivergent” a useful if imperfect label in the general sense, but my feelings about the term as it applies to me are complicated. I wanted to explore that a bit, but feelings are scary so I leaned on humor instead.
Overlooked Books 
Nice! I really like the “turning bones into liquid” thing. May I ask if it’s also a metaphor for something?
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Thanks! It’s not exactly a metaphor, but it could be a stand-in for some of the not so great parts of being neurodivergent, like meltdowns or panic attacks. But I ultimately leave it up to the reader to decide. 🙂
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Wow, I love this. I appreciate leaving the “turning bones into liquid” part up to interpretation, though as someone else whose neurodivergent, I admit I did take it literally. Nice work! I like the way you took from your own experience and added a bit of comedic flare. Writing really can help with processing our emotions, even if a little humor’s injected into it. Nice work! :>
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Thanks! I also took it literally, because I like a little sci-fi/fantasy verve. Like, you’re going to tell me that Professor X with his brain powers isn’t at least a little neurospicy?
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Awesome! This protagonist has a gift, apparently. Not easy being ‘different’ (as if being different from each other as people weren’t ‘normal’ already). But yeah. Turning bones into liquid is a unique idea. There could be, like, a whole new team of neurodivergent superheroes. This character turns bones to liquid, another might freeze people into snow cones, another might conjure up heavy objects that fall from the sky onto their adversary, etc… Such a cool story!
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Thanks! I did consider adding the narrator to the superhero team I wrote about last year, but decided the point would be better made if he was just a normal guy…whatever “normal” means.
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Normal is overrated. Lol. Like John Lennon said, “It’s weird not to be weird.”
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