Sometimes I listen to people without knowing what they are saying. When I’m on the bus, in the cafeteria, or even in the bathroom, I can’t control myself: I create characters at my whim, manipulate their stories, their lives, and that’s why I’m here.
–My name is Marconi, and I am mentally divergent.
Applause
First day of rehabilitation. My mother sent me to this place because she doesn’t know what else to do to avoid embarrassment in front of her broccoli friends.
She says that the great tapir punished her with a son like me; she can’t understand why I can’t study something that helps the system maintain itself as it always has. In a way, I understand her because while my “friends”, or well, people my age, bury themselves in papers and narrow desks, I enjoy approaching them, moving away, running without losing sight of them, positioning myself under their tables, waiting for the great light to touch their faces. At night, while the others simply sleep, I dream of those three constellations that adorn our sky, and I wait until the sky itself erases them.
I know, I know, I am a puppet of nature, or at least that’s what my mother tells me. She always sends me to sleep with the phrase: “the constellations won’t go away if you sleep”. She doesn’t know that, even if I don’t sleep, they do go away, and I hope they never think of leaving us forever.
Everyone here assumes things have always been this way. Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but in the afternoons, while everyone takes a nap, I gather the youngest on the planet and in whispers, we imagine that none of this exists and that it is our job to redefine this universe. One day, a little one imagined a place where everyone was cubes. We laughed a lot that day; just thinking about it cheers me up when I’m alone.
It’s been a few years since I received correspondence from you. The last time, you told me that on your planet, these people are called artists. Well, I’d like there to be more of those on my planet and fewer of those who tell you what to do and what to think.
